The State Department said Tuesday (March 9) that Secretary of State Blinken agrees with the Trump administration’s determination that the Chinese government’s treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang constitutes genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, and has not yet seen any developments that could change that determination.
State Department spokesman Ned Price said at a regular State Department press conference that the Biden administration supports the Trump Administration‘s last-minute decision before the end of his term that China committed genocide in Xinjiang.
“We haven’t seen anything that would change our assessment,” Price said.
In response to questions from the media, he said, “The State Department has already made that determination. As you said, both Secretary Pompeo and his successor, Secretary Blinken, have made that determination that a genocide took place in Xinjiang. We absolutely stand by that determination. In fact, even today there are more reports detailing allegations of what happened in Xinjiang.”
In a report released Monday by the Institute for Innovative Strategies and Policies, a Washington think tank, experts from all sides assessed the persecution of Uighurs by Chinese authorities in Xinjiang as a serious violation of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention) and meeting the criteria for genocide, the report said.
Price also said at the press conference that Beijing‘s atrocities in Xinjiang have not stopped, and that even if such atrocities had stopped, it would not change Secretary Blinken’s determination that genocide has occurred in Xinjiang because it underscores what is at stake.
He said, “It underscores what is at stake as we seek to mobilize international like-minded partners and allies to make clear to Beijing that these atrocities, this genocide, and these intolerable acts will have consequences.”
On Jan. 19, President Trump’s Secretary of State Pompeo announced the day before President Biden was due to take office that “after carefully examining the available facts,” the United States had made the determination that the Chinese government had committed genocide in Xinjiang. He accused the Chinese Communist Party of committing crimes against humanity against the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities beginning at least in March 2017.
The way Chinese authorities have treated minorities such as the Uighurs in Xinjiang has been widely condemned by Western countries. The Chinese government has been criticized for putting millions of Uyghurs in detention camps, as well as practicing forced labor and forced sterilization.
Last month, Canada‘s federal House of Representatives and the Dutch parliament passed motions calling China’s treatment of the Uighur Muslim minority tantamount to genocide.
Beijing calls the camps “vocational skills Education training centers” for the preventive elimination of extremism, and vehemently denies allegations of abuse.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Jan. 27 for a confirmation hearing on her nomination, said the State Department is evaluating the determination made by the Trump administration to ensure that procedures are being followed so that the determination can be upheld. Prior to that, Blinken had said during the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee hearing to consider his nomination that he supported the determination made by his Republican predecessor, Pompeo.
Before the Trump administration made this major determination, the Biden campaign had called the Chinese government’s crackdown in Xinjiang a genocide during the presidential campaign.
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