The moves by the two legislatures follow those of other democratic parliaments — Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Lithuania — which determined that China’s policies in the XUAR constitute genocide. The U.S. government in January designated abuses in the region as part of a campaign of genocide, and the German parliament is conducting an inquiry into the allegations.
The Belgian motion, which cleared the parliament’s foreign relations committee and will be confirmed by a plenary session on July 1, also calls for a reexamination of policies ranging from extradition to investment. “Today the Belgian Parliament has raised a warning sign to the world,” said lawmaker Samuel Cogolati, co-author of the resolution and co-chair of the cross-party Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.
