John Beck鈥檚 Those Who Should Be Seized Should Be Seized is not merely a book. It is a reckoning. The stories this award-winning journalist tells, of , testify to how the Chinese regime has systematised surveillance, criminalised belief and mechanised repression. For now, it may seem merely to be a window upon Xinjiang, but it鈥檚 also a vision of the totalitarian future that China鈥檚 Communist Party has rolled out in Hong Kong, , and will soon be selling to the world: efficient, paranoid and absolutely ruthless.
Beck doesn鈥檛 moralise, he documents. His narrative, a tapestry of firsthand accounts, Party memoranda and state propaganda, lays bare the architecture of a modern gulag. We read of teenagers hauled into 鈥渢iger chairs鈥� for constraint and torture, of children taught to fear books, of scholars imprisoned for writing in Kazakh. We are introduced to a place where growing a beard or teaching a Koranic verse is treated as terrorism, and classification by race and religion is the law. This isn鈥檛 ancient history. This is 2025.
In Parliament, and in this newspaper, I have long argued that Britain must confront the reality of China鈥檚 government, and not be distracted by trinkets. Beck鈥檚 book is not about policy 鈥� but it demands one. For, as we debate trade deals and supply chains, his pages remind us that our choices have consequences. Consider this: many of the cotton garments sold on British high streets today pass through Xinjiang. The solar panels Ed Miliband visited Beijing in March to source, in order to power our so-called 鈥済reen transition鈥�, are built, in part, by detainees in factories powered by coal. And the very chips in our smartphones are manufactured using rare earths mined from land stripped from Uyghur hands. We are, however unknowingly, underwriting slavery. How does that meet anyone鈥檚 environmental, social or governance principles?
The scale of the repression in Xinjiang is staggering. Beck meticulously traces its implementation, from the Party documents authorising mass detentions to the way everyday life changes under constant surveillance. The descriptions of China鈥檚 鈥渧ocational education and training centres鈥� 鈥� a euphemism for detention camps 鈥� reveal to us facilities fringed with barbed wire, guard towers equipped with machine guns, and interrogation rooms where torture is routine. As one Party official is quoted saying, Uyghurs must 鈥渂reak their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins鈥�.
The Chinese state weaponises basic human instincts. Family ties become vulnerabilities to exploit. Cultural identity becomes evidence of 鈥渆xtremism鈥�. Even the desire for economic advancement becomes a trap, as Saira, a Kazakh from Urumqi who buys into the Chinese dream even joining foreign trips promoting the government鈥檚 commercial interests until she discovers her business success marks her as a threat to the state.
Beck captures something essential about totalitarian systems: they don鈥檛 just imprison the body, but also colonise the mind. We witness this in the trauma of Tursunay, a Uyghur woman who spent five years in Kazakhstan and was imprisoned on the grounds of suspected foreign affiliations and ideological deviation. Upon her release, she initially refuses to speak out about her experiences, having internalised the regime鈥檚 threats. We see it in the way camp survivors struggle with basic tasks after their release, their concentration and memory permanently damaged by what they endured.
The book gives voice to those who refused to remain silent. After surviving unspeakable trauma in prison, Tursunay faces intimidation from Chinese agents as she flees to the West and joins protests against the CCP. There鈥檚 also Saira, whose literary aspirations were buried alongside her books when authorities burned them in her garden; Serikzhan Bilash, a Kazakh activist and founder of human-rights group Atazhurt, who risked everything to document his compatriots鈥� disappearances. Their courage in speaking out, despite the regime鈥檚 relentless efforts to silence them, is humbling.
China鈥檚 efforts at silencing not just critics but different minority groups, are terrifyingly advanced. Beck鈥檚 narrative uncovers the methods of control being perfected in Xinjiang: digital surveillance through mandatory apps, biometric data collection disguised as healthcare. Particularly chilling is the documentation of how the tentacles of Chinese state security reach far beyond national borders. Uyghur and Kazakh diasporic communities in Kazakhstan, Turkey and even America face surveillance, intimidation and the agonising knowledge that speaking out could result in reprisals against family members still in Xinjiang. The Chinese embassy protests described in the book鈥檚 final pages 鈥� where survivors such as Tursunay stand in silent witness as diplomatic vehicles with tinted windows roll past 鈥� serve as a powerful metaphor for the global community鈥檚 failure to meaningfully confront these abuses.
What struck me most about Beck鈥檚 account is how effectively it dismantles China鈥檚 official narrative. Beijing insists these are simply vocational schools, yet the book documents forced sterilisations and systematic rape. The Party speaks of lifting ethnic minorities from poverty, yet we read of prosperous business owners such as Saira having their assets seized. Officials claim to fight terrorism, yet their own documents reveal targets for arbitrary detention that include anyone who prays regularly or applies for a passport.
The contrast between the Party鈥檚 propaganda and the lived reality is nowhere more apparent than in the official press conferences Beck documents, where 鈥済raduated trainees鈥� mechanically recite their gratitude for being 鈥渃ured鈥� of religious 鈥渆xtremism鈥�. These Orwellian spectacles, in which victims are forced to thank their tormentors, reveal a system that demands not just obedience but the complete surrender of truth itself.
And yet, as Beck describes, China has successfully leveraged its economic might to silence international criticism. Kazakhstan, Turkey and have yielded to pressure, deporting refugees back to certain persecution or muting their criticism in international forums. Britain cannot look away. The Modern Slavery Act must be strengthened to mandate full transparency in supply chains. Companies must audit their inputs. Import bans should be enforced on goods linked to forced labour. And the Foreign Office must lead a coordinated, values-based approach with our allies to challenge China鈥檚 narrative at the UN and beyond.
We must also wake up to the deeper threat. What is happening in Xinjiang is not just an assault on a people. It is a prototype: a test run for a surveillance state powered by AI, justified by nationalism, and perfected in the absence of dissent. Beck holds a mirror to that future, and the reflection should chill us into action. As legislators, we owe it to those already lost. As Britons, we owe it to our values. And as free people, we owe it to ourselves.