On Monday, Canada’s House of Commons voted 266-0 to recognize China’s documented campaign of mass internment, forced labor and forced sterilization of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang as a “genocide”.
Why does it matter: The vote is likely to put pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to toughen China. Trudeau and most of his cabinet members abstained from Monday’s vote.
- The non-binding motion also calls on the International Olympic Committee to withdraw the 2022 Winter Olympics from Beijing, if China does not stop its persecution of Uighurs and other minority ethnic groups.
The big picture: Trudeau was reluctant to use the word genocide, calling it a loaded term and “suggesting that seeking broad consensus among Western allies on human rights issues in China would be the best approach,” according to Reuters.
What they are saying: “Western countries are not in a position to say what the human rights situation in China is like,” Cong Peiwu, the Chinese ambassador in Ottawa, told Reuters before the vote. “There is no genocide in Xinjiang.”
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