Incoming US administration agrees China is committing genocide in Xinjiang

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President-elect Joe Biden speaks at the Queen theater in Wilmington, Del. (Photo courtesy: Newsweek)

(TibetanReview.net, Jan20’21) – The outgoing Donald Trump Administration has, on the eve of the end of its term in office on Jan 19, declared that China was committing genocide and crime against humanity in Xinjiang. And the incoming Joe Biden Administration appears to agree with that designation.

The declaration has come as a culmination of a years-long debate over how to punish what many consider Beijing’s worst human rights abuses in decades, noted thetaiwantimes.com Jan 20.

The declaration has been welcomed by the Uighur exile community. “We thank the US Government, especially Secretary Pompeo for designating China’s atrocities against Uyghur and other Turkic peoples in East Turkistan as genocide,” Salih Hudayar, Prime Minister of the East Turkistan Government in Exile, was quoted as saying.

“We are hopeful that this will lead to strong actions to end the genocide. We are hopeful that this will be the first significant step toward ending China’s occupation of East Turkistan and bringing justice and freedom to its people.”

China occupied East Turkestan, and renamed it as Xinjiang, in late 1949, years before it overran and captured Tibet.

“We continue to urge all governments across the world to follow suit and take action against China’s genocide,” Mr Hudayar said was quoted as saying.

In recent years, millions of Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples have been sent to concentration camps, prisons, and forced labor camps where they have been subjected to forced indoctrination, forced medication, rape, torture, organ harvesting, slave labor, and even death. Hundreds of thousands of Uyghur and Turkic women have been forcibly sterilized, the report noted.

In his Jan 19 statement containing the declaration, outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said US investigation into the Chinese Communist Party’s treatment of ethnic and religious minorities found overwhelming evidence that China has committed genocide against the Xinjiang region Uighurs.

“We are witnessing the systematic attempt to destroy Uighurs by the Chinese party-state,” newsweek.com Jan 19 quoted Pompeo as saying.

“After careful examination of the available facts, I have determined that the PRC, under the direction and control of the CCP, has committed genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uighurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang,” Pompeo has said in his statement.

And during the Jan 19 Senate confirmation hearings for President-elect Joe Biden’s cabinet, secretary of state nominee Antony Blinken has said he agreed with Pompeo’s “genocide” designation against China.

Also, Janet Yellen, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, has told lawmakers during her confirmation hearing that China was guilty of “horrendous human rights abuses,” reported reuters.com Jan 20.

The US probe of crimes against humanity in China was reported to have received public support from many members of Congress who chastised American companies for doing business with the Chinese.

International political leaders and factions such as Britain’s Labour party have publicly condemned China’s alleged crimes against the Uyghur people, but Pompeo’s address solidified the US as the first nation to officially accuse the Communist Party of genocide, said the newsweek.com report.

Yellen, former chair of the Federal Reserve, said the United States needed to make investments to enable it to compete with China, which she described as the most important strategic competitor to the United States.

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