Overview
On March 22, 2021, the EU, UK, US and Canada announced a range of coordinated sanctions to crack down on alleged serious human rights abuses in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). The coordinated announcements comprised measures of various types, including asset freezes and travel bans against individuals and entities alleged to be involved in serious human rights violations against Uyghurs and other minority groups in the XUAR. The measures elicited the swift imposition of retaliatory sanctions by China against a group of EU individuals and institutions.
EU Measures
The European Council imposed new sanctions against four Chinese individuals and one entity under the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime, as follows:
- Zhu Hailun (Former Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee of the XUAR, former Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of the XUAR, and former Deputy Head of the 13th People’s Congress of the XUAR, a regional legislative body);
- Wang Junzheng (Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of China’s XUAR, Political commissar of the XPCC, former Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee of the XUAR);
- Wang Mingshan (Member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee of the XUAR, Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee of the XUAR, former Director and Deputy Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau (XPSB));
- Chen Mingguo (Director of the XPSB since January 2021 and Vice-Chairman of the XUAR People’s Government); and
- XPCC Public Security Bureau (in charge of implementing all policies of the XPCC relating to security matters, including the management of detention centres. The XPCC is a state-owned economic and paramilitary organization in China’s XUAR, which exercises administrative authority and controls economic activities in Xinjiang).
- EU lawmakers Reinhard Butikofer, Michael Gahler, Raphaël Glucksmann, Ilhan Kyuchyuk and Miriam Lexmann;
- Dutch lawmaker Sjoerd Wiemer Sjoerdsma;
- Belgian lawmaker Samuel Cogolati;
- Lithuania lawmaker Dovile Sakaliene;
- German scholar Adrian Zenz; and
- Swedish scholar Björn Jerdén.
- the Political and Security Committee of the Council of the European Union;
- Subcommittee on Human Rights of the European Parliament;
- the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Germany; and
- the Alliance of Democracies Foundation in Denmark.