Home » Europe sanctions China: it is the first time since Tiananmen

Europe sanctions China: it is the first time since Tiananmen

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BRUSSELS – The clash between Europe and China is very hard, with a back-and-forth of sanctions and countermeasures that has not been seen for three decades. Yesterday, the Union’s foreign ministers imposed restrictive measures on four high-ranking Chinese officials in the Xinjiang region for human rights violations of the Muslim Uighur minority. In fact, the first sanctions with which the continent hit Beijing since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. The measures came under the new European mechanism, approved in December, which allows the EU to hit anyone who violates fundamental rights around the world. world and provide for an asset freeze and travel ban in Europe. Furthermore, in April, the heads of the diplomats of the Twenty-seven should return to strike the Dragon on Hong Kong. The People’s Republic has responded very harshly, raising the level of the clash: if Brussels has hit officials, Beijing has targeted the same institutions of the Union, European parliamentarians and think tanks including that of the former NATO secretary general. Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Brussels’ move was coordinated with major international partners, so much so that the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom have announced identical sanctions against the same Chinese officials in Xinjiang. The decision comes on the eve of the NATO ministerial with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, arriving for the first time in Brussels with the China dossier at the top of the agenda after last week’s Alaska summit clash.

Beijing’s reprisal was extremely harsh, unprecedented, with the Chinese who counterattacked immediately after the announcement in Brussels, going so far as to sanction 10 European parliamentarians and 4 entities, including two central institutions in Brussels such as Parliament and Council. A sensational move. The subcommittee of the European Parliament for Human Rights and the Politics and Security arm of the EU Council itself, the forum of EU governments that yesterday with the foreign ministers approved the measures against China, are targeted. Among the individuals sanctioned, 5 are MEPs and the others are elected in the Netherlands, Belgium and Lithuania plus two scholars. The People’s Republic justified the countermeasures by stating that the sanctions are based on “lies and disinformation, violating international law and seriously undermining relations between China and the EU”.

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High Representative Josep Borrell said that Chinese retaliation “is unacceptable: there will be no change of course on the defense of human rights”. The president of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, added that the Chinese sanctions “will have consequences”. They will be elaborated in the next few days, but the crisis seems to push away the Strasbourg vote on the investment agreement between the EU and China. The Netherlands has instead summoned the Chinese ambassador, suggesting that the issue will be resumed at the European summit the day after tomorrow. Meanwhile, yesterday the heads of diplomacy, again using the new European Magnitsky Act on human rights, sanctioned 11 perpetrators of the coup in Burma (including Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing), North Korea, Libya and those responsible for the torture of LGBT people in Chechnya.

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