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UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab accused China of “serious and egregious” human rights abuses against its Uighur population and said that sanctions against those responsible cannot be ruled out.
Reports of forced sterilization and broader persecution of the Muslim group “recall something that had not been seen in a long time,” he told the BBC.
The United Kingdom would work with its allies to take appropriate action, he insisted.
The Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom said that speaking of concentration camps was “false”.
Liu Xiaoming told Andrew Marr of the BBC that the Uighurs received the same legal treatment as other ethnic groups in their country.
In drone footage that appears to show Uighurs blindfolded and driven to trains, and has been authenticated by Australian security services, he said he “did not know” what the video was showing and that “sometimes there is a transfer of prisoners, in any case country. “
“There are no such concentration camps in Xinjiang,” he added. “There are a lot of false accusations against China.”
About a million Uighurs and other majority Muslim minorities are believed to be detained in China, in what the state defines as “re-education” camps.
China previously denied the camps existed, before defending them as a necessary measure against terrorism, following separatist violence in the Xinjiang region.
Authorities have recently been accused of forcing women to be sterilized or equipped with contraceptive devices in an apparent attempt to limit the population, prompting calls to the UN to investigate.
‘Deeply troubling’
When asked if the treatment of Uighurs met the legal definition of genocide, Raab said the international community had to be “careful” before making such claims.
But he said: “Whatever the legal label, it is clear that serious and egregious human rights abuses are taking place.
According to recent research by the Memorial Foundation for Victims of Communism, the population growth rate in Xinjiang’s two largest Uighur prefectures fell by more than 80% between 2013 and 2018.
China does not accept the findings and pressed the figures, the Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom, Liu Xiaoming, said the Uighur population in Xinjiang was four to five million 40 years ago and had now grown to 11 million.
“People say we have ethnic cleansing, but the population has doubled,” he added.
The demographic research, which is based on official Chinese data and media reports, does not go back 40 years.
But it suggests that there was a rapid increase in the population growth rate in Xinjiang between 2005 and 2015, followed by a sharp decline in the subsequent years.
“It is very, very troubling, and reports on the human aspect of this, from forced sterilization to education camps, are reminiscent of something we haven’t seen in a long time.”
“We want a positive relationship with China, but we cannot see such behavior and not say it.”
There are increasing calls for the UK to impose sanctions, such as an asset freeze and travel bans, on Chinese officials responsible for the persecution of Uighurs.
A petition supporting the measure has accumulated more than 100,000 signatures, which means it will be considered for debate in Parliament.
The UK recently cracked down on high-ranking generals in Myanmar who mounted the campaign of violence against the Rohingya and against North Korean bodies behind the forced labor camps.
Mr Raab said this demonstrated that the UK was prepared to take action unilaterally, as well as through agencies such as the UN, but that “it was not as simple as deciding whether to sanction X or Y”.
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Uighur women have faced a “ruthless” birth control program, reports have suggested
“It must, as we have done with the Rohingya and North Korea, build an evidence base, and that takes a long time to do because it must accurately and responsibly identify those involved.”
Conservative MPs are also pressing to take action against top Hong Kong government officials following the imposition of a new security law that the UK says violates international agreements that protect freedoms.
The foreign secretary is due to update Parliament on Monday on the UK’s response, amid speculation that it will remove the UK’s extradition treaty with the former British colony.
‘Tit-for-tat’
Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show, the Chinese ambassador said that if the United Kingdom, which also offered residence rights to three million British passport-eligible Hong Kong people, addressed its officials, their country could retaliate.
“If the UK goes that far to impose sanctions on anyone in China, China will certainly give a decisive response,” he said.
He dismissed the Uighurs’ claims of “ethnic cleansing” as unfounded, saying that they “enjoy peaceful and harmonious coexistence with other ethnic groups of people.”
He said the figures suggesting that population growth in Uighur areas had fallen by 84% between 2015 and 2018 were not “correct”, claiming that the number of Uighurs across Xinjiang had “doubled” in the past four decades.
“There is no so-called massive and pervasive forced sterilization among Uighurs in China,” he added. “Government policy is firmly opposed to this type of practice.”
While “he cannot rule out single cases” of sterilization, he insisted that “we treat all ethnic groups as equal.”
