US says China has committed genocide against Uyghur Muslims
The US has declared that China has committed “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” against Uyghur Muslims in the country’s northern province of Xinjiang.
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo made the announcement yesterday, less than 24 hours from when Donald Trump’s term as President ends.
Joe Biden’s pick for secretary of state Tony Blinken said at a Senate hearing that he agreed with Pompeo’s findings.
An estimated 1m Uyghur Muslims have been detained by the Chinese government and put into labour camps in Xinjiang.
There have also been widespread reports of sterilisation of Uyghur women, the wholesale destruction of mosques and restrictions on religious freedom.
In a statement released yesterday, Pompeo said: “After careful examination of the available facts, I have determined that since at least March 2017, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), under the direction and control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has committed crimes against humanity against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other members of ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang.”
Pompeo’s statement comes after the US State Department launched an internal review last year into whether China’s actions against the Uyghurs constituted genocide and crimes against humanity.
The review was led by the US’ ambassador-at-large for the Office of Global Criminal Justice Morse Tan.
A senior White House source told Axios: “If we had been able to do it sooner, we would have.
“We have been working on this for years now. We have struggled from day one, since we came to see the contours of what is going on in Xinjiang, with what to call it.”
Boris Johnson today was questioned as to whether he agreed with the US’ decision, however he told MPs “that the attribution of gencoide is a judicial matter”.
Johnson added: “I regard for myself what is happening in Xinjiang and what is happening to the Uyghurs is utterly abhorrent and I know members on all slides of the house share that view.”
It comes after foreign secretary Dominic Raab levelled new economic sanctions against China last week for its treatment of the country’s Uyghurs.
These sanctions include export restrictions to Xinjiang, financial penalties for companies that do not comply with the Modern Slavery Act and banning products from Xinjiang from being a part of UK supply chains.
“Internment camps, arbitrary detention, political reeducation, forced labour, torture and forced sterlilisation – all on an industrial scale,” Raab told MPs.
“It is truly horrific. Barbarism we had hoped lost to another era practiced today as we speak by one of the leading members of the international community.”