Mike Pompeo accuses China of ‘enormous rights violations’ in Xinjiang
- Secretary of state says the US will keep raising treatment he says is not in the best interests of the world or China
- ‘Xi Jinping leads the country’ and ‘is responsible for the things that happen in your name’, Pompeo says
“This is not only an enormous human rights violation, but we don’t think it’s in the best interests of the world or of China to engage in this kind of behaviour,” Pompeo told US television station PBS.
Asked whether Chinese President Xi Jinping was responsible, Pompeo said: “Xi Jinping leads the country just like the leader of a tank platoon, a small business or a country is responsible for the things that happen in your name.”
China has denied any mistreatment of Uygurs, and said Xinjiang was its internal affair.
“Recently, the US side has been attacking and smearing China’s Xinjiang policies on the pretense of religion and human rights, and making baseless and mistaken remarks that are contrary to the facts,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said. “China expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to this.”
The Chinese embassy in Washington denounced the visa action in a statement on Tuesday and said the US accusations of human rights violations were “made-up pretexts” for interfering in China’s affairs.
“We’re going to continue to talk about these human rights violations,” Pompeo said. “As the president has said in another context in Hong Kong, we want to make sure that these issues are handled in a way that is humane.”
“The reputational cost to these companies I think will prove to be higher and higher as Beijing’s long arm reaches out to them and destroys their capacity for them, their employees – in the NBA’s case team members and general managers – to speak freely about their political opinions,” Pompeo said.
