Traffic on a road in Urumqi city in China's Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region Image: SIPA USA/PA Images Traffic on a road in Urumqi city in China's Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region Image: SIPA USA/PA Images THE US GOVERNMENT has imposed trade sanctions on 11 companies it says are implicated in human rights abuses in China’s Muslim north-western region of Xinjiang.
The announcement came after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in London for talks with Boris Johnson on Tuesday, in which China is set to be high on the agenda, as its relations with both Britain and the US continue to nosedive. “This action will ensure that our goods and technologies are not used in the Chinese Communist Party’s despicable offensive against defenceless Muslim minority populations,” said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in a statement.
It says those facilities have since been closed, a claim impossible to confirm given restrictions on visits and reporting about the region. AP reporters found employees from Xinjiang at its factory in the southern city of Nanchang were not allowed out unaccompanied and were required to attend political classes.