China has announced that it is imposing a ban on a United States research company and two analysts who have been extensively reporting on human rights abuses committed against Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang, the country’s far northwestern region.
The Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, stated late Tuesday night that the Los Angeles-based research and data analytics firm Kharon, its director of investigations, Edmund Xu, and Nicole Morgret, a human rights analyst affiliated with the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, will be forbidden from traveling to China. In addition, any assets or property they hold in China will be frozen, and organizations and individuals in China are prohibited from conducting transactions or cooperating with them.
Mao stated on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website that the sanctions against the company and the individuals were in response to a U.S. government report on human rights in Xinjiang. Uyghurs and other native groups of the region have long resented the Chinese Communist Party’s control and assimilation attempts with the majority Han ethnic group.
Morgret wrote in a paper published in June 2022 that “The Chinese government is undertaking a concerted drive to industrialize the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), which has led to an increasing number of corporations establishing manufacturing operations there. This centrally-controlled industrial policy is a key tool in the government’s efforts to forcibly assimilate Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples through the institution of a coerced labor regime.” Such reports draw from various sources, including independent media and non-governmental organizations.
China has denied the allegations, claiming that the large-scale network of prison-like facilities aimed to rid individuals of violent, extremist tendencies and teach them job skills. Former inmates describe harsh conditions and demands to denounce their culture and praise President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party daily.
‘China will not flinch and will respond in kind’
China claims that the camps have been closed, but former inmates reportedly received lengthy prison sentences elsewhere. Access to the region by journalists, diplomats, and others is tightly controlled, as is the movement outside the region by Muslim minorities.
If the United States does not change its course, China has stated that they will not flinch and will respond in kind.
The U.S. has imposed visa bans and other sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials, and Hong Kong’s government has cracked down on freedom of speech and democracy since China imposed a national security law in response to anti-government protests in 2019.
Neither Xu nor Morgret could be reached for comment, and their degree of connection with the U.S. government was not clear.
