UK will work to 'change China's actions' after UN Xinjiang report, says Liz Truss

Britain will keep working with international partners to try to change China's actions, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said on Thursday, responding to a UN report that China may have committed crimes against humanity in its Xinjiang region.

"The report ... provides new evidence of the appalling extent of China's efforts to silence and repress Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang," said Truss, the frontrunner to become the next British prime minister in a leadership contest that ends next week.

"We will continue to act with international partners to bring about a change in China’s actions, and immediately end its appalling human rights violations in Xinjiang." 

The landmark UN report detailed a string of rights violations including torture and forced labour against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the far-western region, bringing the UN seal to many of the allegations long brought by activist groups, Western nations and the Uyghur community in exile.

Beijing hit back hard against the report - over a year in the making - and maintained its firm opposition to its release, sharing a more-than-100-page document from the Xinjiang provincial government defending its policies.

"The so-called critical report you mentioned is planned and manufactured firsthand by the US and some Western forces, it is wholly illegal and invalid," foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular briefing Thursday.