The US on Thursday unleashed a volley of actions to censure China’s treatment of Uighurs, with lawmakers voting to curb trade and new sanctions slapped on the world’s top consumer drone maker.
The US Senate unanimously voted to make the US the first country to ban virtually all imports from China’s Xinjiang region over concerns of the prevalence of forced labor.
“We know it’s happening at an alarming, horrific rate with the genocide that we now witness being carried out,” said US Senator Marco Rubio, a driver behind the act, which already passed the House of Representatives and which the White House says US President Joe Biden will sign.
Photo: AP
After prolonged negotiations to secure its passage, Rubio lifted objections and the Senate confirmed veteran diplomat Nicholas Burns as ambassador to China.
Burns, a widely respected former ambassador to Greece and NATO, and a professor at Harvard, has called the treatment of Uighurs “genocide,” and described China as an “aggressor” in its relationship with Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam.
“Our responsibility is to make Taiwan a tough nut to crack,” Burns said, while rejecting a suggestion that the US ditch its longstanding policy of “strategic ambiguity,” which does not say whether it would intervene in an invasion of Taiwan.
Some US businesses had voiced unease about the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which bans the import of all goods from the region unless companies offer verifiable proof that production did not involve slavery.
Xinjiang is a major source of cotton, with an estimated 20 percent of the garments imported each year into the US including some material from the region.
Rights experts, witnesses and the US government say that more than 1 million Uighurs and other Muslims are incarcerated in camps.
The Biden administration also fired off a round of sanctions over surveillance in Xinjiang, where rights groups say China has been honing new technologies to keep tabs on Uighurs.
Companies hit by US Department of the Treasury sanctions include SZ DJI Technology, by far the world’s largest producer of consumer drones of the type used in filmmaking and aerial photography, with more than 70 percent of the global market.
The US had already restricted trade exports to the company, but the new sanctions would criminalize any US investment in it.
The US Department of Commerce also restricted sensitive exports to the Chinese Academy of Military Medical Sciences and 11 of its research institutes over biotechnology work, including “purported brain-control weaponry,” a notice said.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2