China ‘Strongly Condemns’ Treasury’s Designation of Xinjiang Abuses

Beijing reacted with scorn to the Treasury Department’s designation Friday of 15 individuals and 10 entities for their alleged connections to human rights abuses in several countries. Treasury singled out Chinese tech firm SenseTime for developing facial recognition algorithms it said “can determine a target’s ethnicity, with a particular focus on identifying ethnic Uyghurs” in Xinjiang. Treasury’s action to block any business from being transacted with any of the named individuals or entities “seriously interferes in China’s internal affairs” and “gravely violates basic norms governing international relations,” said a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Monday.