US senators urge Donald Trump to end delay and proceed with sanctions over Xinjiang internment camps
- Letter cites South China Morning Post report on Magnitsky Act measure that has been held up by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin
- Senators, including three running for president, say failure ‘to address these egregious human rights violations weakens American moral leadership’
A group of United States senators including three presidential candidates has written to the White House urging the administration to move ahead with stalled human rights sanctions against China over the mass internment of Uygurs in Xinjiang, following a report by the South China Morning Post revealing the hold-up.
Shortly before US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping meet in Japan in a bid to restart trade talks, the seven lawmakers wrote to Trump on Thursday to express “concern about reports that your administration is delaying the imposition of targeted sanctions … in order to allow for the conclusion of bilateral trade negotiations.”
Among the letter’s signatories were Democratic Oval Office contenders Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Kirsten Gillibrand.
Upwards of one million Uygurs and other largely Muslim minority groups are reported to be held in detention camps and subject to forced indoctrination in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
Beijing has sternly rejected any criticism of its policies in the region, and has sought to portray the camps as “vocational training institutions” where those inside attend classes on the law and Mandarin Chinese and are subject to “de-extremisation education”.