China targeted European MPs, scholars, and NGOs. It seems like a reaffirmation of a claim of Chinese jurisdiction all over the world, but in fact it reveals the CCP’s weakness.
by Marco Respinti
For once, we agree with the Global Times, the daily voice of the CCP in English. The decision taken on Monday, March 22, 2021 by the European Union Council (after a meeting of the foreign ministers of the European Union), to sanction Chinese officers guilty of human rights violation hit “a heavy blow to bilateral relations between the two sides.”
On Monday, the European Union imposed “restrictive measures on eleven individuals and four entities” (the Global Times wrongly mentioned 10 individuals) “responsible for serious human rights violations and abuses in various countries around the world.” Among the indicted countries, the Peoples’ Republic of China looms large with four persons and one entity found guilty of “large-scale arbitrary detentions of, in particular, Uyghurs in Xinjiang.” Under the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime, adopted on 7 December 2020, “the listed individuals and entities are subject to an asset freeze in the EU,” to a travel ban to the EU, and “persons and entities in the EU are prohibited from making funds available, either directly or indirectly, to those listed.”
As a “compensation,” Chinese officials responsible for atrocities in Xinjiang were sanctioned.
by Ruth Ingram
Down but not out.
Bruised but not broken.
In a nail biting denouement to the Lords-Commons ping pong over the genocide amendment to the post Brexit Trade Bill yesterday, the UK government finally had its way by 318 votes to 300. But campaigners dusted themselves down after this narrowest of defeats, vowing to continue the struggle against genocidal states and compromised trade deals.
Parliamentary proceedings were interrupted by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, announcing the UK’s decision to join forces with 29 other states and impose Magnitsky sanctions on Chinese officials who are complicit in Uyghur atrocities. Campaigners have been pushing for months for sanctions, and while some MPs considered the long hoped for, but bombshell revelation, coming minutes before the Trade Bill debate, to be an attempt to deflect an honest vote on the amendment, others felt the prospect of a Commons defeat had precipitated the move.
