China announces retaliatory sanctions against Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz

The Chinese government has announced sanctions against US officials, including the Republican senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, in response to US sanctions over Beijing’s treatment of ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang province.

China’s ministry of foreign affairs spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said the retaliatory sanctions would be in place from Monday, but gave no details on what they would entail.

The sanctions apply to Rubio and Cruz, their fellow Republican politicians Samuel Brownback and Chris Smith, and the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which monitors and reports on human rights and the rule of law in China.

The announcement is largely symbolic, given that the US officials have little financial or legal exposure in China.

On Friday, the US imposed sanctions against a Chinese government entity and four senior Chinese officials, including a sitting member of the ruling politburo, under the Magnitsky Act. The sanctions included the freezing of US assets and US travel, and prohibiting Americans from doing business with the individuals.

“The entity and officials are being designated for their connection to serious human rights abuse against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, which reportedly include mass arbitrary detention and severe physical abuse, among other serious abuses targeting Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim population indigenous to Xinjiang, and other ethnic minorities in the region,” the US Treasury said in a statement on Friday.

The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said the US would not “stand idly by as the Chinese Communist party carries out human rights abuses”.

Beijing has been accused of detaining an estimated 1 million people in Xinjiang re-education camps and prisons, which it claims are work training centres designed to steer people away from terrorism.

Those imprisoned are forced to denounce ... (Read more)

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