Pompeo Declares China’s Crackdown on Uighurs ‘Genocide’

With less than 24 hours left in office, the Trump administration on Tuesday declared that China’s violent repression against its Uighur population constituted a genocide, following widespread condemnation of the Chinese government’s campaign of mass internment, forced labor, forced sterilization, and other human rights violations against more than 1 million Muslim minorities.

The move follows four years of growing tensions between the United States and China, as outgoing Trump administration officials describe Beijing as the biggest threat to U.S. national security in the coming century. It also represents a significant last-minute escalation in the standoff between the two rival superpowers just a day before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.