Efforts to establish special envoy to probe China’s genocide of Uyghurs gain steam

The long-running efforts to establish a special envoy to probe China’s genocide of its predominantly Muslim Uyghur population gained steam on Thursday.

In an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a Republican amendment requiring the State Department to create the post. The amendment will be part of a larger bill, named the Ensuring American Global Leadership and Engagement (EAGLE) Act, to combat China’s aggression on the world stage.

“This amendment will have a significant and positive impact on the urgent effort to bring additional scrutiny to the ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party in the Xinjiang Province,” said Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican and the amendment’s lead author.

Mr. Smith, as a longstanding member of the Foreign Affairs panels, has chaired more than 70 hearings on China’s human rights abuses over the years. His efforts, in particular, have focused heavily on the communist power’s crimes against humanity in its western Xinjiang province.

Xinjiang, which borders India, Pakistan and most of Central Asia, is home to 25 million people, most of whom identify as Muslim Uyghurs. Since the early 1990s, the province has seen escalating tensions between Beijing and Uyghur separatists.

In recent years, the Chinese government has used the threat of separatism and the purported ties that Uyghur independence groups have with Islamic fundamentalists to wage a campaign of repression. Using a national counterterrorism law, Beijing has imposed “mass imprisonment, forced sterilizations, torture, forced labor and draconian restrictions on religious freedom and freedom of movement” within the region.

“Beginning in 2013, the Chinese Communist Party laid the groundwork for a mass internment campaign in the Xinjiang Province that would ensnare as many as 2 million Uyghurs,” Mr. Smith said.

A report issued by the State Department in May estimates Beijing has impeded the rights of more than 200 million religious devotees, including Christians, Muslims and Buddhists.

“China broadly criminalizes religious expression and continues to commit crimes against humanity and genocide against Muslim Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minority groups,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said recently.

Mr. Smith and other lawmakers hope that passing legislation creating a special envoy for the region will be a first step in stopping the abuse.

As the legislation stands, the special envoy would have broad powers to “coordinate diplomatic, political, economic, and security activities” to investigate and expose China’s misconduct.