US joins allies in sanctioning China over Uyghur abuses

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - The US announced on Monday new sanctions against Chinese government officials over the crackdown on its Muslim Uyghur minority.

The sanctions are being conducted in tandem with the EU, UK and Canada, which imposed their own sanctions on the designated individuals and other officials, the Treasury Department said in a statement.

The US is blacklisting two Chinese government officials: Wang Junzheng, the Secretary of the Party Committee of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), and Chen Mingguo, Director of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau (XPSB).

“Chinese authorities will continue to face consequences as long as atrocities occur in Xinjiang,” Andrea Gacki, the Treasury's top sanctions official, said. “Treasury is committed to promoting accountability for the Chinese government’s human rights abuses, including arbitrary detention and torture, against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities.”

The XPCC is a paramilitary organization in Xinjiang that the US sanctioned along with the XPSB in July over their connections to rights abuses.

The Xinjiang region is home to around 10 million Uighurs. The Turkic Muslim group, which makes up a plurality of around 45% of Xinjiang’s population, has long accused China's authorities of cultural, religious and, economic discrimination.

Up to 1 million people, or about 7% of the Muslim population in Xinjiang, have been incarcerated in an expanding network of "political re-education" camps, according to US officials and UN experts.