The United States sanctions Chinese Communist Party officials for oppressing and murdering people. The CCP sanctions U.S. officials for criticizing China for oppressing and murdering people, criticism that China calls “interfering in China’s internal affairs.”
U.S. Representative Jim McGovern says that if leaders of the People’s Republic of China “don’t like it when people speak out against their horrific human rights record, maybe they should improve their horrific human rights record. They can start by ending their oppression of Tibetans, ending their genocide in Xinjiang, and ending their crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong.”
Congressman McGovern, you are correct (“China sanctions US lawmaker for criticizing Beijing’s human rights record,” Radio Free Asia, July 31, 2024).
The sanctions against McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, prohibit him from engaging in any transactions or other activities with organizations and individuals in China. They also bar him and his family from entering the country, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
The sanctions took effect on Wednesday as a “countermeasure” against McGovern’s actions and statements that “interfere in China’s internal affairs and undermine China’s sovereignty, security and development interests,” the ministry said.
McGovern told Radio Free Asia that the sanctions’ timing suggests they are a reaction to a U.S. bill on Tibet that President Joe Biden signed into law earlier this month and to McGovern’s meeting with the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, at his home in Dharamsala, India, in June.
China has punished many other U.S. politicians and notables for a variety of “interferences” in China’s internal affairs, not excluding the intereference of spending time with the Dalai Lama.
