US sanctions 3 Chinese officials responsible for gross human rights abuses in Xinjiang

In the latest escalation of tensions, the United States on Thursday announced sanctions on three senior Chinese Communist Party officials for "their involvement in gross violations of human rights" against minorities in Xinjiang province.

US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said the three officials and their immediate family members will henceforth be ineligible for entry in America. In a statement, the state department said Washington "will not stand idly by as the CCP carries out human rights abuses targeting Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and members of other minority groups in Xinjiang, to include forced labour, arbitrary mass detention, and forced population control, and attempts to erase their culture and Muslim faith".

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The three officials sanctioned are — Chen Quanguo, CCP Secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR); Zhu Hailun, Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Political and Legal Committee (XPLC); and Wang Mingshan, the current CCP Secretary of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau (XPSB). Pompeo, under Section 7031(c) of the Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, has made them and their immediate family members ineligible for entry into the United States.

The US has also placed additional visa restrictions on other CCP officials believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, the unjust detention or abuse of minority groups in Xinjiang. Their family members may also be subject to these restrictions.

"The United States is taking action today against the horrific and systematic abuses in Xinjiang and calls on all nations who share our concerns about the CCP’s attacks on human rights and fundamental freedoms to join us in condemning this behavior," Pompeo said.

Earlier in the day, the US Treasury Department had designated those three officials, XPSB and another official named Huo Liujun for their roles in serious human rights abuse. 

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Human rights abuses in Xinjiang

China has struggled for decades to control Xinjiang, where the Uyghurs have long resented Beijing’s heavy-handed rule. After the 9/11 attacks in the United States, Chinese officials began justifying harsh security measures and religious restrictions as necessary to fend off terrorism, arguing that young Uyghurs were susceptible to the influence of Islamic extremism.

As per reports, Zhu Hailun played a key role in planning and executing a campaign that has swept up a million or more Uyghurs into detention camps. In 2016, the crackdown intensified dramatically after President Xi named Chen Quanguo, a hardline official transferred from Tibet, as Xinjiang’s new head. Xinjiang’s “War on Terror” morphed into an extraordinary mass detention campaign using military-style technology.

Despite Beijing’s insistence that the camps are vocational training centers for the poor and uneducated, the evidence and reports collected thus far has painted a dark picture of the situation.

Last week, Mike Pompeo called on China to immediately stop forced sterilisation of Uighur Muslims after reports of coercive family planning emerged. Highlighting the continued campaign of repression, Pompeo said that the shocking revelations made by German researcher Adrian Zenz are sadly consistent with decades of the Chinese Communist Party practices that demonstrate an utter disregard for the sanctity of human life and basic human dignity.

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