Uk Declares China Is Committing Genocide

Jason

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A vote in the UK parliament today has declared that China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uighur people. The vote was unanimous.

There has previously been a view in UK that genocide can only be decided by a competent court. The view that has emerged is that there is no competent court. In this situation MPs have passed a declaration.

There seems to be very little media coverage, yet this is huge. It is non-binding, but it is going to affect every aspect of Anglo-Sino relations. It has legal impact. Presumably any member of the Chinese government who set foot in UK would be arrested and tried for genocide and crimes against humanity. Presumably the UK will seek extradition if these visit any nation in the West. Presumably this must reduce trade with China. Presumably the UK will be more vocal on Hong Kong, Tibet and Taiwan. This is a tipping point moment.
 

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A vote in the UK parliament today has declared that China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uighur people. The vote was unanimous.

There has previously been a view in UK that genocide can only be decided by a competent court. The view that has emerged is that there is no competent court. In this situation MPs have passed a declaration.

There seems to be very little media coverage, yet this is huge. It is non-binding, but it is going to affect every aspect of Anglo-Sino relations. It has legal impact. Presumably any member of the Chinese government who set foot in UK would be arrested and tried for genocide and crimes against humanity. Presumably the UK will seek extradition if these visit any nation in the West. Presumably this must reduce trade with China. Presumably the UK will be more vocal on Hong Kong, Tibet and Taiwan. This is a tipping point moment.

This doesn’t said smart on the UK’s part. That can start a war between the UK and China.
 

DiamondJoe

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This doesn’t said smart on the UK’s part. That can start a war between the UK and China.
No, this is not how wars between China and Britain start. The last two involved Britain wanting to sell drugs to China :)
 
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DiamondJoe

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A vote in the UK parliament today has declared that China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uighur people. The vote was unanimous.

There has previously been a view in UK that genocide can only be decided by a competent court. The view that has emerged is that there is no competent court. In this situation MPs have passed a declaration.

There seems to be very little media coverage, yet this is huge. It is non-binding, but it is going to affect every aspect of Anglo-Sino relations. It has legal impact. Presumably any member of the Chinese government who set foot in UK would be arrested and tried for genocide and crimes against humanity. Presumably the UK will seek extradition if these visit any nation in the West. Presumably this must reduce trade with China. Presumably the UK will be more vocal on Hong Kong, Tibet and Taiwan. This is a tipping point moment.
I think you presume too much, Jason!

As you stated in your preamble, this is a non-binding vote that MPs took, signalling the general will of the House in a particular direction. This action marks a further deterioration in Sino-British relations but there is no legal framework for any of what you suggest - it is not an Act of Parliament nor a court judgment.

Raab has accused China of industrial-scale human rights abuses in Xinjiang but the UK has been eager not to see the conflict over human rights bleed into other issues like trade, climate change co-operation and the mutual exchange of students - a financial lifeline for many British universities. The FCO has, unlike the US, resisted imposing sanctions on Chinese officers involved in the suppression of democracy in the former British colony of Hong Kong. It has also refused to term what is happening in China as genocide, saying this is a matter for the UN or the international courts.

Recently, the FCO singled out four officials involved in Xinjiang instituting travel bans and asset freezes. This is quite different from arresting Politbureau members.

In practical terms, the political climate for advocates of greater economic cooperation between the UK and China will find it much harder. The UK has already banned Huawei from the UK 5G networks and is passing new laws tightening the access of overseas investors to sensitive markets. However, through Blair and Brown and ramped up through Cameron and Osbourne, the UK now has an £18bn trade deficit with China (imports: £49bn, exports £30.7bn).

Tibet is lost, Taiwan is America's bag and China tipped it already by moving on Hong Kong, assuming the West would a) be busy with Covid and b) be disunited.

Here's a little primer to take you beyond the headlines...

Seriously... - Living with the Dragon - BBC Sounds
 
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seventiesdemon

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A vote in the UK parliament today has declared that China is committing genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uighur people. The vote was unanimous.

There has previously been a view in UK that genocide can only be decided by a competent court. The view that has emerged is that there is no competent court. In this situation MPs have passed a declaration.

There seems to be very little media coverage, yet this is huge. It is non-binding, but it is going to affect every aspect of Anglo-Sino relations. It has legal impact. Presumably any member of the Chinese government who set foot in UK would be arrested and tried for genocide and crimes against humanity. Presumably the UK will seek extradition if these visit any nation in the West. Presumably this must reduce trade with China. Presumably the UK will be more vocal on Hong Kong, Tibet and Taiwan. This is a tipping point moment.
There was a speech made the other day here on ABC radio from the Chinese ambassador to Australia. In his speech he said..." China and Australia have contained the virus" I can't find the exact quote.

I thought ..What??? How can a person say such without question or dispute that the pandemic was released upon the world through inaction and known violation of WHO regulations? It shows complete disregard for truth and responsibility.

The UK, Europe, the World as a whole is not going to move forward unless China admits it's failure, corruption, in it's duty to adhere to stringent agreements set down for the sole purpose of preventing the spread of an epidemic, pandemic.

The communist regime in China has very little control over it's regional and inner circles. It hovers in the middle regions. It tries desperately to manipulate control with fear and ignorance. Like the old days.........but it is a very fine line they walk in this modern day.
 
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The UK, Europe, the World as a whole is not going to move forward unless China admits it's failure, corruption, in it's duty to adhere to stringent agreements set down for the sole purpose of preventing the spread of an epidemic, pandemic.

As if! There is now a countervailing narrative in China is how well the Communists have done fighting Covid and that the virus did, in fact, not come from China...

BBC World Service - The Documentary Podcast, The disinformation dragon
 

seventiesdemon

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As if! There is now a countervailing narrative in China is how well the Communists have done fighting Covid and that the virus did, in fact, not come from China...

BBC World Service - The Documentary Podcast, The disinformation dragon
China is a many millennia long culture. It's uprisings and downfalls have always been for one reason and one reason alone. The battle of greedy and the poor. Yet, the west is to learn this lesson. For that matter, all of us...or Them :) The poor grow in numbers..................they always win.
 

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China is a many millennia long culture. It's uprisings and downfalls have always been for one reason and one reason alone. The battle of greedy and the poor. Yet, the west is to learn this lesson. For that matter, all of us...or Them :) The poor grow in numbers..................they always win.
I'm not entirely sure how the poor always win? Millennia of experience suggests the opposite!

And we think if China as this big, strong monoculture. History shows us different while demographics, economics and climate change suggest the future is not simply China's to take.
 

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President Xi doesn't tolerate unpatriotic exceptionalism.
I like to call him "Xi Who Must Be Obeyed". ;)

After Deng Xiaoping stepped back there was a agreement that the Party would change leadership at 10 year intervals. This worked for a while until Xi Jinping decided that it was more fun for him and his cadre to keep power. He purged the Party of elements who disagreed (see for instance Wang Lijun incident - Wikipedia) in the early 2010s and was/is sitting pretty astride an economic colossus, crushing internal dissent, "re-educating" Uighurs and seeks to challenge (along with Putin) the post-WWII global structures that they view (reasonably) as being tools of the West.

Difficulty is that he's back to the age-old problem of succession in a dictatorship and a state riddled with corruption. Ho hum.
 
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Jason

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The UK has tried to operate a policy of engagement with China. We saw the Beijing Olympics as a potential birthplace for a more open China, and the UK has been supportive of the one-country-two-systems approach to Hong Kong. There has been a willingness to keep quiet on Tibet and Taiwan.

it is just months ago that the UK was set to make a deal with Huawei which would have given China influence in the UK’s infrastructure. A couple of years ago we were willing to see an end to UK steel manufacture, which would in effect mean sourcing steel from China. We’ve actually been treating China as a friend.

The mood music has changed. Cameron visited China as PM. I cannot see another UK PM doing that. I think at every stage we will be looking to back pedal from engagement with China. We have a unanimous vote from MPs calling out China for genocide. No one in government or business is going to be able to operate without the media reminding them of this. It is possible we will soon have a popular “don’t buy Chinese” campaign which will include a push for shops not to stock Chinese.

in terms of the pandemic I think the UK is going to be more vocal on Chinese obfuscation on its origin. Assuming it is a cross-over from animals we need as much information as possible on how that happened. It has not suited UK or anywhere else to consider the possibility of a laboratory leak. (If it is, what do we do?) However this has to be a possibility and should be considered, and I think it will now suit the UK to consider it. There are also ideas of a deliberate leak, and even the idea of deliberate manufacture and leak is within the bounds of possibility. No-one reading the internet is going to be able to “know” what happened, and I am not making a point of this nature. My point is that the UK will be more open to investigating such things.
 

Jason

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I'm not entirely sure how the poor always win? Millennia of experience suggests the opposite!

And we think if China as this big, strong monoculture. History shows us different while demographics, economics and climate change suggest the future is not simply China's to take.

the poor always lose. The Marxist idea of a direction in history with an inevitable triumph of the poor has been disproved by countless examples. Marxism always leads to the virtual eradication of the middle class and replacement by a super-rich and poor. And every single Marxist society has also been a slave society (as the gulag in USSR and present camps in the Uighur region of China.)

What we can have is the creation of a middle class, as in liberal democracies, and this class growing to outperform both rich and poor. The direction of travel is that we all become middle classed.
 

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The UK has tried to operate a policy of engagement with China. We saw the Beijing Olympics as a potential birthplace for a more open China, and the UK has been supportive of the one-country-two-systems approach to Hong Kong. There has been a willingness to keep quiet on Tibet and Taiwan.

it is just months ago that the UK was set to make a deal with Huawei which would have given China influence in the UK’s infrastructure. A couple of years ago we were willing to see an end to UK steel manufacture, which would in effect mean sourcing steel from China. We’ve actually been treating China as a friend.

The mood music has changed. Cameron visited China as PM. I cannot see another UK PM doing that. I think at every stage we will be looking to back pedal from engagement with China. We have a unanimous vote from MPs calling out China for genocide. No one in government or business is going to be able to operate without the media reminding them of this. It is possible we will soon have a popular “don’t buy Chinese” campaign which will include a push for shops not to stock Chinese.

in terms of the pandemic I think the UK is going to be more vocal on Chinese obfuscation on its origin. Assuming it is a cross-over from animals we need as much information as possible on how that happened. It has not suited UK or anywhere else to consider the possibility of a laboratory leak. (If it is, what do we do?) However this has to be a possibility and should be considered, and I think it will now suit the UK to consider it. There are also ideas of a deliberate leak, and even the idea of deliberate manufacture and leak is within the bounds of possibility. No-one reading the internet is going to be able to “know” what happened, and I am not making a point of this nature. My point is that the UK will be more open to investigating such things.
I think Britain has been to an extent quite naïve in regards of policy towards China and more concerned with money and access to markets that was never gonna happen.

Yes, there's been a belated change in the mood-music not just from the UK but around the Anglophone world - noticeably led by Trump. We can condemn stuff we don't like and make noise...

But in reality what leverage does the UK have on China?
 

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the poor always lose. The Marxist idea of a direction in history with an inevitable triumph of the poor has been disproved by countless examples. Marxism always leads to the virtual eradication of the middle class and replacement by a super-rich and poor. And every single Marxist society has also been a slave society (as the gulag in USSR and present camps in the Uighur region of China.)
Let's not get into this but neither cited example (Stalin's Russia or modern China) is/was what socialists would describe as a Marxist state.
 

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But in reality what leverage does the UK have on China?

Some.

There isn't some knock-out power, but that doesn't mean there isn't something.

* Closer UK engagement with the SE Asia troika, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar - all former British colonies.
* Closer UK engagement with the Pacific partnership, so including Japan and South Korea.
* Brunei garrison. This is a UK military outpost in SE Asia supporting military activity in Asia (in recent years including Afghanistan)
* Soft power in the ability of the UK to draw the world's attention to Chinese genocide of the Uighurs, and Chinese crimes in Hong Kong and elsewhere
* Ability to restructure trade. The idea is that legislation forces UK companies to use a non-Chinese supplier when one is available. The genocide declaration makes this possible. It cuts across WTO requirements.

China has monetary vulnerability. It has huge sub-sovereign debt (debt held ultimately by the provinces) which has no public audit. If the Chinese economy is pushed too hard this sub-sovereign debt will tumble into national debt and weaken the yuan. This would make imports into China difficult, and the powerful in China do like their Western toys.
 

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Or what Marx would have described as a Marxist state.
:D

There is much debate over what Marx meant! Perhaps if he'd finished what he wrote, or was perhaps a little more concise it would be easier to tease out but my understanding is Marx didn't describe the future of socialism so much as dissect the capitalism of his day and through historical materialism he predicted that the contradictions inherant within capitalism would precipitate its demise and inevitable (his words, not mine) rise of the proletariat through world wide class consciousness, revolution &c &c.

I'm not sure he really did much more than sketch out the destination of the promised land... he was more concerned how the world got to 1865 or whenever it was?

But.

Stalin was a gangster and the Chinese are high tech-despots. Neither has eff-all to do with communism.
 

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Some.

There isn't some knock-out power, but that doesn't mean there isn't something.

* Closer UK engagement with the SE Asia troika, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar - all former British colonies.
* Closer UK engagement with the Pacific partnership, so including Japan and South Korea.
* Brunei garrison. This is a UK military outpost in SE Asia supporting military activity in Asia (in recent years including Afghanistan)
* Soft power in the ability of the UK to draw the world's attention to Chinese genocide of the Uighurs, and Chinese crimes in Hong Kong and elsewhere
* Ability to restructure trade. The idea is that legislation forces UK companies to use a non-Chinese supplier when one is available. The genocide declaration makes this possible. It cuts across WTO requirements.

China has monetary vulnerability. It has huge sub-sovereign debt (debt held ultimately by the provinces) which has no public audit. If the Chinese economy is pushed too hard this sub-sovereign debt will tumble into national debt and weaken the yuan. This would make imports into China difficult, and the powerful in China do like their Western toys.
So I'm President Xi and I say, "Fuck you, paper-tiger Boris!"

Myanmar is one of ours and relying on the "good will" engendered by your former colonial subjects is foolish. Soft power wins no wars and we don't need your piddling few billions in trade. And if you want to talk about problems with sovereign debt, maybe look at your own debt pile first, eh?
 

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So I'm President Xi and I say, "Fuck you, paper-tiger Boris!"

Myanmar is one of ours and relying on the "good will" engendered by your former colonial subjects is foolish. Soft power wins no wars and we don't need your piddling few billions in trade. And if you want to talk about problems with sovereign debt, maybe look at your own debt pile first, eh?

The UK's sovereign debt can be managed. Of course it is bad but it is better than USA, Japan, Eurozone. China's sovereign debt is hidden. There is a "public" figure, but the structure of China holds back what is really debt on the (secret) balance sheets of the Chinese provinces and regions. Each of these are the guarantors of secret bank debt. If it ever goes wrong it will be a domino effect.

Soft power does win wars. Russia used its soft power to annex Crimea. It is using soft power (that of a hydraulic economy) to dominate central Europe. Israel makes huge use of soft power, albeit supported by a strong military.
 

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The UK's sovereign debt can be managed. Of course it is bad but it is better than USA, Japan, Eurozone. China's sovereign debt is hidden. There is a "public" figure, but the structure of China holds back what is really debt on the (secret) balance sheets of the Chinese provinces and regions. Each of these are the guarantors of secret bank debt. If it ever goes wrong it will be a domino effect.

Soft power does win wars. Russia used its soft power to annex Crimea. It is using soft power (that of a hydraulic economy) to dominate central Europe. Israel makes huge use of soft power, albeit supported by a strong military.
You think the Chinese haven't been lying about just about every conceivable economic marker? Their 6% annual GDP growth has drawn comment for years...

No. When it comes to debt, the boot is on the other foot. The Chinese learned the lesson of tangling with Britain during the Opium Wars; then, the British traded opium for tea to draw Chinese silver from the Qin state which was steadily bankrupted.

This time China has created a system whereby the west has bought a fuck load of toot from the Chinese (who've artificially held down the value of the renminbi to make exports cheap) who then loaned the money back to the west (in the form of buying US treasury bonds) to fuel a cheap credit boom.