Over Europe

But a new effort in the UK

is seeking to change that.

Welcome to China Uncensored, I'm Chris Chappell.

Europe's financial elite are in bed with the Chinese Communist Party.

The EU abandoned human rights to get a China investment deal.

But some in the British government are trying to make sure the UK doesn't make the same

mistake. 

For more, I spoke with Benedict Rogers, the Co-founder and Chief Executive of Hong Kong

Watch, and Deputy Chair of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.

Benedict, as always, it's a pleasure having you on.

Thank you.

It's always a great pleasure to be with you.

It seems like every time we talk, there's been another horrible thing that's happened

in Hong Kong.

Last week, the Hong Kong government arrested more than 50 pro-democracy activists.

What do you think of the international response to that?

I think the international response has not been anything like what it should be in proportion

to the significance of these arrests.

This was essentially the final dismantling of what existed as a democracy movement.

That's not to say the democracy movement won't try to carry on.

But in formal terms, it was the biggest mass arrest in one swoop that there's ever been

in recent years.

And the international community's response was some strong words, but very little else

and even those strong words were rather lost in the midst of everything else going on.

So I definitely want to see more action.

Well, definitely seems like the Communist Party chose to make those arrests on a very

particular day, January 6th, almost as if they knew the rest of the world would be distracted

by something else.

Well, absolutely January the 6th, was a pretty dark day for democracy, in terms of the arrest

of people in Hong Kong, in the morning, Hong Kong time for the simple crime in [inverted

commas 00:00:01:40] of trying to carry out an election.

And of course it ended with the very ugly scenes in Washington, DC, a beacon of democracy

around the world as well.

So at whilst I wouldn't compare the two, and I think America's democracy is strong and

Hong Kong's freedoms are being dismantled, so it would be wrong to compare them.

But nevertheless, they both have happened on the same day.

And that was a very alarming.

You worked on the UK Conservative Party Human Rights Commission Report on China, which is

called The Darkness Deepens, very cheerful by the way.

The report calls out the mendacity, brutality, inhumanity, insecurity in criminality of the

Chinese Communist Party.

You don't mince words there, do you?

We don't, but it's a report that is based on hours and hours of testimonial evidence

that was presented to the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission in hearings throughout

much of last year, and pages and pages of written evidence.

And that evidence was submitted by a wide range of sources, all essentially saying the

same thing.

I think what's significant about this report is that, there are other reports that highlight

particular issues, the Uighurs, the situation in Hong Kong, Tibet and so on.

There's very few reports that I've come across that put the whole picture together and show

that the CCP, is not only committing a very likely genocide against the Uighurs and dismantling

democracy in Hong Kong, it is across the board, it is Christians, it's following Gong practitioners,

its civil society, activists, lawyers, bloggers, et cetera.

It's an 88 page report with a long list of tragedies.

And it follows, of course, the report that the commission published in 2016, which was

titled The Darkest Moment.

And the reason for that title at that time, was that one of the people who gave evidence

then said that the situation in 2016 was the darkest moment since the Tiananmen massacre.

With Hindsight that title was perhaps a bit premature and hence The Darkness Deepens.

I don't know if that's funny or tragic?

Yeah.

Well, it's very tragic in reality, but you have to keep a sense of humor in very dark

times.

And we found ourselves as a commission, faced with that linguistic challenge, what title

did we give this?

If we titled it the darkest moment four years ago?

Well, so then what's the next one going to be called if it gets worse?

I think we'll have to come to that when we get to it.

But any suggestions there, let me know.

Just a stream of swears.

Well, okay, so hopefully won't get to that point.

So what actions does the reports suggest the UK take against the Chinese Communist Party's

human rights abuses?

Well, it calls first of all for a comprehensive and coordinated thorough review of UK-China

policy across government departments.

So not just the Foreign Office, but across relevant government departments.

And for a total reset and recalibration of that relationship.

It calls for targeted sanctions, which have not yet been applied, it urges Britain to

work with our allies to lead the establishment of a coalition of the free world to act as

much as possible together.

That shouldn't mean the lowest common denominator, countries should be as robust as they possibly

can be.

But there is a need for the democratic world to unite and coordinate much more than they

have been because essentially, we need to form a united front to counter the CCP's united

front.

I like the sound of that.

I know recently, some UK Members of Parliament have suggested a genocide amendment to the

UK trade bill.

What is that?

Yes.

So that is an amendment that was pioneered in the House of Lords by people like Lord

Alton and quite amazing range of members of the House of Lords, former cabinet ministers,

the former head of the Royal Air Force, the former head of our intelligence services,

former Supreme Court judges, and whole range of other really distinguished figures.

And it now goes to the Commons next week.

And what the amendment tries to do is two things, firstly, to create a mechanism whereby

people who believe there was a case of genocide, and this applies not simply in the case of

China, but genocide anywhere, wherever it happens, can come to the High Court of England

and Wales and ask the High Court to make a preliminary determination as to whether the

evidence does suggest genocide or not.

And the consequences of that, if the high court does conclude that it's genocide, under

this amendment the government will be required not to enter into a bilateral trade deal with

the states that are found to be committing genocide.

So if a trade deal is already in place, that should be revoked, and if it isn't in place,

steps towards one should be stopped.

That's the effect of it.

And it was designed to answer a very simple problem, which is that for decades now, this

isn't always the position of other governments.

But the British government's position has always been, it's not for governments to determine

whether something has genocide, it's for the courts.

That's a perfectly logical theoretical position to have, but the problem with it is the International

Court mechanisms are very unsatisfactory, and particularly in the case of China, you're

never going to get a referral.

So this is an amendment designed to get out of that vicious circle.

Well, you certainly phrase that in a very polite way.

But so it sounds pretty straight forward.

Don't trade with countries that commit genocide.

But it seems like the UK government is not happy about it.

So if the genocide amendment passes, would the UK government actually apply that to China?

Well, that's the big question.

If it passes and becomes law, and if then a case is brought to the High Court of England

and Wales in regard to the Uighurs, for example.

And if the High Court concludes that what's happening to the Uighurs is genocide, then

under the law, the UK would not be able to negotiate a trade deal with China in those

circumstances.

Now, realistically, there's going to be quite a long timeframe to complete all those steps.

But nevertheless, if it passes, it would send a very important message.

And it would be law that people can go to the court, see if the court decides it's genocide.

And if it does, the government must abide by the requirements of that amendment.

So, speaking of trade, the EU has recently announced a major investment deal with China.

How would this deal affect human rights in China?

The EU's deal is one of the most appalling deals that I've seen.

And what was so striking about it was the timing of it.

Firstly, it came a few days after the European Parliament itself, one of the EU's main institutions

had passed a resolution calling for targeted sanctions, calling for access to the camps

in Xinjiang and very importantly calling for any investment deal to have particular standards

around labor rights.

And just a few days later, the European Commission and the member states completely ignored the

European Parliament and went ahead with this deal that has no safeguards on human rights.

It has maybe a few vague promises by the CCP to move towards signing various international

agreements, but we all know what to think of the CCP is word.

We can't ever take the word for anything other than essentially an untruth.

And coming just a short time before the transition in the United States as well, it sends a pretty

bad signal to the new administration in the U.S. I think most people agree, it's a bad

deal in itself, and it was very bad timing.

And I hope that the European Parliament and other member states will reconsider it before

it's too late.

Is it too late to do something about the EU-China investment deal?

Well, it has been signed.

So in that sense, probably is too late, but I think there were steps that EU could take.

I said when the 53 were arrested in Hong Kong, that in response to that, the EU should immediately

revoke and reconsider the deal.

Unfortunately, they didn't listen to me.

But I think we need to keep up the pressure on the EU itself and on member states to take

action going forward.

If they can't revoke the deal, then at least they need to balance it with other measures,

including the application of targeted Magnitsky sanctions.

You're a part of two upcoming events about human rights in China that people can join

online.

Can you tell us about those?

Yeah.

So the first, later today on the 13th of January, is the launch of the Conservative Party Human

Rights Commission Report, The Darkness Deepens.

And that's an online event, I've tweeted about it, there's an event invitation out there

people can register.

And at that event, we will have some very amazing speakers, Iain Duncan Smith, who is

the former leader of the British Conservative Party, but also the co-chair of IPAC, the

Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, we'll be speaking at it.

So will Nathan Law, the highest-profile exiles, Hong Kong activist, Rahima Mahmut, who's a

very high-profile Uyghurs campaigner, Simon Cheng, who you may recall was a British consulate

employee in Hong Kong, who ended up in jail in China and suffering some horrific torture

there.

And Dr. Teng Biao, a pre-eminent Mainland Chinese exiled lawyer and an activist.

And I'll say a few words as well, so that's the lineup at that event.

And then tomorrow, Thursday, the 14th of January, the Macdonald–Laurier Institute, think tank

in Canada together with Hong Kong Watch, IPAC and a number of others, has a big online conference

on human rights in China as a whole.

And with a number of politicians and prominent activists speaking at that and looking at

what are the ways forward to addressing human rights in China.

I'll definitely put links to those events below, and I hope everyone watching definitely

checks that out.

Benedict, it's always great to have you on, thank you for being here.

Thank you very much for having me.

Thank you for watching.

I've put the links to those events in the description below.

Once again, I'm Chris Chappell.

Thanks for watching China Uncensored.