The Uighurs bill passed by the US House of Representatives deliberately denigrates China’s counter-terrorism efforts and openly demonstrates Washington’s double standards and hypocrisy in the fight against terrorism, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Wednesday.
Earlier, the US House of Representatives passed a bill to support Uighurs in China, whose rights, in the opinion of the American authorities, are being violated. For the bill to become law, the Senate must also pass it and the president must sign it; the prospects for this are unclear. The document provides for sanctions against Chinese officials who, according to US authorities, violate human rights in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
“We want to openly declare to the American side that Xinjiang’s affairs are a purely domestic political issue of China that does not tolerate any foreign interference”, – Hua Chunying said in a statement on the Foreign Ministry’s website.
She emphasized that “the bill mentioned above deliberately denigrates China’s efforts to de-radicalize and fight terrorism, it can only once again expose the double standards of the United States in the fight against terrorism, it only allows the Chinese people to more clearly discern the hypocrisy and malicious intentions of the United States” .
“The determination of the Chinese government and people to protect state sovereignty, security and development interests is unshakable, and the US plan to use Xinjiang-related problems to incite hostility between different nationalities living in China, to undermine Xinjiang’s stability and prosperity, to suppress China’s development, is doomed to failure”, – the diplomat added.
According to her, “China recommends that the United States immediately correct its mistakes, prevent the relevant bill from becoming a law, stop using Xinjiang-related issues to intervene in China’s domestic policy, and will prepare a further answer in accordance with the development of the situation”.
The United States regularly criticizes China for violating human rights and religion in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where Uighurs, Kazakhs, and a number of other Muslim religions live. Earlier, the United States banned the export of American goods to 28 Chinese companies, and also imposed visa restrictions on members of the Chinese government and the Communist Party, which, according to Washington, are involved in the repression. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that information about the “re-education camps” for the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is untrue.