The United States and nearly 40 other countries issued a joint statement in the U.N. this week criticizing China for its human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and elsewhere.
The U.S. joined other major Western powers including the United Kingdom, Germany and France, while China, Russia and various Middle Eastern and Asian countries signed a competing statement saying China should be left to its own affairs, the Associated Press reported. The Uighur leader of East Turkistan, as Uighur independence groups refer to Xinjiang, on Friday urged Western countries to take further steps to end the “21st Century holocaust” in the region.
“There is no doubt what China is doing in East Turkistan against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples is genocide,” Prime Minister Salih Hudayar of the East Turkistan government-in-exile said in a statement provided to the Daily Caller. “For some 71 years, China and its Communist Party have been waging a brutal campaign of colonization and genocide as a result of the Chinese occupation of East Turkistan in late 1949.”
“We urge all countries across the world, especially the 39 countries who opposed China’s atrocities against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples to formally recognize it as a genocide,” Hudayar added. “The world must uphold its promise of ‘Never Again’ and take stronger actions to bring an end to China’s 21st century Holocaust.” (REPORT: Trump Petitioned China’s Xi For Election Help, Bolton’s Book Claims)
In this file photo taken on June 28, 2019, China’s President Xi Jinping shakes hands with US President Donald Trump before a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Osaka. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities in Xinjiang have been accused of interning more than one million Uighur Muslims in reeducation and concentration camps. The CCP has also reportedly forcibly sterilized members of the population and forcibly aborted children.
President Donald Trump has pursued staunchly anti-China policies since the earliest days of his administration, but he has ramped up the criticism since the coronavirus pandemic spread out of China to the rest of the world. Trump has taken to referring to the disease as the “China virus” or the “China plague” and vows to hold China accountable for its role in falsifying data and misleading the world regarding the severity of the disease if he is reelected.
The U.S. blacklisted a number of CCP officials and affiliated industries involved in Xinjiang throughout 2020. China has responded in kind, issuing performative sanctions on U.S. senators who have been most critical of China, including Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Republican Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse and Republican Georgia Sen. Josh Hawley have also been heavily critical of China.