Trump levels sanctions on Chinese officials
WASHINGTON >> The Trump administration imposed sanctions Thursday on multiple Chinese officials, including a senior member of the country’s Communist Party, over human rights abuses against the largely Muslim Uighur minority, a move that is likely to inflame tensions between Washington and Beijing.
The targets of the sanctions included Chen Quanguo — a member of the country’s 25-member ruling Politburo and party secretary of China’s Xinjiang region — and will likely anger top officials in China’s Communist Party given his stature. Other officials sanctioned include Zhu Hailun, a former deputy party secretary for the region; Wang Mingshan, director of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau; and Huo Liujun, a former party secretary of the bureau. The bureau also was sanctioned.
Representatives from the Chinese Embassy did not immediately return a request for comment.
The sanctions against Chinese officials were levied under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which was passed in 2016 and gives the United States the ability to impose human rights penalties on foreign officials. But the measures appear largely to be symbolic, as none of the officials are likely to hold significant assets outside China.
The move also comes after talks first arose in 2018 within the Trump administration to punish senior Chinese officials and companies for the detention of ethnic Uighurs and other minority Muslims in large internment camps. But those discussions languished as trade advisers in the administration tried to negotiate an end to the trade war with Beijing.
For purposes of his reelection campaign, President Donald Trump was focused on securing a deal that would include a commitment by China to increase its purchases of American agricultural products, according to a recent book by John Bolton, the former national security adviser, and private accounts by other officials.
Trump showed no qualms about prioritizing trade talks with China while ignoring human rights abuses in the country. He even told President Xi Jinping of China to continue building the internment camps used to detain Muslims, “which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do,” according to Bolton’s book.