‘Horror’ conjures up several images; a fanged Dracula or a night at the cinema perhaps. But there’s a deeper kind of horror; the slow, white-hot kind that grips you in its claws.
In hearing, over and over, testimonies to some of the most obscene violations of human rights imaginable. To look, as I have done, at China’s actions in Xinjiang, is to feel that horror in your guts, and to realise that Britain must take firmer diplomatic, economic, and political action against China.
Recently, the Uyghur Tribunal heard evidence of rape, murder, mass imprisonment, torture, slave labour, by Chinese authorities in Xinjiang. It’s happening in plain sight – the Uyghur birth rate is plummeting, and manufacturing firms share addresses with prison camps.
China is not just committing crimes against humanity, but profiting from them. Meanwhile, repression continues elsewhere, with a new security law set to come into force in Hong Kong on 1 August.
The Chinese leadership is still traumatised by 1989: they are not in the business of liberalising
The British Government has expressed a desire to challenge China on its atrocities.
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