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Three officials will be banned from issuing US visas and any of their assets in the United States will be frozen.
These officials include Chen Quanguo, leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in western Xinjiang, the architect of Beijing’s hard line against local minorities.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington was taking action against “horrendous and systematic violations” in Xinjiang, including forced labor, mass arrests and forced birth control.
“The United States will not stand idly by when the CCP commits human rights abuses against Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs and members of other minority groups in Xinjiang,” Pompeo said in a statement.
The other two officials subject to the sanctions are Wang Mingshan, director of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau, and Zhu Hailun, a former high-ranking communist leader in the region.
The Treasury Department also imposed financial sanctions on a fourth person, Huo Liuyun, a former Xinjiang security official, but he will not be prohibited from obtaining a US visa.
Witnesses and human rights groups say China has arrested more than a million Uighurs and other Turkish Muslims in Xinjiang as part of a large-scale “re-education” campaign to assimilate minorities.
Pompeo said in a conference call with reporters on Thursday that the situation in China was a “point in the century.” The head of diplomacy has previously called the situation in Xinjiang similar to the Jewish Holocaust.
China, for its part, claims to be committed to minority education and vocational training to isolate minority members from radical Islamism, according to Beijing, which represents the same threat to the country as the United States.
Pompeo has also announced visa restrictions in recent weeks to Chinese officials for their behavior in Tibet and Beijing’s actions in the Hong Kong crackdown.
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