WASHINGTON: A US congressional committee demanded justifications for why Washington had yet to impose limits on some authorities linked to crimes in the Chinese region, telling the State Department that the US must fully utilize sanctions on China for its Xinjiang plans.
Legislation has recently been passed by Congress to put pressure on China regarding what the State Department claims is an ongoing genocide against Uyghurs and another Xinjiang majority Muslims.
The Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act( UHRPA ) passed in 2020, which requires the US president, absent a waiver, to identify and sanction Chinese officials responsible for abuses, is one of those laws, according to the House of Representatives select committee on China. However, the Biden administration has not issued sanctions under this law.
Beijing denies any wrongdoing in Xinjiang.
A few Chinese leaders and organizations connected to Xinjiang have received US sanctions through a number of programs, including the Global Magnitsky Act and professional orders, which activists claim are insufficient given the severity of the atrocities committed.
The committee’s chair, Mike Gallagher, wrote in a letter to secretary of state Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas,” The United States must take action to hold PRC ( Peoples Republic of China ) perpetrators accountable and thus disincentivize further human rights abuses against the Uyghurs and other parties.”
According to some Xinjiang authorities, the alleged mass incarceration of Uyghurs peaked in 2018, but abuses have persisted as forced labor and labor transfers have gained more notoriety.
Given their part in planning and carrying out China’s assault, some Chinese officials, including Ma Xingrui, the secretary of the Communist Party, were asked in the letter, dated September 19, to explain why they had never been sanctioned.
Additionally, it requested an explanation from the Department of Homeland Security ( DHS ) as to why numerous Xinjiang-linked businesses had not been added to a list of entities that would have prohibited their imports under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
A political crisis sparked by the US downing of a rumored Foreign spy balloon that flew over US ground earlier this year has caused the State Department to delay implementing sanctions under UHRPA. However, Reuters reported in May that connected measures were among those policies.
Senior officials have acknowledged the significance of properly” sequencing” policies, despite the Biden administration’s assertion that it never pulls blows on China.
According to a State Department spokesman,” this administration & nbsp has used, and will continue to use, various tools and diplomatic tactics to promote accountability for the PRC’s ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang.”
DHS did not respond right away to a post request.
According to activists, Chinese leader Xi Jinping backed off on his plan when he visited china in August and stated that maintaining social security was of the utmost importance.
According to Julie Millsap of the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project,”( Xi) feels no pressure to believe that they are doing anything other than continuing down this path.”