BEIJING: In retaliation to Uighur crackdown bill, China may soon be considering to ban all U.S. diplomats from entering Xinjiang, the region where more than a million Uighurs minorities are believed to be detained in camps.
The Global Times Editor-in-Chief Hu Xijin in a tweet on Tuesday said that China is also considering banning officials and lawmakers with “odious performance” on the Xinjiang issue.
The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed legislation Tuesday that would apply sanctions against senior Chinese officials, triggering a furious response from Beijing.
The legislation adds to tensions between the two superpowers just as they are locked in negotiations to finalize a “phase one” deal to resolve their protracted trade war.
The Uighur crackdown bill prepared by the U.S. Congress would punish Beijing’s officials for horrific human rights abuses against Uighurs.
Uighur Act
The Uighur Act of 2019 condemns Beijing’s “gross human rights violations” linked to the crackdown in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, where upwards of one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities are believed to be held in re-education camps.
The measure, which passed 407 to 1, is a stronger version of the bill that cleared the Senate in September. The texts must be reconciled into one bill for Trump’s signature.
The latest House measure condemns the arbitrary mass detention of Uighurs and calls for closure of the re-education camps where, according to rights groups and US lawmakers, they have been held and abused.
Congress “is taking a critical step to counter Beijing’s horrific human rights abuses against Uighurs,” she said.
“America is watching.”
Pelosi lashed out at Chinese authorities for orchestrating a crackdown that includes pervasive mass state surveillance, solitary confinement, beatings, forced sterilization “and other forms of torture.”
‘Wantonly smears China’
Beijing called on the United States to prevent the bill from becoming law and warned — without elaborating — that it would respond “according to the development of the situation.”
The bill “deliberately denigrates China’s human rights situation in Xinjiang, wantonly smears China’s efforts to eliminate extremism and combat terrorism (and) viciously attacks the Chinese government’s policy of governing Xinjiang,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement.
‘Wipe out Uighur identity’
The House bill would require the State Department to produce a report within one year on the crackdown in Xinjiang.
Last month two huge leaks of official documents offered more details about China’s network of internment camps in Xinjiang.
Rights groups and witnesses accuse China of forcibly trying to draw Uighurs away from their Islamic customs and integrate them into the majority Han culture.
After initially denying the camps’ existence, Beijing cast the facilities as “vocational education centers” where “students” learn Mandarin and job skills in an effort to steer them away from religious extremism, terrorism and separatism.
Masjids dismantled in Xinjiang
Meanwhile, the officials of the Department of External Affair of the U.S. have alleged that China has been dismantling the mosques and other religious places of the Muslims in Xinjiang Province.
Talking to Voice of America, an official of the External Affairs Dept. of U.S. on the condition of unanimity told that the Communist Party of China has tightened the security of the Muslims in this area.
It is also dismantling the mosques and other religious places of the Muslims.
He disclosed that Beijing has either closed down mosques, graveyards and other places of worship or dismantled them.
He also said that many places of worship are being monitored through CCTV cameras. In this way, the Muslims in Uighur province are being put to hardship.