In a move that could place more pressure on Beijing about the plight of the millions of people being held in Chinese detention camps, a group of U.S. senators is looking to declare that China is committing genocide against Uyghur Muslims and other Turkic-speaking Muslims.
The bipartisan bill was introduced on Tuesday by Republican Senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Jim Risch of Idaho, and John Cornyn of Texas. They were joined in introducing the legislation by Democratic Senators Ben Cardin of Maryland, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.
The resolution, which will now work its way through the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, asks the executive branch to do everything in its power to stop China from abusing the Uyghur people. To date, more than 1.8 million Uyghurs have been imprisoned in labor camps in the Xinjiang region of China and subjected to horrors such as physical and sexual abuse, slave labor and forced sterilizations and abortions.
It declares that China is violating the norms set out in the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 and would inspire an international response to the actions of the Chinese government.
The resolution also points out that the Chinese Communist Party has separated half a million Chinese Muslim children from their parents and placed them in boarding schools run by the state, where they are indoctrinated with communist beliefs and forced to leave their culture behind.
It states that China’s campaign “against Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and members of other Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region constitutes genocide.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has likened China’s actions to what happened in 1930s Germany.
With an official designation of genocide, the U.S.’s legal response to China would change, and there would be greater opportunities for international recourse.
Senator Rubio said that he feels that making this designation would allow us to be “clear about the nature of these atrocities.” He said: "Free nations must urgently come together and press for an end to these crimes and seek accountability and justice."
Senator Menendez said that stopping genocide is something that is consistent with America's values and national security, and speaking the truth about it is the first step. Senator Risch said that he was proud to join with senators from both sides of the aisle in introducing this resolution and drawing attention to what is going on there.
The Trump administration has already been taking some action in this regard, pursuing sanctions against people and businesses complicit in labor camps that have cost Beijing millions of dollars. In addition, President Trump has withdrawn funding from international organizations like the United Nations Population Fund, which some believe is complicit in China's forced sterilization of Uyghurs. However, the abuses have yet to be officially labeled genocide.
China accuses U.S. senators of telling “all sorts of lies”
Of course, China did not take the news of the resolution very well, with a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry accusing the U.S. senators involved of lying.
The spokesman, Wang Wenbin, said: “The U.S. Senators you mentioned are entrenched in their anti-China bias and obsessed with making up all sorts of lies to vilify China and seek selfish political gains. You will not find any trace of political integrity in them.”
The world is well aware of China’s human rights abuses, even if some are too scared or intimidated to speak up about it. Accusing those who expose them of being liars is pretty typical behavior from the CCP. Hopefully, the new resolution will have its intended effect and something will finally be done to stop the abuse and killing.
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