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New Zealand and Australia have issued a joint statement supporting the United States, United Kingdom, European Union and Canada in sanctioning Chinese officials for abuse of Uighurs, but neither country has said it will join the effort.
The countries announced sanctions on Monday targeting officials in Xinjiang, a western Chinese province that is home to the Uighur minority. The sanctions were aimed at freezing the assets of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), a paramilitary force responsible for human rights abuses.
The “intensive diplomacy”, as British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab put it, was met with an immediate response from China, sanctioning 10 EU parliamentarians and academics, and four EU organizations.
New Zealand lacks the legal mechanisms to unilaterally apply such sanctions outside the United Nations framework. But, in a statement of support issued Tuesday, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta issued some of her strongest comments yet on “gross human rights abuses.”
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A Uighur detention or re-education camp in China’s Xinjiang province.
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Mahuta, along with Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne, said in the statement that both countries welcomed the sanctions and “share the deep concerns of these countries, which remain in the communities of New Zealand and Australia.” .
“The Governments of New Zealand and Australia today reiterate their grave concern over the growing number of credible reports of serious human rights abuses against ethnic Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang,” the statement from the foreign ministers read. .
ROBERT KITCHEN / Things
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta joined a statement with her Australian counterpart on Tuesday in response to sanctions imposed on Xinjiang officials for abuse of the Uighur minority.
“In particular, there is clear evidence of serious human rights abuses including restrictions on freedom of religion, mass surveillance, large-scale extrajudicial detentions, as well as forced labor and birth control, including sterilization,” they continued.
“Today we underscore the importance of transparency and accountability, and we reiterate our call on China to grant meaningful and unrestricted access to Xinjiang for United Nations experts and other independent observers.”
Neither country promised to apply the sanctions. New Zealand cannot unilaterally apply sanctions because the Government in 2020 abandoned the Autonomous Sanctions Bill, which would have created an independent punishment regime outside the United Nations Security Council.
Mahuta said it was not a mistake to abandon the Autonomous Sanctions Bill, “because we mainly rely on the United Nations as our guide to inform at the highest level what actions can be taken.”
When asked if New Zealand was asked to join the effort, Mahuta said: “Countries are really aware of the internal context and whether or not we have a sanctions regime. We do not.”
Mahuta and his cabinet colleagues have faced questions about the government’s handling of China’s abuse of the Uighur people. Last week’s deleted Stuff Circuit documentary revealed connections between some companies that had received government funding and a Chinese technology company, iFlytek, which provided voice recognition technology used in human rights violations against Uighurs.
Beijing has detained more than a million people, most of them Uighurine Muslims in Xinjiang, claiming that the mass detention is education and professional training aimed at curbing a terrorist threat.
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Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne.
The United States said in January that China’s actions amounted to genocide, and New Zealand has joined statements at the United Nations about “a growing number of reports of serious human rights violations.”
Raab issued a statement on Monday saying that the XPCC and four senior Xinjiang officials would be the target of the joint sanctions. The officials were Zhu Hailun, Wang Junzheng, Wang Mingshan and Chen Mingguo, each with security and legal affairs functions in the region.
The US Treasury Department targeted both Wang Junzheng and Chen in its sanctions.
After the EU announced its sanctions, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a condemnation: “This measure, based solely on lies and misinformation, ignores and distorts the facts, seriously interferes in China’s internal affairs, flagrantly violates international law and the basic rules governing international relations “. , and seriously undermines China-EU relations. “
Andy Wong / AP
A Uyghur boy plays alone in the backyard of a house in Unity New Village in Hotan, in China’s western Xinjiang region.
