The government of the United Kingdom has announced its intention to do an official visit to China in the first last week of January, 2026. This will be the first official visit of a British Prime Minister to China since 2018. In light of this visit, the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) urges Prime Keir Starmer and the British government to seize this opportunity to publicly raise the Uyghur genocide and to hold China accountable for its egregious crimes.
The news of British objectives to boost economic and political ties with China leave a strong feeling of apprehension in the Uyghur and human rights community. The Chinese government continues its policy of Uyghur genocide, with no significant policy changes in East Turkistan since the last UK Prime Minitser visit to China in 2018. Just today, UN experts working with OHCHR expressed concern over broad use of forced labour so severe “that they may amount to forcible transfer and/or enslavement as a crime against humanity”. Over one million Uyghurs and 650.000 Tibetans have been affected by China’s forced labour policies, and millions of Uyghurs are still forcibly interned.
‘’This is a great opportunity for the UK to directly engage with the Chinese government on human rights issues, and table concrete expectations’’, said WUC President Turgunjan Alawdun. ‘’The UK has long voiced concerns in multilateral spaces, and we expect it does the same in its bilateral exchanges with China.’’
Furthermore, Uyghur and human rights activists in the United Kingdom have suffered from cases of transnational repression by the Chinese government. In 2025, Sheffield Hallam University terminated a research project on Uyghur forced labour after staff involved in the project were interrogated by Chinese state security officers in Beijing and the university was subsequently sued by a Chinese company. Academics in the UK researching China-related or politically sensitive topics are repeatedly subjected to intimidation and harassment linked to the Chinese state. A significant part of the Uyghur population in the UK has suffered threats against them or to their family by the Chinese government, in blatant disregard to British laws and territorial sovereignty.
The United Kingdom has a strong record of supporting the Uyghur cause and drawing international attention to China’s repression of Uyghurs. A government assessment published in July 2025 concluded that Uyghurs are “likely to face a real risk of persecution or serious harm from the state” both in East Turkistan and abroad. British MPs have also successfully voted to recognize that China is committing a genocide in East Turkistan. Notably, it was in the United Kingdom that an independent tribunal concluded in 2021, beyond reasonable doubt, that the Chinese government is committing genocide against the Uyghur people.
Nevertheless, the WUC believes that the UK government must do more. Millions of Uyghurs are still detained in camps or in prisons, Uyghur women have been sterilized in an attempt to diminish the Uyghur population, labour transfer programs have increased in recent years, forcibly displacing Uyghur workers and coercing them into work, Uyghur language has been banned in many schools and prefectures, even the most basic expressions of religious sentiment have been criminalized, Uyghur mosques, shrines, graveyards and homes have been destroyed, children have been taken away from their families and the CCP has sought to eradicate the Uyghur identity and forcibly assimilate the Uyghur people. The Chinese government has also been actively trying to disrupt diaspora communities abroad, by intimidating, threatening Uyghurs abroad, particularly human rights activists.
Such horrific atrocities necessitate a robust and coordinated response from the United Kingdom and the international community. The UK now has the opportunity to take a principled stance and enact real change. WUC calls on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to substantively and meaningfully raise the Uyghur genocide in their discussions with Xi Jinping and other Chinese officials during their ongoing China visit. We call on these leaders to demand that China stop its genocide of Uyghurs and other human rights violations and to honor its human rights obligations in order to have normal relations with China.
The World Uyghur Congress therefore calls on the United Kingdom and Keir Starmer to:
- Substantively raise the Uyghur genocide and other serious human rights violations during official discussions in China, as well as in all future bilateral engagements, specifically raising individual cases.
- Push for the approval of a binding resolution prohibiting the commerce and import of forced-labour produced commodities in the United Kingdom.
- Ensure that peaceful protest and human rights advocacy are fully protected in law and in practice, and that institutions across the United Kingdom are properly trained to deal with cases of transnational repression.
- Press the Chinese government to end its policies of repression and systemic human rights abuses in East Turkistan, and to fully implement the international labor rights conventions it has recently ratified, including International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 29 on Forced Labour and ILO Convention No. 105 on the Abolition of Forced Labour.
