U.S. Says China’s Repression of Uighurs Is ‘Genocide’

[duluxe]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/us/politics/trump-china-xinjiang.html




WASHINGTON — The State Department declared on Tuesday that the Chinese government is committing genocide and crimes against humanity through its wide-scale repression of Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in its northwestern region of Xinjiang, including in its use of internment camps and forced sterilization.

The move is expected to be the Trump administration’s final action on China, made on its last full day, and is the culmination of a yearslong debate over how to punish what many consider Beijing’s worst human rights abuses in decades. Relations between the countries have deteriorated over the past four years, and the new finding adds to a long list of tension points. Foreign policy officials and experts across the political spectrum in the United States say China will be the greatest challenge for any administration for years or decades to come.

“I believe this genocide is ongoing, and that we are witnessing the systematic attempt to destroy Uighurs by the Chinese party-state,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement, adding that Chinese officials were “engaged in the forced assimilation and eventual erasure of a vulnerable ethnic and religious minority group.”

The determination of atrocities is a rare action on the part of the State Department and could lead the United States to impose more sanctions against China under the new Biden administration. President-elect Joseph R. Biden said last year through a spokesman that the policies by Beijing amounted to “genocide.”

Other nations or international institutions could follow suit in formally criticizing China over its treatment of its minority Muslims and taking punitive measures. The determination also prompts certain reviews within the State Department.


The finding is the harshest denunciation yet by any government against China’s policies in Xinjiang. Genocide is, according to international convention, “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

Mr. Pompeo, State Department lawyers and other officials had debated for months over the determination, but the matter had gained urgency in the Trump administration’s final days. As was common with most China policy, the issue of Xinjiang had long pitted administration officials against one another: Mr. Pompeo and other national security aides advocated tough measures against Beijing, while President Trump and top economic advisers brushed aside the concerns.

The Chinese government has rejected previous accusations of genocide and other human rights violations in Xinjiang. At a news conference last week in Beijing, officials condemned American politicians and groups for making such accusations.

“This utterly untethered fabrication of ‘genocide’ regarding Xinjiang is the conspiracy of the century,” Xu Guixiang, a deputy director of propaganda for Xinjiang, told the news conference. “People of all ethnic groups independently choose safe, effective and appropriate birth control measures. There has been no such a problem of ‘mandatory sterilization’ in the region.”

 

[duluxe]

To deflect criticism from U.S. officials, Chinese officials have also taken to underlining some of the Trump administration’s vast governance failures, including a death toll of more than 400,000 from the coronavirus pandemic and the deadly assault on the Capitol by a mob incited by Mr. Trump.

Some Uighurs expressed gratitude for the decision. “Today’s determination of genocide is a signal of recognition to the long suffering of victims and survivors of the Chinese government’s internment camps, like my brother Ekpar, and millions of Uighurs,” said Rayhan Asat, a lawyer in Washington whose younger brother is imprisoned in Xinjiang. “It is the starting point on the road to justice, freedom and accountability for these atrocities.”

Ziba Murat, a Virginia resident whose mother, Gulshan Abbas, is imprisoned, said, “This gives us hope that those who have attempted to water down what is happening with the destruction of our people can no longer hide their complicity.”

Before the new condemnation from Washington, the strongest statement by a government entity declaring that China’s actions in Xinjiang amounted to genocide came from a Canadian parliamentary subcommittee. Last October, the subcommittee concluded that the Chinese Communist Party was culpable of the crime.



Mr. Pompeo and senior State Department officials made the decision just days before Mr. Biden takes office. The finding could complicate his administration’s dealings with Beijing, but it also offers a source of leverage. Mr. Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, said Tuesday at a Senate confirmation hearing that he agreed with the genocide determination and denounced the Xinjiang “concentration camps.” He also asserted that China “poses the most significant challenge of any nation-state to the United States.”

In the days before the decision, State Department officials had argued over whether China’s actions in Xinjiang met the standard for genocide or whether they fell under crimes against humanity, which has a lower standard, said American officials familiar with the debate. Mr. Pompeo decided to use both.

One American official said the best rationale for the genocide label was the use of forced sterilizations, birth control and family separations to destroy Uighur identity.