China hits back at UK over allegations of Uyghur genocide

A media person for the Xinjiang region called accusations of genocide "counter to the facts" as China came under more stress this week over its treatment of the Uyghur ethnic group in the remote border area. The British Parliament passed a nonbinding motion Thursday that said China's policies amounted to genocide as well as crimes on humanity. Human Right Watch petitioned the U.N. earlier in the week to review many accusations of the different crimes against humankind. "The motion utilised by the British side was groundless," Xu Guixiang, the deputy director-general of the Communist Party's advertising department in Xinjiang, said Friday. "The decision was solely made on the basis of remarks by some lawmakers, some so-called educational institutes, some so-called experts and students and some so-called witnesses."

In recent years, it is estimated 1 million people or many more have also been confined in camps in Xinjiang, according to foreign authorities and researchers. Most are Uyghurs, a largely Muslim as well as ethnic group; Authorities have been accused of requiring forced labour, regular forced birth control, and torture.

The Chinese government flatly rejected the allegations. It has characterised the camps, which it says are now closed, as vocational education centres to teach Chinese writing, job skills and the law to support economic development and fight extremism. China saw a wave of Xinjiang-related terrorist initiatives through 2016.

Xu said that hotels in Kashgar, a historic Silk Road city in Xinjiang, was empty a few years ago, and entrepreneurs unwilling to invest as tourism fell off because of terrorism fears. He said the government's plans had restored hard-won maturity.

The Foreign Ministry labelled the genocide charges "a monstrous lie concocted by international anti-China forces."