Xinjiang: EU ready to ‘cross a threshold’ with China sanctions, but unlikely to match hardline US approach
- Human rights sanctions on Chinese officials accused of human rights abuses will be first of their kind since Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989
- But the bloc is wary of following Washington’s tougher approach and is keen to continue to exercise ‘strategic autonomy’ regarding Beijing
The penalties were approved at preparatory meetings for next week’s Foreign Affairs Council, according to people familiar with the discussions, and will be formally adopted at a meeting of the bloc’s top diplomats on Monday.
“The notion of pushing through a human rights sanctions package that the likes of Hungary and others sign up to that targets Chinese entities, that is a symbolic first,” said Andrew Small, a senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund’s Asia Programme.
“There is the capacity to dial these up and down, not just on Xinjiang, but on Taiwan, this could touch on Hong Kong. Once you cross this sort of threshold, then the notion that the EU is capable of doing this is a valuable signal to be able to send across the board,” Small added.
China is accused of detaining a million of mostly Uygurs and other ethnic minorities in reeducation camps in Xinjiang and a number of officials are to likely have their assets frozen and be issued with visa bans by Brussels, but the sanctions will not be as a broad as those imposed by the United States.