U.S. Bans Travel by Chinese Officials Tied to Muslim Abuses
The Trump administration is slapping visa bans on Chinese officials linked to the mass detention of Muslims, the latest in an escalating series of U.S. steps to pressure Beijing over what Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has called “the stain of the century.”
Pompeo is imposing the restrictions on government leaders and Communist Party officials who are found responsible for or complicit in the detention and abuse of Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs and other minority Muslim groups in the far western region of Xinjiang, according to the State Department. Travel by those officials’ family members will also be restricted.
“The Chinese government has instituted a highly repressive campaign against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other members of Muslim minority groups,” Pompeo said in a statement Tuesday. “The United States calls on the People’s Republic of China to immediately end its campaign of repression in Xinjiang.”
The move is authorized under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which lets the secretary of state deny travel visas to people whose entry he determines “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” The action comes at a sensitive time in U.S.-China relations, with a trade delegation from Beijing due in Washington for talks Thursday and Friday.
State Department officials said U.S. law prevents them from announcing who is on the new visa-restriction list, though they said names were already being added. Likely targets include Xinjiang’s regional party secretary Chen Quanguo, a member of China’s 25-member Politburo, who U.S. lawmakers have singled out in calls for sanctions over the detentions of as many as 1 million people.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-08/u-s-bans-travel-by-chinese-officials-linked-to-xinjiang-abuses
