The Trump administration must take action condemning China's human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in the country's Xinjiang province, the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee said in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th March, 2019) The Trump administration must take action condemning China's human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in the country's Xinjiang province, the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee said in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday."We write to follow up on our letter of August 28, 2018 requesting the Administration to take strong measures in response to egregious human rights abuses perpetrated by the Chinese government in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR)," the letter said.
The US lawmakers said central and regional Chinese government policies have systematically denied Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of their basic freedoms.
More than a million Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities have been detained in so-called political re-education camps without due process, the letter noted.
"The United States must stand up for the oppressed and, at every opportunity, make clear to the Chinese government that the situation in XUAR is a priority for the US government," the letter said.
The Committee asked Pompeo to provide written responses regarding US engagements with the Chinese government to address the human rights abuses, along with the State Department's strategy to hold Beijing accountable.
The Committee's request comes after media reported that the United States and China are closing in on a new trade agreement.
Beijing and Washington have been embroiled in a trade dispute since last June, when US President Donald Trump announced the United States would subject $50 billion worth of Chinese goods to a 25 percent tariff in an effort to fix the US-Chinese trade deficit. Since then, the two countries have exchanged several rounds of tit-for-tat trade tariffs.
On January 24, Trump announced that he would delay another planned increase in tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods that was originally set for March 1.
