WASHINGTON—The Trump administration concluded that China has committed “genocide and crimes against humanity” against the Uighur ethnic group, delivering a forceful condemnation to Beijing over a mass repression campaign that has yet to prompt tough international action.
The determination, which was announced in a statement Tuesday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, accuses China of imprisoning, torturing and carrying out forced sterilization against the Uighurs, a Muslim minority group.
“I believe this genocide is ongoing, and that we are witnessing the systematic attempt to destroy Uighurs by the Chinese party-state,” Mr. Pompeo said. He said that Communist Party authorities “are engaged in the forced assimilation and eventual erasure of a vulnerable ethnic and religious minority group.”
The genocide designation, which also applies to other minority groups in Xinjiang, doesn’t carry any automatic legal consequences, but it puts pressure on other nations, and U.S. allies in particular, to consider sanctions and take other steps to condemn Beijing’s policies.
Antony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden’s choice for secretary of state, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday that he agreed that “forcing men, women and children into concentration camps” constituted genocide. The Biden campaign said in an August statement that the Chinese government’s actions constituted genocide and added that Mr. Biden “stands against it in the strongest terms.”