Labour to declare Xinjiang "genocide", UK joins CPTPP, TikTok ban goes further
A Beijing to Britain briefing
Hello,
Although it didn’t pick up much media coverage, a moment occurred this week that we may well look back on as fundamentally altering the UK’s relationship with China over the next decade. Speaking at a foreign policy event, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy was pushed by Politico journalist Eleni Courea to clarify his and Labour’s previously stated views on if China is committing genocide in Xinjiang.
After avoiding sharing meaningful details in his response, Lammy’s team followed up with Courea. The Shadow Foreign Secretary told Politico that Labour would pursue legal avenues toward declaring China’s crackdown on Uyghur Muslims a “genocide,” saying explicitly that Labour would “act multilaterally with our partners” to seek recognition of China’s actions as genocide through international courts. If the current trend in polling is reflected correctly at the next General Election, Labour will enter Government. Quite how Labour plans to square away its policy of the ‘three c’s’ approach to China - challenge, compete and cooperate - while pushing for recognition of genocide remains to be seen.
In my view, Lammy’s statements and consequent attempted clarification matter for three reasons (consultants reading this - these views are on the house.)
First: the fact that Lammy was unable to answer the question with the precision and seriousness that discussing genocide requires indicates to me that Labour is still not across the obligations declaring genocide entails, or what they would need to do to punish the perpetrators. They have perhaps 18 months to get to grips with this, but it doesn’t create a sense of confidence that Lammy is unable to suggest how Labour can pursue its policy of the ‘three c’s’ approach to China if it believes it to be committing or to have committed genocide. Fortunately for Labour, the United States was also in this position, but they made progress by creating significant legislation and rolling out sanctions. However, the United States is an economic powerhouse capable of going toe-to-toe with Beijing.
Second: if I was advising the Labour Party on this issue, I would be looking for means of showing how exactly Labour plans on preventing or punishing genocide. I suspect that defaulting to saying it will pursue legal avenues will not be sustainable. It also puts it out of sync with Washington, which has introduced legislation such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. Anything they do will have to be different from what the current British Conservative Government is doing, given Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s administration does not hold the view that genocide is taking place, so simply carrying on with the status quo is not an option.
Third: many companies I speak to have still not factored Labour’s genocide stance into their risk assessments for the next decade of UK-China relations. Polling suggests the next Government will be Labour-led; if so, and in light of this week’s confirmation, businesses need to be asking themselves what sort of action a Labour Government may take on this front. Perhaps Labour will try and back-track out of this commitment - doing so would open them up to allegations of hypocrisy and the blatant politicisation of genocide, the heaviest of crimes. Perhaps Labour will try and shake the boat as little as possible - in this case, they may adopt some of the recommendations from a recent International Development Committee report on atrocity prevention, which explicitly calls for a British Government to introduce “a cross-departmental strategy for preventing and responding to mass atrocities globally, both within and outside of conflicts.” But Labour, having set out what looks to be a values-based approach to foreign policy, may also pursue the charge and punishment of genocide with zeal, perhaps learning lessons from similar efforts that will take place against Russia’s President Putin in the interim period. If so, business leaders will need to understand what tools Britain has at its disposal to prevent or punish mass atrocities, what sort of legislation may be created, what obligations companies themselves have in this scenario, and how the Chinese Communist Party may respond. Some may want to consider consulting genocide lawyers, sanctions specialists, or experts on Chinese reciprocal sanctions.
— Sam Hogg, Editor
In this week’s Briefing Note, we look at:
Westminster’s reaction to Labour’s new foreign policy pitch
The U.K. joining the CPTPP, and diplomacy in the region
The latest on TikTok