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OPINION:
On Aug. 12, as noted in these pages, the State Department confirmed once again that China’s atrocity crimes against Uyghurs continue. The annual China Country Report begins: “Genocide and crimes against humanity occurred during the year in China against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang.”
For Uyghurs, this designation matters deeply. It shows that the world has not forgotten about our suffering, and it gives us real hope. The finding of genocide has been confirmed and reconfirmed by both Republican and Democratic administrations since 2021.
The stakes could not be higher. The Chinese government’s brutal ongoing campaign against the Uyghurs — including mass internment, forced labor, torture, sexual violence, cultural erasure and forced sterilization — is one of the most severe human rights crises of our time. It’s time for Washington to show Beijing that genocidal policies will be met with more than just strong words.
Yet even as these crimes continue, the Chinese government has blatantly thumbed its nose at the United States. At his Jan. 15 confirmation hearing, the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Secretary-designate Marco Rubio to commit to a firm U.S. policy to stop the Thai government’s plans to return 40 Uyghurs to China, where these individuals would face certain detention in the concentration camps. Two days later, the chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party endorsed Mr. Rubio’s firm commitment, in a strongly-worded warning to the Royal Thai government, a major non-NATO ally.
But the U.S. warnings failed to save these Uyghurs. Just one month later, the Chinese government went ahead anyway, coercing Thailand to send the Uyghurs to China. In response, Mr. Rubio imposed a sweeping visa ban on all Thai officials responsible for this inhuman complicity with China’s brutality.
The sanctions currently in place are clearly not enough to deter China’s aggressive defiance of the post-World War II order. Five years ago, President Trump signed into law then-Sen. Marcio Rubio’s Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act. It had overwhelming bipartisan support, passing unanimously in the Senate, and by a vote of 413-1 in the House. The law mandates Global Magnitsky sanctions on every Chinese official and police agency involved in the atrocities.
Incredibly, since then only 12 officials have been subject to asset freezes and visa bans for their role in the ongoing atrocities. Many more officials are complicit in sweeping millions of Uyghurs people into forced labor, detention, torture and death. Official Chinese government figures analyzed by Adrian Zenz cite 3 million labor transfers in 2023 alone.
Overwhelming bipartisan support for countering China’s assault on basic freedoms should make it easy for Congress to act. Rep. Young Kim’s Uyghur Policy Act, mandating more tools to address the crimes, just passed the House on the first day of legislative business after the August recess. The bill was also passed in the House in the 117th and 118th Congresses, but the Senate failed to act. Now it’s time for the Senate to pass the bill introduced by Senator John Curtis, Utah Republican, and send it to the president’s desk.
Next up should be the Uyghur Genocide Accountability and Sanctions Act (UGASA), introduced last month with strong bipartisan leadership from Sens. Dan Sullivan of Arkansas and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, and in the House by Reps. Chris Smith and Tom Suozzi of New Jersey and John Moolenaar of Michigan, chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
We’re tracking 20 other bills already pending in Congress to combat China’s tactics to evade accountability, including its influence operations and violations of civil rights on U.S. soil.
These bills will step up U.S. efforts to end secret Chinese police stations and other transnational repression on U.S. soil, end the use of U.S. taxpayer dollars in government procurement for goods made with Uyghur forced labor and stop U.S. retirement funds’ investments in Chinese companies profiting from CCP surveillance and repression. They will make a meaningful difference in protecting Uyghur survivors and holding China accountable.
Congress and the administration also need to work together to support independent journalism to fight back against China’s multi-billion-dollar propaganda campaigns. At a time when China has put Uyghur intellectual and cultural leaders in prison for life, the U.S. must reinstate funding to support independent Uyghur-language journalism, like the Uyghur Service of Radio Free Asia, which was the world’s only independent Uyghur-language news source.
The Trump administration needs to put a stop to “business as usual” with a state committing genocide. China’s genocide designation in this year’s State Department report is the right starting point. But history will not judge us by our declarations. It will judge us by how we put words into action.
• Omer Kanat is the executive director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project.
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