The European Union has imposed sanctions on Chinese Communist Party officials and institutions for human rights violations in Xinjiang, and Beijing subsequently retaliated by sanctioning the European Parliament, European parliamentarians and think tanks, EU officials said on March 28, adding that such actions are unacceptable and egregious.
The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, said at a plenary session of the European Parliament on March 28 that the EU’s March 22 sanctions against four Chinese individuals and one Chinese institution for direct human rights violations were an EU “initiative” and in line with the EU’s ongoing concerns about human rights issues in Xinjiang. However, the Chinese Communist Party retaliated with sanctions against 10 people and four institutions, all of whom were legitimately expressing their views and promoting human rights and fundamental freedoms.
He said, “Maybe it’s hard for the CCP to understand that members of Congress can express their opinions freely, even if these members criticize almost everything, even me.”
Borrelli said the EU has expressed its disagreement with the Chinese side and will continue to do so as long as the sanctions are not lifted. He is also happy to see the United States similarly impose sanctions on the Chinese Communist Party.
But he also said the EU will continue to engage with China because of its important economic and political role, from fighting climate change and epidemics to the coup in Burma, the Iran nuclear deal and the global balance of power, but also bearing in mind that China is an “institutional competitor.
Ylva Johansson, the EU’s Commissioner for Home Affairs, also said that the Chinese Communist Party’s sanctions against MEPs, the European Parliament’s Sub-Committee on Human Rights, and the EU Council’s Political and Security Committee are extremely deplorable. But you can be sure that this will not stop the EU from speaking out on behalf of human rights in China.
European Union foreign ministers, meeting in Brussels on March 22, imposed sanctions on four Communist Party officials and a construction company for violating the human rights of Muslim Uighurs in the Xinjiang region. This is the first time the EU has imposed such sanctions on Beijing since the June 4 Tiananmen Square incident in 1989.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry later announced that it had imposed sanctions on 10 members of the European Parliament and EU countries, as well as four European institutions, in retaliation for the EU’s sanctions against Chinese officials and institutions.
Of the 10 sanctioned individuals, five are members of the European Parliament and one each is a member of the Dutch, Belgian and Lithuanian parliament. The other two are Adrian Zenz, a German scholar who has long studied human rights issues in Xinjiang and was recently “sued” by Xinjiang people, and Bjorn Jerden, a Swedish scholar of Asian studies.
The four sanctioned institutions are the Political and Security Committee of the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament’s Sub-Committee on Human Rights, the Mercator Centre for China Studies (MERICS) in Germany, and the Alliance of Democracies Foundation in Denmark.
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