China blasts US senators for 'genocide' resolution

Claims of campaign against Muslim minority groups concocted by anti-China forces, it says

Relations between Washington and Beijing are at their worst in years. PHOTO: REUTERS

BEIJING • China yesterday accused US senators of telling "all kinds of lies" after a group of lawmakers put forward a resolution accusing Beijing of genocide against Muslim minority groups in the far north-western region of Xinjiang.

Relations between Washington and Beijing are at their worst in years over a series of flashpoints, including trade, technology and human rights.

The text put forward by senators from across Washington's political divide alleged China was guilty of a campaign "against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and members of other Muslim minority groups" that "constitutes genocide".

"This resolution recognises these crimes for what they are and is the first step towards holding China accountable for their monstrous actions," said Senator John Cornyn, a Republican who sponsored it.

Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, said the resolution would show that the United States "can't stay silent". He added: "China's assault on Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups - escalating surveillance, imprisonment, torture and forced 're-education camps' - is genocide, pure and simple."

Further fuelling the criticism, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Indian news site The Print on Tuesday that China's actions in Xinjiang "remind us of what happened in the 1930s in Germany".

But Beijing angrily hit back yesterday, saying the "so-called genocide in Xinjiang is a rumour deliberately concocted by some anti-China forces".

The sensitive region is tightly controlled by the Chinese authorities, and rights groups say more than one million Uighurs have been detained in camps.

Beijing defends the camps as vocational training centres to stamp out terrorism and improve job opportunities. "The US senators you mentioned have always been anti-China and are keen to concoct all kinds of lies to discredit China and use them to seek their own political gains," foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters.

He also turned the tables on China's critics, attacking the US for the "assimilation and massacres of Native Americans in history to greatly reduce their population".

"We urge certain US politicians to respect the facts, stop fabricating lies, and stop using Xinjiang-related issues to interfere in China's internal affairs."

A report earlier this month from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think-tank said the network of detention centres in Xinjiang is much bigger than previously thought, despite China's claims that many Uighurs have been released.

Ms Olivia Enos, a senior policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation who studies human rights in Asia, said that a genocide resolution on Xinjiang could put pressure on the US administration to follow suit and pave the way for additional sanctions.

"Obviously it would be great to have the executive branch say that this is genocide and/or crimes against humanity," she said. "But I think, in lieu of that, this would be a very strong, bipartisan message that the US government cares about the state of the Uighur people, even and especially when the Chinese Communist Party does not," she said.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on October 29, 2020, with the headline China blasts US senators for 'genocide' resolution. Subscribe