The US, Canada, and their European allies have levied sanctions against Chinese officials in collective action in response to China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims and significant human rights violations. The coordinated blacklisting is part of the Biden administration’s efforts to forge coalitions against Beijing for several different conflicts. The European Union, UK, US, and Canada targeted current and former officials to receive the sanctions.
The sanctions are largely a response to a paramilitary organization involved in carrying out mass detention campaigns against Uyghurs in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region. For the EU and the UK, this is the first use of human rights sanctions against China since the atrocities at Tiananmen Square in 1989. The US, however, has applied similar penalties over the past year. US officials have labeled the human rights violations as ethnic cleansing, identifying it as a genocide aiming to wipe out an entire population.
Read More: U.S. and Its Allies Sanction China Over Treatment of Uyghurs in a Collective Action