U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has ordered a review to determine whether China’s repression of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang amounts to genocide, several officials and people familiar with the matter said, raising expectations that America’s top diplomat may charge China with committing genocide before he leaves office next month.
Pompeo has instructed Morse Tan, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for the Office of Global Criminal Justice, to oversee the internal review. The review would involve an assessment by the State Department’s acting legal advisor, Marik String, and the head of the State Department’s internal intelligence shop, as well as the department’s human rights and regional bureaus, according to current and former officials.
