English City of Newcastle Severs Ties With Chinese Twin City

The union flag and the flag of the People's Republic of China, on March 2, 2015. Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA Media

Councillors in Newcastle, United Kingdom, on Wednesday voted unanimously to cut ties with the city’s Chinese twin city Taiyuan over human rights abuses in the communist country.

It’s the first decoupling of Western and Chinese twin cities after 19 Hong Kong diasporic groups launched a global campaign in July calling on more than 100 cities in seven countries to sever ties with their Chinese counterparts.

The Newcastle motion (pdf), proposed by Liberal Democrat Councillor Wendy Taylor, said the council will terminate Newcastle’s sister city agreement with Taiyuan.

It condemns the Chinese regime’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims and human rights activists, and expresses solidarity with those campaigning for freedom and democracy in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau.

It also requires the council to write to Newcastle MPs, urging them to lobby the government for action over the treatment of Uyghur Muslims.

“The Chinese Communist regime’s actions repeatedly demonstrate that it is not concerned with upholding the universal values we safeguard and adhering to international rules of conduct,” the motion reads, citing reports of forced detention, rape, torture, forced sterilisation, and organ harvesting targeting Uyghur Muslims.

It also notes the sanctioning of Newcastle University academic Jo Finley, who had written to the council in “strong support” of the motion.

Finley was sanctioned by Beijing in March along with seven British lawmakers, a senior judge, and four UK entities that the Chinese Foreign Ministry said had “maliciously spread lies and disinformation.”

All sanctioned individuals are vocal critics of the Chinese regime’s treatment of the Uyghurs and of other human rights abuses in China. The entities are also involved in exposing China’s state-sanctioned human rights violations.

Newcastle Stands With Hong Kong (NSWHK), one of the groups that took part in the Global De-twin with China campaign, welcomed the vote.

“We are delighted with the City Council’s decision,” NSWHK said in a statement translated from Chinese by The Epoch Times. “We hope the decoupling will set for other local councils an example of safeguarding human rights regardless of economic benefits. As it was said during the debate: ‘The issues of human rights and democracy must outweigh other economic concerns.’”

The student group said it had called on Newcastle City Council to de-twin with Taiyuan on June 12, and joined the global campaign to combat the Chinese Communist Party’s totalitarianism and its infiltration in democratic societies.

In an email to The Epoch Times, a spokesperson for Global De-twin with China welcomed Newcastle’s decoupling with Taiyuan, saying the councillors have “set a precedent to stand up against China’s aggression and stand in solidarity with people who yearn for freedom and democracy.”

“We will continue to advocate for more detwinning with China to raise awareness on growing infiltration from the Chinese government and hope that other local authorities will stand with human rights,” the statement reads.

The Global De-twin with China campaign is advocating for 12 other UK cities to sever ties with their Chinese sister cities, including Birmingham, Coventry, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Medway, Nottingham, Perth, and Sheffield.

Other cities include Tokyo, Japan; Adelaide and Perth in Australia; Christchurch in New Zealand; 46 cities in the United States; 41 cities in Canada; and 58 cities in Germany.