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BEIJING (AP) – China’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday described outgoing US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as an “apocalyptic clown” and said his designation of China as the perpetrator of genocide and crimes against humanity was simply “a piece of paper”.
Allegations of abuse against Muslim minority groups in China’s Xinjiang region are “utterly sensational pseudo-proposals and a malicious farce concocted by individual anti-Chinese and anti-Communist forces represented by Pompeo,” the door said. Hua Chunying spoke to reporters during a daily press briefing.
“In our opinion, the so-called designation of Pompeo is a piece of old paper. This American politician, who is known to lie and deceive, turns into an apocalyptic clown and a joke of the century with his last madness and lies of the century, ”Hua said.
Pompeo’s announcement on Tuesday does not require immediate action, although the United States must take the designation into account when formulating its policy towards China. China says its policies in Xinjiang are aimed solely at promoting economic growth and social stability.
The United States has already spoken out and taken action against Xinjiang, implementing a series of sanctions against top Chinese Communist Party leaders and state-owned enterprises funding repressive policies in this vast, resource-rich region. . Last week, the Trump administration announced it would halt imports of cotton and tomatoes from Xinjiang after customs and border protection officials said they would block products there suspected of ‘be produced with forced labor.
Many Chinese officials accused of participating in the crackdown are already subject to US sanctions. The designation “genocide” means that new measures will be easier to impose.
Tuesday’s decision is the latest in a series of steps the outgoing Trump administration has taken to step up pressure on China over human rights issues and the coronavirus pandemic in Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong and the South China Sea. China has responded with its own sanctions and harsh rhetoric.
China has imprisoned more than a million people, including Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups, in a vast network of prison-like political indoctrination camps, according to US officials and advocacy groups. human rights. People have been subjected to torture, sterilization and political indoctrination in addition to forced labor as part of an assimilation campaign in an area whose residents are ethnically and culturally distinct from the majority Han Chinese.
The Associated Press reported on widespread forced birth control among Uyghurs last year, including mass sterilization of Muslim women, even as family planning restrictions are relaxed for members of the dominant Han ethnic group in China.
China has denied all the charges, but Uyghur forced labor has been linked by reporting by the AP various goods imported into the United States, including clothing and electronics such as cameras and computer monitors.
James Leibold, a Chinese ethnic policy scholar at La Trobe in Melbourne, Australia, said international pressure appears to have had an effect on Chinese policy in Xinjiang, particularly by prompting the government to release information about the camps and possibly to reduce mass detentions.
“So hopefully we will see continued continuity as far as the new administration (Joe Biden) is concerned to hold China to account,” Leibold said in an interview.
“And I hope the Biden administration can get its allies to continue to pressure the Chinese government,” he said.
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Associated Press reporter Dake Kang contributed to this report.
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