China’s government responded to US criticism of human rights on Tuesday by imposing sanctions on a Los Angeles-based firm and two analysts involved in probing the country’s supply chain for abuses.
Beijing stated that the measures would be applied to Kharon, a research and data analysis firm, in response to its work monitoring China’s Xinjiang region, where the US government, Western media and independent researchers documented human rights abuses against ethnic minorities, including primarily Muslim Uyghurs.
The Chinese government, represented by Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, linked the sanctions to US policy actions, denying the mistreatment of its minority population.
We again urge the US side to stop smearing China, cancel the illegal unilateral sanctions on Chinese officials and companies, and stop implementing wrongful acts such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
Mao claimed that Beijing’s actions were “countermeasures” in response to the State Department’s recent annual report on the human rights situation in Xinjiang. In a report to Congress in early December, the State Department cited a number of “ongoing human-rights abuses,” including torture, in Xinjiang against ethnic and religious minorities.
The Chinese government has reacted angrily to US sanctions against its officials and companies in response to the human rights situation in Xinjiang, as well as in Hong Kong and Tibet. Those who have been sanctioned by China in the past include US military contractors Lockheed Martin and the RTX unit, as well as former US officials and think tank researchers.
A foreign ministry spokeswoman stated that Kharon had long been collecting sensitive information related to Xinjiang and providing “unlawful evidence for America’s illegal sanctions.”
Under the sanctions, Kharon and the researchers will freeze any assets in China. The researchers will be banned from entering China, and the measures “prohibit organisations and individuals in China from transactions and cooperation with them.”
The sanctions include Edmund Xu, head of Kharon’s Asia research programme, and Nicole Morgret, a long-time Xinjiang specialist who now serves on the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
In a statement, Kharon noted that other US businesses, organisations and people had faced similar sanctions from China and claimed it would continue to serve its customers. The firm said Xu was unavailable and Morgret could not be reached.
The Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project stated that Beijing’s latest move “is part of a longer pattern of attempts to deter investigations and silence critical voices and activists working to uncover human rights abuses in China.”
