UK's Starmer says he had 'respectful discussion' with China's Xi on Uyghurs

By Saadet Gokce

ISTANBUL (AA) - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Thursday that he had a “respectful discussion” with Chinese President Xi Jinping about Uyghurs as well as former Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai.

“We raised those issues, as you would expect,” Starmer responded when “pressed about how forcefully he raised issues including the jailing of the pro-democracy campaigner, in addition to the treatment of the Uighur minority,” according to British daily The Guardian.

Xinjiang, one of China's five autonomous regions with a significant ethnic minority population, is home to at least 10 million Uyghurs, a Turkic Muslim group that makes up around 45% of the region's population.

Uyghurs have long accused Beijing of cultural, religious, and economic discrimination, claims the Chinese government denies.

Last month, Lai, a Chinese-born British citizen, was found guilty on all three counts, including "conspiring to collude with foreign forces" as well as sedition under colonial-era legislation. He faces a maximum life sentence.

“Part of the rationale for engagement is to make sure that we can both seize the opportunities that are available, which is what we’ve done, but also have a mature discussion about issues that we disagree on,” said Starmer, who arrived in China on Wednesday, in a first trip by any British prime minister to the world’s second largest economy since 2018.