British companies are to face fines unless they meet new government requirements showing that their supply chains are free from forced labor, British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs Dominic Raab said on Tuesday as he announced measures aimed at tackling human rights abuses against Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang region.
Raab said that the British government has issued guidance to local companies with links to the Xinjiang region on how to carry out due diligence.
The government intends to exclude suppliers when there is evidence of rights violations in their supply chains and also to review export controls to prevent the shipping of any goods that could contribute to such violations in Xinjiang.
Photo: AFP / PRU
“Our aim, put simply, is that no company that profits from forced labor in Xinjiang can do business in the UK, and that no UK business is involved in their supply chains,” Raab told lawmakers.
Raab said that mounting evidence, including first-hand testimony and nonprofit group reports, supports claims of unlawful mass detention in internment camps, widespread forced labor and forced sterilization of women on an “industrial scale.”
The evidence “paints a harrowing picture” and showed the practice of “barbarism we had hoped lost to another era,” Raab said.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian (趙立堅) said that China would “take all necessary measures to defend national interests and dignity, and firmly safeguard its sovereign, security and development interests.”
“Individual countries, including the UK, have funded, concocted and deliberately spread lies and rumors to smear and discredit China on the pretext of so-called human rights issues,” Zhao told reporters at a daily briefing.
China has denied mass internments of Uighurs, saying that it merely operated voluntary centers for deradicalization and job training, and that all participants have since “graduated.”
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique