A Report of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission
June 28, 2016
The Conservative Party Human Rights Commission recognises that no country has a perfect human rights record and indeed that in the 19th Century the influence of the UK on human rights in China was in many instances not positive. We recognise how important it has been for the UK in the intervening years to review and change its own approach to human rights, and that this is a journey which still continues today. We also acknowledge the distance which China has travelled over time in terms of its global contribution to culture, academia, science and the arts; however we believe there is still a significant distance which China needs to travel with regard to human rights, as this report highlights. In October 2015, China’s President Xi Jinping came to the United Kingdom on a State visit, the first by a Chinese President in a decade. The United Kingdom and China signed business deals worth up to £40 billion, including securing Chinese investment in two new nuclear reactors.1 The United Kingdom government described a “golden era” in Sino-British relations, and positioned itself as China’s closest “friend” in the West.
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