Washington sanctions officials over abuses
BEIJING: The US sanctioned a top member of China’s ruling Communist Party and three other officials over human rights abuses in the western region of Xinjiang, a major escalation in the Trump administration’s increasingly tense rivalry with the country.
The sanctioned individuals include Chen Quanguo, the Xinjiang party secretary who sits on the 25-member Politburo, as well as Zhu Hailun, party secretary of the Xinjiang Political and Legal Committee, and the current and former directors of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau, the Treasury Department said on Thursday.
The US move is tied to the widespread detention of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, a policy that has been sharply criticised by top American officials as well as human rights groups. It comes amid soaring tensions between Beijing and Washington over the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, China’s moves to quell dissent in Hong Kong and a debate over the use of Chinese technology by the US and allies.
“The United States is committed to using the full breadth of its financial powers to hold human rights abusers accountable in Xinjiang and across the world,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the statement.
The decision also marks the first time the US has sanctioned a sitting Chinese official under the 2016 Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which gives the US broad authority to impose human-rights sanctions on foreign officials. Senior administration officials had been pushing for the sanctions for months but had been stymied by President Donald Trump, who fretted that they would complicate his USChina trade deal.
Mr Chen, seen as a rising star in the Communist Party, has become China’s point man for subduing ethnic unrest. During his earlier stint in Tibet, Buddhist temples were told to display Chinese flags and images of party leaders. His implementation of a vast police state in Xinjiang and loyalty to President Xi Jinping won him a promotion in 2017 to the Politburo, and he may be considered for a spot on its supreme Standing Committee, which now has just seven members, in 2022.