(TibetanReview.net, Jul13’24) – Citing Beijing’s failure to live up to its commitments to respect and protect human rights, the United States has said Jul 13 that it would keep denying visas to Chinese officials over concerns in Xinjiang, Tibet and elsewhere, with addition of more officials for sanction, vowing accountability. It has not mentioned names of officials, whether those already in the list or additional, as yet.
“The PRC has not lived up to its commitments to respect and protect human rights, as demonstrated by the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, the erosion of fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong, persistent human-rights abuses in Tibet, and transnational repression around the world,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller has said in a statement.
The announcement also said the State Department was taking steps to impose visa restrictions on current or former officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “for their involvement in repression of marginalised religious and ethnic communities”.
Miller has called on China to accept recommendations in the latest UN review of its rights record, including releasing citizens “it has arbitrarily and unjustly detained.”
China has rejected all substantive recommendations that called on it to improve the civil and political rights of its citizens during the Universal Period Review held in Geneva earlier this year.
In an earlier round of sanctions based on accusations of human rights abuses in Tibet, in 2022, the Treasury Department froze the US assets of and blocked transactions with Wu Yingjie, the now disgraced Chinese government’s top official in Tibet from 2016 to 2021, and Zhang Hongbo, identified at the time as the Tibetan region’s police chief since 2018.
And last year, the State Department announced it was imposing visa sanctions on Chinese officials pursuing “forced assimilation” of children in Tibet.
Also, under previous president Donald Trump, the United States publicly named several officials who would be denied entry including Chen Quanguo, the architect of China’s hard-line policies in Tibet and then in Xinjiang, who has since retired, noted the AFP Jul 12.
US lawmakers have made Beijing’s treatment of the country’s religious minorities including Tibetans and Uyghurs a priority, leading to recent laws like the Uygur Forced Labour Prevention Act, noted the scmp.com Jul 13.