The annual report outlined widespread abuses by the Chinese government against the estimated 200 million religious believers, including Christians, Muslims and Buddhists.
Despite Mr. Blinken’s statement, the annual report said the department is reviewing the genocide designation announced earlier this year by his predecessor, Mike Pompeo. That indicates the Biden administration is still weighing whether to back away from the label, which has drawn intense criticism from the Chinese government. Beijing denies its actions amount to genocide.
The State Department has said crimes carried out in China’s western Xinjiang province include mass imprisonment, forced sterilizations, torture, forced labor and draconian restrictions on religious freedom and freedom of movement.
In that article, like the Global Times piece, Maj. Gayl used terminology also employed in Chinese propaganda, describing the self-governing island as “renegade Taiwan” and Taiwan’s ruling pro-independence political party as “separatist.”
“The U.S. could advise Taiwan’s secessionists to peaceably accept ‘one country, two systems’ and cease its ‘independence’ ambitions,” Maj. Gayl said in the Global Times article.
But Beijing’s critics say China’s “one country, two systems” narrative was shattered last year in Hong Kong when the central government began dismantling the former British colony’s separate democratic system, one that had been permitted under the 1997 agreement ending Britain’s colonial rule.