As part of the Biden administration’s efforts to integrate human rights concerns into its foreign policy, the US, on the occasion of Human Rights Day 2021, has designated 12 government officials, including 4 from China for gross violations of human rights under Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriation Act, 2021.
US designates 12 officials including 4 Chinese for gross human rights violations
— ANI Digital (@ani_digital) December 10, 2021
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The 4 Chinese officials namely Shohrat Zakir, Erken Tuniyaz, Hu Lianhe, and Chen Mingguo, current and former senior PRC officials in Xinjiang, China have been designated for their involvement in gross violations of human rights, namely arbitrary detention of Uyghurs.
This law states that if there is credible information that foreign government officials have been involved in a gross violation of human rights or significant corruption, those individuals and their immediate family members must be publicly or privately designated as ineligible for entry into the United States.
“On this #HumanRightsDay, we are designating 12 officials for their involvement in gross violations of human rights. As part of our commitment to put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy, we will continue to promote accountability for human rights violators,” Tweeted Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
On this #HumanRightsDay, we are designating 12 officials for their involvement in gross violations of human rights. As part of our commitment to put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy, we will continue to promote accountability for human rights violators.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) December 10, 2021
Blinken also said: “We are determined to put human rights at the centre of our foreign policy, and we reaffirm this commitment by using appropriate tools and authorities to draw attention to and promote accountability for human rights violations and abuses, no matter where they occur.”
Recently, there has been a lot of global pressure on China to stop thrusting restrictions on the Uyghur Muslim population in Xinjiang.
Uyghurs are a Turkish-Muslim ethnic group living in Xinjiang, the largest and most western of China’s administrative regions surrounded by Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. The Xinjiang autonomous region in China has had a long history of discord between the authorities and the indigenous ethnic Uighur population.
US contemplating boycotting 2022 Beijing Olympics over human rights abuses
Last month it was reported that the Biden administration is contemplating a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics over human rights abuses in China.
As per a report by the Washington Post, the US is pegged not to send a delegation to China where the games are just three months away in February 2022. As per the report, while the American athletes will take part in the games, the official delegation of the United States, as well as state politicians, will not attend the ceremony.
On Monday, November 15, US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping had held their first bilateral virtual meeting where Biden is believed to have raised concerns about China’s practices in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, as well as human rights more broadly.
China engaging in transnational repression of Uyghurs
In June 2021, a significant research paper had been published by the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) and the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, revealing the scale of the People Republic of China’s transnational repression of Uyghurs for over three decades and how many countries across the world have been complicit in the persecution of Uyghurs Muslims.
“No Space Left to Run: China’s Transnational Repression of Uyghurs” is a research paper that details incidents of Communist China’s transnational exploitation of Uyghur Muslims and compiles them in its Transnational Repression of Uyghurs Database. The report also details how the Chinese government engages in massive transnational repression, making Uyghurs around the world special targets of state control beyond China’s borders.
