Lords Grand Committee
Thursday 6th July 2023
Lord Alton of Liverpool
You can’t believe a word The Chinese Communist Party and its chairman Xi Jinping says: Tiananmen, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan all reinforce that message.
I am delighted to be able to follow Baroness Hayter in making a brief contribution to the debate which she has initiated – and thank her for setting the scene so well.
I am a Patron of Hong Kong Watch and a Vice Chair of the APPGs on Hong Kong and Uyghurs, and my family are sanctioned by the CCP
In 2019 I was part of the international team which monitored the last fair and free elections in Hong and earlier today I highlighted the fate of some of the legislators and pro democracy activists whom I met. Some, like British citizen Jimmy Lai are among the 1200 incarcerated in Hong Kong jails. Others are among those exiles – some, like Nathan Law, who is resident in the UK – and on each of whose heads a bounty of $1 million Hong Kong dollars has been placed. Their only crime is to believe in democracy.
The CCP has suppressed every last vestige of democracy, free speech, and the rule of law – turning its courts into a mere tool of the CCP in implementing the draconian National Security Law.
I agree with Lord Patten of Barnes and Lord Falconer of Thoroton, who said last night, that those remaining British judges lending respectability to the CCP’s courts should search their consciences.
By contrast, the admirable courageous heroism of defenders of Hong Kong’s freedoms is of a piece with the protestors massacred in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Who can ever forget the solitary defiance of Tank Man who stood in the Square in front of a CCP tank. Such individual acts inspire and keep alive the hope that, as in Berlin in 1989, even the most solid looking walls be brought down.
My friend, Bob Fu, was among the protestors who survived the massacre and subsequently escaped. He says: “It was absolutely shocking because we had never imagined, by sitting in the peaceful Tiananmen Square – which, translated literally, is Square of Heavenly Peace – our so-called people’s government would send the so-called People’s Liberation Army to shoot its own people.”
Until July 2020 Hong Kong was one of the remaining cities in China where people were free to publicly commemorate Tiananmen and honour the lives of those who were murdered at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. For organising the candle lit vigils in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park activists like the lawyer Chow Hang-Tung is now behind bars facing the prospect of many years in prison under the National Security Law.
All of this and their attempts to silence British parliamentarians and exiled legislators and activists, demonstrates that the CCP is literally scared stiff of dissent.
That is why they are using bounties, arrest warrants and threats of extradition to close down debate.
Its why they try to remove all references to Tiananmen and to censor school books and the internet.
It is simply unacceptable for the long-arm of the Chinese state to reach overseas and threaten the well-being and safety of pro-democracy activists who are under the protection of the UK Government.
I include in that number the significant BNO community and also students at universities like Southampton who were recently set upon by CCP thugs.
As I noted in my remarks last Friday in our Defence debate, disappointingly, the UK Government continues to send the CCP mixed messages when it comes to the value we place on human rights and the international treaty guaranteeing Hong Kong’s autonomy which it has trashed.
The genius of “two systems one country” has been replaced by the totalitarian model of “one system, one party.”
Is it any surprise that the CPP thinks it can get away with this and encourage the illegal use of bounty hunters on UK soil and threaten the safety of British Overseas Nationals, when, for instance, we continue to drag our feet on stripping out a million Chinese made surveillance cameras from government departments and the public sector supply chain?
Does Xi Jinping take the UK seriously when after three years of a relentless and unprecedented crackdown in Hong Kong, the Foreign Secretary is chomping at the bit to visit Beijing to sign investment and trade agreements with China – with a country with which we have a trade deficit of over £40 billion. So much for promoting national resilience and less dependency.
Question to the Minister. Does he believe its licit to do business as usual with a country credibly accused – by, amongst others, the House of Commons and President Biden – of committing genocide against Uyghurs in Xinjiang. And, if not, why was a Minister sent to Hong Kong to deepen trade deals?
And can we really claim that we take national security seriously, when so many of our academic research institutions continue to pursue sensitive research partnerships on dual-use technology with Chinese universities with links to the People’s Liberation Army?
Ministers and officials are responsible for the safety of our citizens at home and our international treaty responsibilities overseas. But in two Select Committee Reports from our International Relations and Defence Select Committee we concluded that British policy represents “a strategic void.”
When it comes to international treaties, respect for human rights, and keeping their word, you cannot believe a word the Chinese Communist Party and its Chairman Xi Jinping says. Tiananmen and Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan all reenforce that message.
