Before leaving office, Mike Pompeo accused China of genocide
His assessment of the plight of Uyghurs will add to tension between China and America
IN ONE OF his last acts as Donald Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo declared that China’s repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang was an act of “genocide”. Antony Blinken, President Joe’s Biden nominee to succeed Mr Pompeo, said he agreed. In the fog of a presidential transition, America thereby adopted the harshest language of any country in its description of the atrocities in China’s far west. This will raise tensions and complicate relations between China and the new administration.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Xinjiang’s shadow”
From the January 23rd 2021 edition
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