US President Donald Trump has said he held off on imposing sanctions on Chinese officials over the mass incarceration of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang to protect US-China trade negotiations, according to an interview published on Sunday.
Rights advocates say that China has rounded up at least 1 million Uighurs and other Turkic people and is trying to forcibly assimilate them by wiping out their culture and punishing basic Islamic practices.
Beijing says that it is running vocational educational centers that offer an alternative to Islamic extremism, but the issue has further shaken US-China ties, which were already troubled by a trade dispute.
Photo: Bloomberg
When asked by news site Axios why he has held off on imposing direct US Department of the Treasury sanctions on Chinese officials linked to Xinjiang, Trump said: “Well, we were in the middle of a major trade deal.”
“And I made a great deal, US$250 billion potentially worth of purchases,” Trump said. “And by the way, they’re buying a lot, you probably have seen.”
“And when you’re in the middle of a negotiation and then all of a sudden you start throwing additional sanctions on — we’ve done a lot. I put tariffs on China, which are far worse than any sanction you can think of,” he said.
The president last week signed legislation that would authorize sanctions against officials involved in the Xinjiang detentions.
While Treasury sanctions could hit particularly hard by targeting assets, other US government agencies, including the departments of Commerce and State, have imposed sanctions on Chinese officials over human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
The Axios interview was conducted on Friday, after the release of a book by former US national security adviser John Bolton.
Bolton says in his book that Trump told Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that he approved of the Xinjiang camps, an allegation denied by the US leader.
Bolton also says that in 2018, Trump asked Xi to ramp up US farm purchases to help him with his re-election bid this year.
“No, not at all,” Trump told Axios when asked about the request. “What I told everybody we deal with — not just President Xi — I want them to do business with this country. I want them to do a lot more business with this country.”
“What’s good for the country is good for me... What’s good for the country is also good for an election, but I don’t go around saying: ‘Oh, help me with my election.’ Why would I say that?” Trump said.
“And remember, when I’m dealing with him, the whole room is loaded up with people... I wouldn’t want to say a thing like that,” he said.
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