(Washington) Outgoing US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday that the United States considers China “committing genocide” against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, on the eve of Joe Biden’s arrival in the region. White House.
“I think this genocide continues and that we are witnessing a systematic attempt to destroy the Uyghurs by the Chinese party state,” he added in a statement. He also referred to the “crimes against humanity” that had been committed “since at least March 2017” by the Chinese authorities against Uyghurs and “members of ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang”.
Biden said the same thing
This decision, after an internal legal process at the State Department, paves the way for new sanctions.
Prior to his election, President-designate Biden had estimated, according to a statement from his campaign team published in August, that the campaign against this Muslim minority constituted “a genocide committed by the authoritarian government of China.”
Mike Pompeo stressed that “the United States calls on the People’s Republic of China to immediately release all arbitrary detainees and put an end to its system of detention, concentration camps, supervised accommodation and forced labor.”
According to foreign experts, more than a million Uighurs are being held in political re-education camps. Beijing denies and claims that these are vocational training centers aimed at keeping it away from terrorism and separatism after attacks attributed to the Uyghurs.
‘The worst stigma of the century’
For two years, the Donald Trump administration accused China of carrying out a brutal crackdown in this northwestern region. Mike Pompeo estimated in March 2020 that this was “the worst stigma of this century” and has already announced several rounds of sanctions against Chinese officials.
The accusations related to Xinjiang also fueled an increasingly harsh confrontation that resembles a new Cold War between the two major powers on the planet, led by Falcon Pompeo from the US side.
Washington also urged the international community on Tuesday to “join the United States” in its efforts “to hold those responsible for these atrocities accountable.”
If the Chinese Communist Party was allowed to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against its own people, one can only imagine what it would have the courage to do with the free world in the not-too-distant future.
Outgoing US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Mr. Pompeo, who lives his last 24 hours as head of US diplomacy, has many times summed up the confrontation with China as the battle of democracies against “tyranny.”
So Tuesday’s announcement is a final offer, at the extreme, of his assertiveness on Beijing, at a time when members of the future cabinet are competing for Joe Biden, who Republicans sometimes suspect of being too “weak”. Also statements to prove that they will stand up to the Asian giant.
The next Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was supposed to confirm Tuesday in the Senate: “We can win the competition with China.” “We must address China’s arbitrary, unfair and illegal practices” in trade, said future Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, reiterating the accusations made by the Trump administration.