Washington: The US has imposed trade sanctions on 11 companies saying all are implicated in human rights abuses in China's Muslim northwestern region of Xinjiang.
Monday's announcement added to the US pressure on Beijing over Xinjiang, where the ruling Communist Party is accused of mass detentions, forced labor and other abuses against Muslim minorities.
Xinjiang is among a series of conflicts including human rights, trade and technology that have caused US-Chinese relations to plunge to their lowest level in decades.
Read also: New leak reveals how China brutally runs Xinjiang camps
Washington has also imposed sanctions on four Chinese officials over the accusations. Beijing responded by announcing unspecified penalties on four US senators who are critics of its human rights record.
The Department of Commerce said that the addition of the 11 companies to its Entity List will limit their access to US goods and technology. It gave no details of what goods might be affected.
Read also: China vows retaliation after US ends preferential status for HKong
This action will ensure that our goods and technologies are not used in the Chinese Communist Party's despicable offensive against defenseless Muslim minority populations, said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in a statement.
China has detained an estimated 1 million or more members of its Muslim ethnic minority groups in internment camps.
The government describes them as vocational training facilities aimed at countering Muslim radicalism and separatist tendencies. It said that those facilities have since been closed, a claim that is impossible to confirm given the restrictions on visits and reporting about the region.
Veterans of the camps and family members said that those held are forced, often with the threat of violence, to denounce their religion, culture and language and swear loyalty to Communist Party leader and President Xi Jinping.
The companies cited on Monday include clothing manufacturers and technology suppliers.
Three of the companies were identified by investigations by The Associated Press in 2018 and 2020 as being implicated in forced labour.
PTI
