Relentlessly deploring these violations and threats to US national security, the administration of President Joe Biden has stepped up economic sanctions against Chinese interests in recent months, contributing to the deterioration of diplomatic relations with Beijing.
On Thursday, the Ministry of Commerce launched the offensive by placing around 30 entities on a blacklist restricting sensitive exports. Then the Treasury banned American nationals from doing business with eight high-tech companies, including the world’s number 1 drone DJI, which had already been on the Commerce Department’s blacklist for two years.
Finally, the Senate unanimously approved a law on Thursday banning the importation into the United States of a wide range of products made in Xinjiang.
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In detail, the Ministry of Commerce and the Treasury have decided to target Chinese high technology, which would be used to violate the rights of the Uyghur population, mainly Muslim, in the region of Xinjiang (northwest).
Human rights groups have reported that China is exercising unprecedented surveillance over this population, including research using DNA and the use of artificial intelligence for facial recognition.
“Scientific research in biotechnology and medical innovation can save lives. Sadly, the People’s Republic of China chooses to use these technologies to control its people and suppress members of ethnic and religious minority groups.“, lamented US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, to justify the new sanctions.
Research institutes targeted by the latest US actions include centers focused on blood transfusions, bioengineering and toxicology.
– High-tech in the service of repression –
That “shows how private companies in China’s defense and surveillance technology sectors are actively cooperating with the government in its efforts to suppress members of minority ethnic and religious groups“said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson.
“Treasury remains committed to ensuring that the U.S. financial system and U.S. investors do not support these activities“, he added.
A total of 37 entities were added to the Ministry of Commerce’s list of companies accused of being involved in activities “contrary to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States“.
The list includes Chinese companies but also firms from Georgia, Malaysia and Turkey, according to the document due to be published in the official gazette on Friday.
– Imports from Xinjiang banned –
Concretely, Washington has decided to restrict sensitive exports to the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences and 11 of its research institutes because of its biotechnology work, including “so-called brain control weapons“, he explains.
Experts, witnesses and the US government say more than a million Uyghurs and other Turkish-speaking Muslims are being held in camps. In addition to the forced sterilization of women, China is accused of imposing forced labor.
The United States has called the campaign genocide and, citing human rights concerns, plans to boycott official representation at the Beijing Winter Games next year.
China says these are vocational training centers, and like many Western countries, the government is seeking to reduce the appeal of radical Islam following deadly attacks.
The text adopted in Congress on Thursday deals a blow by banning products made in whole or in part in Xinjiang, unless companies are able to prove to customs officials that the products were not made with forced labor.
It has yet to be signed by Joe Biden.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio, one of the authors of the bill, welcomed the fact that we can no longer make Americans “unwitting accomplices in the atrocities, in the genocide committed by the Chinese Communist Party“.
L’application L’Express
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Xinjiang is a major source of cotton supply. The Workers Rights Consortium, which monitors factories, estimates that 20% of clothing imported into the United States each year contains material from that region.
