Pompeo’s Xinjiang ‘genocide’ declaration presents Biden with an early China challenge

Hong Kong CNN — As Joe Biden prepared to be sworn in as United States President on Wednesday, both the outgoing Trump administration and Beijing made a last-minute play to shape his future China policy – and provide the first major foreign policy challenge of his term. About 24 hours before Biden took office, the US State Department officially accused the Chinese government of committing “genocide” against Uyghurs and other minority groups in Xinjiang, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying there was a “systematic attempt to destroy Uyghurs by the Chinese party-state.” Rights groups say up to 2 million people, mostly Muslims, have been detained in sprawling fortified camps set up across Xinjiang since 2017, where they have allegedly been subject to political indoctrination and abuse. Millward pointed out that the Trump administration blocked multiple attempts by Congress to take action on Xinjiang, in both 2018 and 2019, as the President pursued a trade deal with China, while Pompeo sought to take credit for exposing atrocities that were brought to light by journalists and researchers “years before Trump flipped on his ‘good friend’ Xi.” More than anything else, Pompeo’s final shot across Beijing’s bow seems to have been an attempt to bind the hands of the incoming administration. Hours before Trump was due to leave the White House for the last time, state-run news agency Xinhua tweeted in English an image of the US Congress with the words, “Good riddance, Donald Trump!” Also on Wednesday, China enacted new sanctions against Pompeo and several other former Trump officials who Beijing said had “planned, promoted and executed a series of crazy moves which have gravely interfered in China’s internal affairs, undermined China’s interests, offended the Chinese people, and seriously disrupted China-US relations.” The measures bar the former officials “and their immediate family members” from entering China, Hong Kong and Macao, and forbids them “and companies and institutions associated with them” from doing business with China. Speaking Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying blamed “Pompeo and other anti-China, anti-communist forces” for fostering “various misunderstandings on Xinjiang-related matters.” As the chief China hawk in the Trump administration, who has led criticism of Beijing over Hong Kong as well as Xinjiang, Pompeo is a figure of loathing for Chinese diplomats and the country’s tightly controlled state media, which in the final week of the Trump administration ran multiple stories hailing his imminent exit.