I have travelled to Xinjiang, the oppressed Uighur region of China.
It was nine years ago, in a small group safari to the country’s little-visited “wild west”.
My goal was the remote city of Kashgar where Sir George Macartney, the British consul-general – spook, I suppose – baited the Russian bear a century ago.
Eccentric, I know, but I wanted to stand on the terrace of Chini Bagh, (Uighur for “Chinese garden”), our diplomatic mission, and look over the famous gardens, ancient streets and fields beyond.
After a scary detour round a soldier shouting “Negative!” I found the hallowed spot, “a corner of a foreign city that will not be for much longer England,” I noted in my diary.
It was strewn with builder’s rubble, obviously ripe for demolition. The view was disappointingly urban, with high-rise buildings going up at frantic speed.
I can never go back, nor would I want to. Like everywhere else I went in China, urbanisation is killing history, and nowhere more so than Xinjiang.
Native Uighurs, mostly Muslim, are being ousted by Han Chinese colonisation.
They are foreigners in their own land, despite the soothing platitudes offered by our official guide.
All of this was known in the West for many years, but British governments cared more about trade relations than an oppressed minority far away, of whom we know nothing.
That’s why the sanctimonious denunciation of China’s Communist rulers by moralising Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab sticks in the throat.
The UK’s stand against Beijing has nothing to do with the hapless Uighurs, and everything to do with currying favour with Donald Trump.
If he was still with us, Sir George, our man in Kashgar, would tell us that.
Since he’s not, I will.
