U.S. State Department reiterates Chinese genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang: responsibilities from concentration camps to supply chains questioned

American Conservative MediaThe Daily Signal on September 5 thatA spokesman for the U.S. State Department Press Operations Office, in response to the media’s inquiries, said: “The United States confirms that the CCP is committing genocide and crimes against humanity against Xinjiang Uighurs and other ethnic and religious minorities.”The report was transmitted by Luther on September 6.And listen to it on the same day.

The significance of the phrase is that it is not a new retorical label, but a continuation of the U.S. government’s strictest legal and political qualities on Xinjiang since 2021.19 January 2021Mr. Pompeo, then U.S. Secretary of State, officially acknowledged that the People’s Republic of China under the leadership of the Communist Party of China committed genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang against the Uighur-majority Muslim minority.

What needs to be clearly distinguished at the moment is that the September 1st State Department response is an e-mail response obtained through the Daily Signal reporter’s query and has not yet seen the State Department website separate statement released on the same day; but it is consistent with the previous public documents, annual reports and senior officials of the State Department of the United States.

The United Nations system is slightly different from the United States.United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights releases report on human rights assessment in Xinjiang in 2022The United Nations report does not directly use the definition of “genocide,” but its chain of evidence on mass detention, torture, sexual violence, forced labor, religious oppression, family separation and close surveillance has broken Beijing’s so-called “Centre for Vocational Training.”

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Uighur Human Rights Program, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial and other agencies have continued to record the atrocities of Xinjiang over the past few years. Related surveys indicate that the CCP has established a system of mass detention and re-education in Xinjiang that systematically strikes religious life, language culture, family structures and social connections. Human rights organizations report also recorded issues such as forced labor, forced political infiltration, arbitrary detention, torture and high-pressure surveillance. These materials are corroborated with satellite images, leaked documents, survivor testimonies, government tender documents and supply chain investigations, and constitute the main basis for understanding the repression of Xinjiang in the outside world.

Beijing has long denied the allegations. Chinese officials have often called Xinjiang’s policies anti-terrorism, de-extremism and employment promotion, claiming that so-called “training center” students have graduated, and have denounced external investigations as “anti-Chinese lies”. But Chinese official sources cannot be regarded as independent evidence. It is both the accused party and the controller of the information blockade and propaganda system. A regime that does not allow independent media, international investigators, Uighur families and victims free speech, and does not qualify to demand that the outside world unconditionally believe in its self-defense.

The most terrifying thing about Xinjiang is not just the concentration camps or detention facilities themselves, but that the Communist Party of China makes an entire ethnic and religious group secure, hostile and suspicious. A person’s prayer, bearding a beard, wearing a headscarf, using Uighur language, contacting overseas relatives, downloading communications software, refusing political infusion, can all be included in the risk label.

This governance is not a “local policy exaggeration” in the traditional sense, but the deep logic of the party-state system in Xinjiang’s extreme. The CCP does not recognize that individuals have rights before the state, nor does it recognize that ethnic, religious and cultural communities can exist independently of the party’s ideology. For it, any identity that cannot be fully shaped and domesticated by the party can be viewed as a threat. Thus, Xinjiang has become a field of testing: big data police, networking management, facial recognition, cellphone inspection, compulsory learning, labor transfer and propaganda brainwashing are here to be combined into a complete social control machine.

The legal judgment of genocide requires proof of intent, while crimes against humanity emphasize widespread or systematic attacks on civilians. The United States chose "genocide and crimes against humanity" and used it, meaning that Washington believes that the CCP is not only systematically persecuting Xinjiang minority groups, but its policies have the intention of destroying the identity, life and continuity of groups such as Uighurs. While the UN does not use the word "genocide", the facts listed in its report are sufficient to illustrate that this is not a common human rights violation, but a systemic project carried out by the state machine against specific groups.

Forced labor is a key link in Xinjiang’s chain of responsibility that extends from the human rights scene to the global market.The United States adoptedPreventing Forced Labor of UighursEstablish a “refutable presumption” mechanism that implicitly involves forced labor for goods from Xinjiang or associated entities unless importers can prove the contrary with clear and credible evidence. This mechanism hits where China is most afraid: it connects concentration camps, labor transfers, state-owned enterprises and export supply chains, turning human rights crimes into compliance issues that, customs, investors and consumers cannot avoid.

This is why Xinjiang is not a “Western hype for China’s internal affairs.” Cotton, tomatoes, polycrystalline silicon, textiles, automotive parts, battery materials, electronics and agricultural processing products could be associated with Xinjiang’s risk of forced labor. The Chinese side blocked the testimony of victims while packaging the supply chain as “poor jobs”; while rejecting independent investigation, while demanding that global enterprises continue to procure. It hopes the world will only see cheap commodities and stable production capacity, without seeing the back of detention, fear and forced silence.

According to Focus China, the U.S. State Department once again reaffirmed the characteristics of Xinjiang’s “genocide and crimes against humanity” to warn the outside world not to be delayed by the time of Beijing’s tactical paralysis. The Chinese government’s best job is not to prove its innocence, but to wait for the world to be tired: such as the media to shift the focus, such as enterprises to resume transactions, such as diplomatic relations, such as victims’ voices being flooded by noise.

First, the United States and its allies should continue to expand sanctions on relevant Xinjiang officials, public security systems, corps entities, surveillance enterprises and forced labor supply chain enterprises. Second, customs and regulators should require enterprises to disclose deeper supply chains and not to allow the washing of Xinjiang products through third-party processing, transfer trade or mixed raw materials. Third, universities, research institutions and technology companies should review cooperation with Chinese surveillance enterprises, public security systems and Xinjiang projects. Fourth, democratic nations should provide clearer asylum and witness protection mechanisms for persecuted groups such as Uighurs, Kazakhstan, Kalkuz.

At the same time, international institutions can’t stay on “attention” and “call”. The UNHCR’s report of 2022 has provided a sufficiently serious basis for facts that require continuous follow-up, independent investigation and accountability mechanisms, rather than documentation in archives. China uses the UN system’s procedures, voting and the diplomatic network of developing countries to mitigate Xinjiang, and democracies and human rights agencies must bring evidence, witnesses from victims and supply chain accountability back to the public agenda.

The report has several facts that need to be further verified: First, whether the full original and text of the US State Department e-mail response of September 1 will be further disclosed by the State Department or a reporter. Second, when the US State Department Human Rights Report for 2025 will be released and whether the same quality will continue to be used. Third, whether new Xinjiang forced labor entities have recently been included in the U.S. or allied sanctions and import restrictions list. Fourth, whether Beijing will make a new diplomatic response to this State Department statement.

Regardless of how the above details advance, the core facts are clear: the U.S. government still characterizes the conduct of the Communist Party of China in Xinjiang as genocide and crimes against humanity; the UNHCR considers the existence of Xinjiang to constitute a serious violation of crimes against humanity; and a large number of human rights organizations, survivors’ testimonies and public documents continue to point to the establishment of a systemic repression mechanism by the Communist Party in Xinjiang.

The real question is not whether the outside world is “blocking China,” but why the Chinese Communist Party does not dare to allow independent investigations, free interviews, victim testimony and family reunification.A regime that claims to be innocent does not need to turn the whole region into a surveillance cage; a government that truly respects the rights of ethnic minorities does not consider religion, language, family ties and cultural memories as criminal suspicions; and a normal country does not allow concentration camps, forced labor and global supply chains to exist at the same time.

Xinjiang is one of the clearest evidence of the evil nature of the Communist Party of China: it abolishes freedom in the name of national security, masks slavery in the name of development, destroys national identity in the name of national unity, and punishes the entire ethnic group in the name of counter-terrorism.For such crimes, silence is tolerance, forgetting is help.The international community must push Xinjiang’s responsibility from statements to sanctions, justice, cutting off supply chains and protecting victims, otherwise the promise of “never come again” will become empty again.