BY JOHN
FENG ON
3/23/23 AT 11:20 AM EDT
This photo taken on May 31, 2019, shows the outer wall of a complex that includes what is believed to be a reeducation camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained, on the outskirts of Hotan, in China's northwestern Xinjiang region. Rights violations in Xinjiang last year included "the arbitrary imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty of more than 1 million civilians," according to the U.S. State Department.GREG BAKER/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
The
United States this week renewed its determination that human rights abuses
amounting to genocide were taking place against ethnic minorities in
northwestern China, while Beijing countered the claim with its own report
into the "state of democracy" in America.
Predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other minorities in the Xinjiang region have
been swept up in a yearslong crackdown China says is aimed at counterterrorism
and deradicalization. Rights groups argue Beijing's systematic mistreatment of
ethnic minorities throughout the country targets cultural and religious
erasure.
Ongoing rights violations in Xinjiang last year included "the arbitrary
imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty of more than 1
million civilians," said the report published Monday by the U.S. State
Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Since 2017,
detainees have also been put through "reeducation training" as part
of the Chinese government's campaign of ideological indoctrination.
Uyghur women were subjected
to "forced sterilization, coerced abortions, and more restrictive application of the country's birth
control policies," the report said, as well as "rape and other forms
of sexual and gender-based violence."
China's repressive
policies in Xinjiang were the subject of a landmark report by the United Nations Human
Rights Office last year. One of the body's special rapporteurs separately
concluded that stated-backed forced labor schemes in Xinjiang and Tibet pointed
to signs of modern slavery.
The State Department
produces annual country reports that inform policymakers in Washington. A lack
of progress at the U.N. forced American lawmakers to take unilateral action and
draft the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act to ban the
import of products from Xinjiang.
Earlier this month, a
U.S. official told Newsweek she
was "especially alarmed" by China's placement of 1 million Tibetan children in a residential school
system, which Beijing said was part of a broader poverty alleviation program.
Other "significant human rights issues" included forced disappearances by the government; harsh and life-threatening prison and detention conditions; transnational repression against individuals in other countries; and "punishment of family members for offenses allegedly committed by an individual," it said.
China anticipated the March 20 report. On the
same day, its foreign ministry released a 6,500-word assessment of American
democracy, which argued its rights record shouldn't be scrutinized, especially
by the U.S. government. Since early February, Beijing has published separate
reports about the U.S. drug crisis, gun violence, wealth gap and political
bullying.
The State Department's
report was "fraught with political lies and ideological prejudice,"
China's foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Tuesday. "Since the
U.S. enjoys finding fault with other countries so much,
we thought it might be helpful to remove the facade of American democracy for
the rest of the world."
"What they reveal is an American
democracy in chaos at home and a trail of havoc and disasters left behind as
the U.S. peddled and imposed its democracy around the globe," said Wang.
The bipartisan
House select committee on China, which was created last
month, is holding its second public hearing at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday, titled
"The Chinese Communist Party's Ongoing Uyghur Genocide."
https://www.newsweek.com/china-human-rights-violations-xinjiang-tibet-state-department-1789880
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