BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union agreed on Wednesday to blacklist Chinese officials for human rights abuses, two diplomats said, the first sanctions against Beijing since the 1989 EU arms embargo after the repression in the Plaza Tiananmen.
EU ambassadors approved a travel ban and asset freeze for four Chinese individuals and an entity, whose names will not be released until the formal approval of EU foreign ministers on March 22, as part of a new sanctions list. broader copyright law.
While the sanctions are mostly symbolic, the adoption marks a significant tightening in EU policy towards China, which Brussels has long considered a benign trading partner, but now sees as a systematic abuser of basic rights and freedoms.
The 1989 EU arms embargo on China, its second largest trading partner, is still in place.
“Restrictive measures against serious human rights violations and abuses have been adopted,” said an EU diplomat.
Chinese officials have been accused of human rights abuses against China’s Uighur Muslim minority, EU diplomats told Reuters. They said the change reflects a deep concern for Uighurs in Europe, the United States and Canada.
UN rights activists and experts say at least 1 million Muslims are being detained in camps in remote western Xinjiang. Activists and some Western politicians accuse China of using torture, forced labor and sterilizations.
The Dutch parliament followed Canada and the United States in labeling China’s treatment of Uighurs as genocide, which China rejects.
On Twitter, the Chinese EU mission republished comments on the new sanctions made on Tuesday by China’s ambassador to the bloc, Zhang Ming, saying Beijing would not change its policies.
“The sanctions are conflicting,” said the Chinese mission on Twitter. “We want dialogue, not confrontation. We ask the EU side to think twice. If some insist on confrontation, we will not back down, because we have no other option but to fulfill our responsibilities to the people ”.
China denies any human rights violations in Xinjiang and says its camps offer vocational training and are needed to fight extremism. Beijing has on several occasions invited EU ambassadors to Xinjiang, but envoys say they are unable to visit them under the strict conditions and monitoring established by Chinese authorities.
The EU also called for the release of Uighur economics professor Ilham Tohti, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2014. He received the European Parliament’s human rights award in 2019.
The full list of EU sanctions with 11 names approved by EU ambassadors also includes officials from Russia, Libya, South Sudan and North Korea, diplomats said.
Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Alex Richardson and Hugh Lawson