Uyghur campaigners have called on the Culture Secretary to prevent the proposed acquisition of The Telegraph by an investment firm with links to the Chinese leadership.
In a letter to Lisa Nandy, Stop Uyghur Genocide expressed “grave concern” over RedBird Capital Partners’ planned £500m takeover.
Rahima Mahmut, the campaign’s executive director, told Ms Nandy that John Thornton, RedBird’s chairman, had “a deeply troubling record of alignment with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), including on the issue of the Uyghur homeland (Xinjiang)”.
Mr Thornton, a 71-year-old former Goldman Sachs banker with a portfolio of jobs linked to China, reportedly sparked concern in the US government in 2021 when he travelled to Xinjiang as the guest of the Chinese leadership.
A report in The South China Morning Post compared the visit to Henry Kissinger’s secret 1971 trip to meet the Chinese premier. A senior official in Joe Biden’s administration reportedly described Mr Thornton’s freelance mission to Xinjiang as “frustrating, annoying and counter-productive”.
Months before Mr Thornton’s visit, MPs declared China’s persecution of its Muslim Uyghur minority a genocide. The RedBird chairman, who has repeatedly supported CCP economic and political policies, said privately that Western concern about Uyghur suffering was an “over-reaction”, Ms Mamhut alleged in her letter, which was sent in the summer.
She told Ms Nandy: “At a time when survivors of the camps, including myself, were testifying publicly about systematic rape, forced sterilisation, and mass internment, Thornton travelled to the Uyghur homeland (Xinjiang) as a guest of the Chinese government.”
RedBird and Mr Thornton did not comment on the criticism of his visit to Xinjiang. Ms Nandy’s officials acknowledged the letter and pledged that “thorough due diligence will be conducted” on the bid.
