U.S. President Joe Biden will urge allies to step up pressure on the Chinese Communist Party over human rights in Xinjiang at the Group of Seven (G7) summit in June, a senior White House official has said.
Daleep Singh, Biden’s deputy national security adviser and deputy director of the White House National Economic Council (NEC), said on Friday (April 23) that the G7 meeting in Cornwell, England, will focus on health security and a coordinated economic response to the Chinese Communist virus (COVID-19) outbreak, Reuters reported. In addition, the meeting will also discuss concrete actions on climate change and “strengthening the democratic values shared within the G7.
“These allies are like-minded, and we want to take practical and concrete actions that demonstrate our willingness to coordinate action on non-market economies like China.” Singh went on to say that “the challenge for the G7 is to demonstrate that open societies, democratic societies, still have the best opportunity to solve the biggest problems facing the world, and that top-down authoritarian systems are not the best way to do that.”
Singh said Washington has already taken strong sanctions against the Chinese Communist Party in response to human rights issues in Xinjiang, but will seek to expand related actions with G7 allies.
Late last month, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada announced joint sanctions, including travel bans and the freezing of overseas assets, against Chinese Communist Party officials and entities accused of abusing their power in Xinjiang.
Singh also said the details are still being finalized ahead of the G7 summit, but the meeting provides an opportunity for the U.S. and its allies to demonstrate a united stand on human rights in Xinjiang.
“We have made it clear that our consumers deserve to know when imported goods are made from forced labor. Our values need to be infused into our trade relationships.” Singh stressed that Washington will seek to urge G7 allies to take clear steps to “elevate our shared values as democracies in response to what is happening in Xinjiang.”
The White House had confirmed on Friday that Biden will attend the G7 meeting in person in June. He will then travel to the United Kingdom and Belgium for his first trip since becoming president, a trip that will include the G7 summit in Cornwall, England, June 11-13.
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