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Opinion | Western sanctions on China, just another failed containment tactic

By Alan Leung, Blogger specialized in current affairs

On Monday the US, EU, UK and Canada ganged together and imposed unilateral sanctions on some Chinese officials and an entity in Xinjiang over alleged human rights abuses, accusing China of detaining over a million Uygurs and other ethnic minorities in re-education camps without any verifiable or evidence. This is a clear sign of dramatic escalation in tension between the west and Beijing and that the new Joe Biden administration plans to wield its alliances as a weapon to contain China.

The EU announced its sanctions first, naming four Chinese officials and one entity in Xinjiang, and the UK and Canada soon followed sanctioning the same officials and entities. While the US Treasury Department added Chen Mingguo and Wang Junzheng to its list of sanctioned individuals, as others were already on the US sanctions lists last July, Australia and New Zealand, members of the US lead five eyes bloc, also announced their own sanctions shortly.

China hit back almost immediately, imposing sanctions on 10 European individuals and four entities, and some of American's most vocal anti-China hawks, including Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, Congressman Chris Smith and US ambassador at large for international religious freedom Sam Brownback. Sanctioned individuals and their families will be banned from entering mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, while companies and institutions associated with them are also restricted from doing business with China.

The unfounded and baseless human right abuse allegations originated from various studies and reports by Adrian Zenz, a self proclaimed expert on China. Zenz is a PhD supervisor and researcher at the European School of Culture and Theology, a missionary school in Germany with connection to the Columbia International University, an evangelical university in South Carolina, and a senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a CIA related and US Government funded NGO in Washington D.C..

There is absolutely no evidence supporting Zenz's self-proclaimed expertise on China from his education or credentials, but a mountain of evidence that suggests Zenz is a far-right evangelical connected to American's regime change organizations and the CIA. Nonetheless, western media reports and studies on the topics still relied heavily upon the dubious studies of Adrian Zenz as a primary source, without ever checking its authenticity as if the authenticity of the source doesn't seem to matter.

What's more, even the recent Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy report that accused China of Uyghur genocide that was heavily reported in western media outlets from CNN to The Guardian and quoted by some as a "landmark" independent analysis, the basis of the current round of genocide accusation and sanctions, was once again heavily based upon Zenz's reports with the rest of the sources cited from the US Government propaganda mouthpiece, radio Free Asia, and claims made by US regime change organizations, the NED funded World Uyghur Congress.

The Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy report attempted to create credibility with a list of 33 so-called "independent expert" signatories, however if we take a closer look at the list which included Adrian Zenz, members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China and members of the two think tanks behind the report, the Newlines Institute and the Wallenberg Centre. The report was clearly created by a like-minded narrowly focused community, and was never a fair report based on truth.

Moreover, European constant claims of its determination to defend human rights and to respond to serious violations and abuses during the implementation of these sanctions against China is simply a bad joke, since they kept a complete silent when the US imposed sanctions on senior officials in the International Criminal Court (ICC) over investigation on US forces committed war crimes in Afghanistan. They also failed to act after US Intelligence Report clearly showed that the Saudi Arabia Prince was responsible for the Jamal Khasboggi journalist murder.

Hence, every sensible mind should be able to see the motive behind the actions. It's extremely clear when unilateral sanctions can be imposed on China based on such dubious evidence which are collectively taken as the truths as it without any form of doubts while keeping silents towards friendly countries crimes, that the new round of sanctions have nothing to do with human rights abuse or genocide but simply a part of the US lead slandering and containment campaign on China.

In addition, the US, UK, France, Germany and Australia voted against the 2020 UN resolution on eliminating of racism and racial discrimination, which China voted in support. While many European countries who played part in the recent sanctions on China were amongst the 44 countries which were absent during the vote. Many of such actions over time clearly proved the real values of these governments and their hypocrisy.

Finally, human rights has become just another weapon in the hands of the West and China will not yield to these sanctions, because they know it will only lead to more absurd and outrageous accusations. These kinds of bullying tactics will only end up assisting the Chinese government in uniting its people. The Chinese people are not stupid and the more Western counties tries to contain China the more it proves to them that their government is doing the right thing, because it clear that the west feel their sense of superiority being threaten by the inevitable rise of China.

China is no longer the "sick man of the East".

 

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

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