The EU, in coordination with the U.K., U.S., and Canada have announced sanctions on a number of high-ranking Chinese government officials and state-owned companies based on allegations of human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region of northwestern China. The sanctions restrict travel and freeze assets of some senior officials, coming only a few days after the tense first official US-China meeting under the new Biden administration held in Anchorage, Alaska. The U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, in an official statement, accused the Chinese government of committing crimes against humanity and genocide and called for the end of abuse towards Uyghur Muslims and other minorities. On the same note, the U.K.’s foreign minister stated that the coordinated move will send a clear signal of the international community’s denunciation of oppressive practices in Xinjiang. This is not the first time that China has been sanctioned over accusations of human rights abuses. In 1989, the EU imposed sanctions on China following the Tiananmen Square Massacre, where thousands of pro-democracy protestors were brutally killed.

Human rights groups around the world have long voiced concerns over the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghur population. The Uyghurs are an ethnic minority  native to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in northwestern China, with a population of around 12.8 million people. They have their own languages and are ethnically close to central Asian countries. Multiple reports suggest that over a million Uyghurs are now held in a network of “thought-transformation” or “re-education” camps that seem to be designed to suppress Uyghur culture. In these camps, there is a massive violation of basic human rights such as freedom of movement, freedom of thought, religion, opinion and expression, freedom of bearing children, and freedom of political expression, all in the name of eradicating “terrorism and radical thinking”. According to recent reports, more than 380 of these camps now exist in the Xinjiang region, showing a 40% increase from previous years. 

The new sanctions from the Western countries are the first punitive measures taken against the Chinese government regarding Xinjiang, despite how serious and urgent the situation is. It was too convenient for governments to turn a deaf ear to the cries and calls for help from human rights organizations. Even though the Uyghur genocide has massive repercussions on global stability and general human morality, the “global leaders” failed to do anything other than issuing condemning statements. China’s economic strength has helped their cause; none of the world’s powerful nations wanted to anger their top trading partner. Silence seemed to be the better option. Even former president Donald Trump, who criticized China on multiple occasions, did not take any concrete action against their treatment of Uyghurs. Washington tried to compel Trump to take action in early 2019 against what they referred to as “China’s worst collective rights abuse in decades”. However, the U.S. government only came into action under the Biden administration.

The Chinese government was quick to retaliate with sanctions on high-ranking EU politicians, accusing Western nations of “disregarding and distorting facts”. They went on to urge the EU to reflect on itself and not lecture others on basic human rights. While attempting to better human rights conditions in China is a noble cause, the current internal states of Western nations and the sudden timing of the sanctions begs the question of whether the sanctions are just another power play by the West. Without properly addressing the anti-Asian and anti-Muslim problems spreading in America and Europe, it is questionable whether the sanctions are truly about Muslim Asians halfway across the world. 

However, hypocrisy aside, China’s detainment of more than a million people is extremely immoral and requires immediate global attention. Confronting China on what it considers an internal affair is difficult. But what’s happening in China has effects that transcend the borders of Xinjiang, and better, more pragmatic approaches are needed to put an end to the current humanitarian crisis.