China slams U.S. over Xinjiang bill

China will take strong countermeasures against the US, including releasing an “unreliable entity list” that includes relevant US entities, and imposing sanctions on relevant US officials.

BEIJING, China (Global Tines) — Five Chinese government institutions have voiced strong opposition on Wednesday against the US move of pushing forward the “Uyghur human rights policy act,” condemning the US of interfering in China’s domestic issues.

The Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the US Uyghur human rights act that smears China’s counter-terrorism and anti-secession work in Xinjiang. “China will respond according to the situation,” said Hua Chunying, spokesman of China’s Foreign Ministry.

China’s National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference strongly opposed the act, and called on the US to stop damaging bilateral cooperation and mutual trust.

“We urge the US to stop interfering in China’s domestic affairs or it will reap the bitter fruits that it sowed itself,” said Chinese National Ethnic Affairs Commission. Some US politicians turn blind eye to the three forces’ violent activities in Xinjiang and don’t care at all about the safety of Xinjiang residents. The act reveals their menacing intention to contain and split China, the commission said.

China’s top counterterrorism official Liu Yuejin, the counter-terrorism commissioner of the Ministry of Public Security, also slammed the act as distorting the truth and using double standards and “human rights” excuses to grossly interfere in China’s internal affairs.

China will take strong countermeasures against the US, including releasing an “unreliable entity list” that includes relevant US entities, and imposing sanctions on relevant US officials, experts said, after the US House passed an act filled with groundless accusations against China’s Xinjiang Tuesday night, local time.

The Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2019 smeared China’s counter-terrorism efforts in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and used fabricated information to slander the vocational education and training centers and religious freedom in the region, analysts said.

A look at the act shows it sticks to the old US rhetoric that uses double standards to distort China’s policies on Xinjiang, and it never mentioned the impressive social and economic development that Xinjiang has achieved.

Lü Xiang, a research fellow on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times that this act doesn’t have any review process. The sources of the act are loose and unreliable.

Diao Daming, an associate professor at the Renmin University of China in Beijing, told the Global Times that in addition to conveying the truth to the international community, China can adopt the unreliable entity list to list “those companies that dance to the act.”

“China will hit back with stronger countermeasures,” Wei Jianguo, a former Chinese vice minister of commerce and executive deputy director of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, told the Global Times. He hinted that the countermeasures could be even stronger than what China had taken after the US passed the so-called Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act.

Wei said China can sanction certain US entities and personnel in the unreliable entity list and restrict their entry to and activities in China. “Chinese people are never afraid of a threat or the US. We will fight back with tough measures,” he said.