China’s Xinjiang an ‘enormous risk’ for US business, Pompeo warns

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has appeared to liken the scale of incarceration of Muslims in China to Nazi abuses and urged corporate America to think twice before doing business in Xinjiang, where an estimated 1 million Uygurs are being held in re-education camps.

Pompeo stopped short of asking companies not to work with China but said he hoped to spark further discussion on the “enormous risk” of doing business in the country.

“We watch the massive human rights violations in Xinjiang where over a million people are being held in a humanitarian crisis that is the scale of what took place in the 1930s,” he said on Tuesday, as he received an award from the Business Executives for National Security group.

“And we see American businesses and their technology being used to help facilitate that activity from the Chinese government. It’s something worthy of thinking about.”

Pompeo said: “I don’t know the answer”, as he recalled that as a business owner and a conservative Republican he opposed government interference in commerce.