China’s international and domestic troubles aren’t going to end soon unless it stops the oppression of innocent Uyghur Muslims in the occupied territory of East Turkestan. In a recent development, the UK has toughened its grip on Chinese trade in and out of the UK by placing its human rights responsibilities as a priority.
The ties between the UK and China took a nosedive when Beijing’s direct involvement in the spread of Coronavirus was uncovered. The UK stands as one of the most affected countries, with about thirty lakh cases and close to eighty-two thousand deaths. The virus got mutated and took a deadlier form in the UK. This new strain is reportedly seventy per cent more transmissible than the previous one.
The UK PM Boris Johnson and the rest of the party leadership are very angry with the Chinese hand in the spread of Coronavirus. Adding to this, China’s illegal oppression of the citizens of Hong Kong has added fuel to the fire. The draconian security law, which targets the democracy activists in the island city has made China the biggest villain that treads on earth at the moment.
The issue of CCP’s Islamophobia has been on the front page lately, firstly the German automobile giant Volkswagen was severely criticised as it operates a production facility in Urumqi the capital of Chinese occupied East Turkestan, the same city where China operates a massive concentration camp where it ‘corrects’ the Uyghur population.
In the case of the UK, the primary concern is the cotton production facilities of China. it is reported that more than 80 per cent of cotton coming out of China is sourced from East Turkestan. The United Nations experts estimate that at least a million Uyghurs have been held captive in its concentration camps. Such camps are used for channelling the forced labour of captive Uyghur Muslims into production activities including cotton.
The human rights coalition has stated that “virtually the entire global apparel industry is tainted by forced Uyghur Muslim labour.” Chloe Cranston who is related to Anti-Slavery International in a statement had called out major fashion brands of the world to be a part of the Chinese slavery syndicate. He was quoted as saying “there is a high likelihood that every high street and luxury brand runs the risk of being linked to what is happening to the Uyghur people.”
Companies like US-based PVH which owns brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein had stated that they would cut ties from the Chinese mills which are engaged in slavery within a year. Brands like H&M and IKEA had also suspended their cotton imports from the region of East Turkestan after reports of Chinese concentration camps for the Uyghur population surfaced.
Such camps are notorious for torturing Uyghur people and the Chinese government is also engaged in mass sterilisation of Uyghur women to stop them from bearing kids. This will contribute to a fall in the Uyghur population and the already occurring Hanification will completely lead to the complete destruction of Uyghur Muslim identity. The scale of the Uyghur Muslim genocide is unprecedented in history.
The UK government is answerable to its huge Muslim population, which primarily hails from South Asia and is a decisive factor in the elections. Along with this and out of humanitarian grounds the UK has decided to make UK firms remove their connections with Chinese firms engaged in forced labour. Foreign secretary Dominic Raab is reported to be making use of the Anti-Slavery Act 2010 which aims to raise awareness against human trafficking and modern slavery.
The UK has also banned the Chinese technology firm Huawei which is widely regarded as China’s premier spying agency from getting involved in its 5G programme. Some reports indicated that the Chinese Communist Party has strategically placed its agents in various important multinational corporations of the UK like Rolls Royce which produces luxury cars and jet engines. The CCP agents have also infiltrated the British embassies all over the world.
There have been strong calls from the corridors of the UK Parliament to identify and deal with such agents and ban the entry of any Chinese person related to the CCP. Tory MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith had told the parliament that the steps that are being taken against rising Chinese disturbances are insufficient and need to be ‘scaled-up’. He welcomed the crackdown efforts like Anti-Slavery Act but demanded stricter action for crimes against humanity that China has been committing.
There are solid pieces of evidence that suggest that the Chinese state has been involved in the crimes of modern slavery and human trafficking. Its treatment of innocent Uyghur populace is known and there have been several well-documented cases of Chinese people operating as human traffickers by using the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as background in the state of Pakistan.
They are using fake marriages as a tool to send innocent Pakistani women to China where they are pushed into prostitution. The majority of these cases involve underage minority girls from Hindu and Christian communities. These cases are increasing at a horrifying number in Pakistan and Imran Khan is silent before his Chinese master Xi Jinping.
Read more: Hindu and Christian women are being sold to Chinese as ‘concubines’ by Pakistan
Along with Pakistan, men, women, and children from countries such as Myanmar, Vietnam, Mongolia, North Korea, Indonesia, Nepal, Romania, and Ghana are trafficked into China for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labour.
The countries of the world are uniting now to counter the world’s biggest crime syndicate, the Chinese Communist Party, its actions that have brought pain and agony to people across the world. Now even countries like the UK and their citizens are recognising that the Chinese threat is very real and losing even a second to take action against China may lead to an injury of a lifetime.