China vows retaliation after US blacklists companies

Beijing: China on Sunday said it would take “necessary measures” to respond to the US blacklisting of Chinese companies over their alleged role in abuses of Uyghur people and other Muslim ethnic minorities.

The Commerce Ministry said the US move constituted an “unreasonable suppression of Chinese enterprises and a serious breach of international economic and trade rules”.

China would “take necessary measures to firmly safeguard Chinese companies’ legitimate rights and interests,” the ministry’s statement said.

No details were given, but China has denied allegations of arbitrary detention and forced labour in the far western region of Xinjiang and increasingly responded to sanctions against companies and officials with its own bans on visas and financial links.

The US Commerce Department said in a statement on Friday that the electronics and technology firms and other businesses helped enable “Beijing’s campaign of repression, mass detention and high-technology surveillance” against Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

The penalties prohibit Americans from selling equipment or other goods to the firms. The United States has stepped up financial and trade penalties over China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, along with its crackdown on democracy in the semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)