Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
The US has imposed visa restrictions on current and former Thai officials who were involved in the forced repatriation of Uyghur Muslims, as part of a new policy to support groups subject to torture in China.
The policy will target foreign officials who are complicit in efforts to forcibly return ethnic or religious minorities at risk of persecution to China.
“We are committed to combating China’s efforts to pressure governments to forcibly return Uyghurs and other groups to China, where they are subject to torture and enforced disappearances,” said Marco Rubio, secretary of state.
“In light of China’s long-standing acts of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against Uyghurs, we call on governments around the world not to forcibly return Uyghurs and other groups to China.”
Rubio said the action against the unnamed current and former Thai officials was a response to their involvement in forcing 40 Uyghurs to return to China in late February. Thailand is a defence treaty ally of the US but the country is nervous about antagonising China, which is much more important to the south-east Asian nation from a trade perspective.
The state department did not specify what the visa restrictions would entail, but such measures generally refer to the denial of visas to enter the US. Rubio said the measures could also apply to family members of any officials found to be facilitating repatriations.
The Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic minority from the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang. In 2022, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights accused Beijing of committing “serious human rights violations” in the way it has treated Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.
China has over time forced more than 1mn Uyghurs into detention camps in Xinjiang, sparking criticism from many countries around the world. Beijing has repeatedly denied it has persecuted the Uyghurs.
The policy is an early indication of how President Donald Trump will respond to human rights violations involving China. At the end of his first term, then secretary of state Mike Pompeo accused Beijing of committing genocide. His successor in Joe Biden’s administration, Antony Blinken, later repeated the accusation.
Rubio was one of the loudest critics of China and its human rights record when he served in the US Senate, alongside Mike Waltz, a former army Green Beret and Florida congressman who is now national security adviser.
Many China experts believe Trump wants to reach some kind of wide-ranging deal with Beijing that would involve trade and other issues. One thing they are watching out for is how the president and his officials talk about alleged human rights violations in China given the possible implications for any broader negotiations with President Xi Jinping.