Nigel Farage said that it is time for Western nations to stand up to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for the horrors the regime is committing against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang, which he described as a “stain on the world”.
The Brexit Party leader said that he, alongside other Sino-skeptics, may have focussed too much on the economic and security risks posed by the Chinese state, rather than the humanitarian atrocities committed against the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang and the Falun Gong spiritual movement at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.
“I am the first to say that we all now need to spend more time on the moral outrages that are being perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party. It a truly wicked regime which none of us—left or right—should ever trust,” Farage wrote in Newsweek.
“It is no exaggeration to say that the Chinese state has conducted murder on a vast scale,” he lamented.
The former MEP admitted that during his tenure in the European Parliament, he overlooked the plight of Falun Gong spiritual movement as they protested outside his office in Brussels, attempting to alert leaders of the European Union about the mass imprisonment and organ harvesting that practitioners have faced in China for decades.
Mr Farage confessed that he “did not really take them seriously, and viewed their lobbying as an irritation.”
“I am not alone. Over the last couple of decades, the Western world and its media have given very little attention to human rights abuses in China. As a result of this, most people who are quite happy to buy competitively priced goods from that country simply don’t realize the breadth of the crimes against humanity for which the Chinese regime is responsible,” Mr Farage wrote.
Addressing the mass internment of Uyghurs Muslims in concentration camps, the forced sterilisation, and mass brainwashing to “join the cult of hero-worshiping President Xi Jinping”, Mr Farage said: “While it is true that some Uighurs are responsible for terrorist reprisals in response to the crackdown by the Chinese authorities, nothing can excuse what the Chinese state has done to these people.”
“The time has come for the West to address this stain on the world,” he proclaimed.
Mr Farage’s pronouncement comes as United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew to London to meet with Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer, as well as a bipartisan group of Members of Parliament as a part of the Interparliamentary Alliance on China.
One of the leaders of the coalition, former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith told Sky News that he hopes the subject of the meeting today will be that: “America and the UK should lead the free world to come together, to work out together, how they respond to what is a growingly arrogant and aggressive government in China.”
On Monday, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced that the UK government will suspend the extradition treaty with Hong Kong, as well as extending the arms embargo to Mainland China to the city, following the imposition of the national security law, which the UK says violates the Sino-British Joint Declaration.
Mr Raab has also hinted that the British government is considering levying sanctions against Chinese communist officials over the mass internment of Uyghurs, who have been subjected to forced sterilisation, torture, rape, and organ harvesting at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.
Following the announcement, the Chinese ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, threatened that Britain will face “consequences” from the regime in Beijing for suspending the extradition treaty with Hong Kong.
“The UK blatantly interfered in China’s internal affairs and contravened international law and the basic norms governing international relations,” Mr Liu wrote.
“China has never interfered in UK’s internal affairs. The UK should do the same to China. Otherwise it must bear the consequences,” the communist ambassador warned.
The Global Times, a CCP controlled propaganda outlet, backed up these threats, calling on Britain to make the “smart choice” and abandon dancing “to the tune of Americans” on Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Huawei, and the South China Sea.
The paper warned that if the UK followed through on sanctioning Chinese officials: “Beijing may have no other choice but to strike at British companies like HSBC and Jaguar Land Rover in response to the sanctions imposed by 10 Downing Street.”
Follow Kurt on Twitter at @KurtZindulka
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