US Congress approves import ban targeting China's Xinjiang

US senators gave final congressional approval Thursday to a bill banning imports from China's Xinjiang region unless businesses can prove they were produced without forced labor.

The Senate vote sends the bill to President Joe Biden who is expected to sign it into law. Press secretary Jen Psaki said this week that Biden supported the measure.

The legislation is the latest in a series intensifying US penalties over China’s alleged human rights violations.

Washington claims there is an ongoing campaign of rights abuse against Uyghurs and other Muslim groups in Xinjiang region. China denies any wrongdoing there, saying the allegations are fabricated.

The latest measure comes after months of the White House declining to take a public stand on an earlier version of the legislation.

On Tuesday, the US House of Representatives passed the legislation by unanimous voice vote after lawmakers agreed on a compromise which eliminated differences between bills introduced in the House and Senate.

Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate have been arguing over the Uyghur legislation for months.

The compromise keeps a provision creating a "rebuttable presumption" that all goods from the western autonomous region of Xinjiang, were made with forced labor, in order to bar such imports.

US Senate passes bill to ban all products from China's Xinjiang

The US Senate has passed a bill that would ban the importation of all products from China’s Xinjiang.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration also announced on Thursday new sanctions targeting several Chinese biotech and surveillance companies, and government entities, for their actions in Xinjiang.

Activists and UN rights experts say at least one million Muslims have been forced into camps in Xinjiang. Beijing, however, denies reports that Uyghurs are unfairly marginalized, saying it is addressing underdevelopment and lack of jobs in the heavily Uyghur populated areas such as Xinjiang.

Chinese officials have characterized the camps as “vocational education and employment training centers” for “criminals involved in minor offenses.”

China rejects claims of mistreating the Uyghurs, saying it has been taking anti-terrorism measures against separatists in the region who are seeking to join Takfiri outfits such as al-Qaeda.

The new US sanctions from the Commerce Department targeted China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and its 11 research institutes that focus on using biotechnology to allegedly support the Chinese military.

The move will ban American companies from selling components to the entities without a license.

China “is choosing to use these technologies to pursue control over its people and its repression of members of ethnic and religious minority groups,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo claimed in a statement. “We cannot allow US commodities, technologies, and software that support medical science and biotechnical innovation to be diverted toward uses contrary to US national security.”

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