WASHINGTON — The Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said they triggered a requirement that the Biden administration determine within four months whether a Chinese surveillance company should be sanctioned for human rights violations against ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang province.
Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and ranking member Gregory W. Meeks, D-N.Y., last week used their positions to trigger a reporting requirement under the 2016 law known as the Global Magnitsky sanctions law about whether Chinese firm Hikvision meets the legal standards for blacklisting under the law. As heads of a congressional foreign affairs panel, McCaul and Meeks can trigger the reporting requirement. The law authorizes the president to impose sanctions on foreign individuals and entities found to have engaged in notable acts of corruption and human rights violations.
“We request that the president make a determination and authorize sanctions pursuant to the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act against Hikvision,” McCaul and Meeks said in a letter last week to President Joe Biden arguing the Chinese government-backed firm, which manufactures surveillance camera equipment, has a “clear track record in enabling international recognized human rights violations in Xinjiang.”
