Marco Rubio urges US Congress to pass Uygur bill to counter China’s crackdown in Xinjiang

Republican senator says human rights issues should not be overlooked for the trade deal or ‘intermingled’ with geopolitical issues

Analyst sees proposed legislation as mostly symbolic and ‘separate to trade talks’

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US Senator Marco Rubio is a vocal critic of China’s human rights record. Photo: TNS

Published: 6:30pm, 6 Jan 2020Updated: 8:36pm, 17 Feb 2020

The sponsor of US legislation backing democracy in Hong Kong has urged Congress to pass a bill to counter China’s crackdown on Muslims in Xinjiang, as Washington and Beijing prepare to sign a deal to defuse trade tensions.

Speaking to CBS on Sunday, Florida Senator Marco Rubio – who last year introduced the bill that paves the way for sanctions against Chinese officials over human rights abuses in Xinjiang – also said human rights issues should not be overlooked for the trade deal or be “intermingled” with geopolitical issues between the world’s two largest economies.

“I will never accept the notion that somehow, in order to be able to sell them more things, we have to look the other way on some of the grotesque human rights violations that we’re seeing systemised on their part,” the Republican senator said.

The remarks by Rubio, a vocal critic of China’s human rights record, come as trade officials from the two sides prepare to sign a partial deal in Washington next week for a truce in their costly trade war.

With the US Congress reconvening on Monday, Rubio said he hoped lawmakers could resolve the differences between the House of Representatives and Senate bills to agree on a version soon that could be passed through Congress.

Supported by a vote of 407 to 1 in the House of Representatives in December, the Uygur Intervention and Global Humanitarian Unified Response Act (UIGHUR Act) of 2019 amends a Senate bill passed without objection in September. It commands the US administration to identify and sanction officials deemed responsible for their involvement in the mass internment of members of ethnic minority groups in China’s far western Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.