The last EU sanctions against Beijing date back to the arms embargo implemented after the events of Tiananmen… more than thirty years ago.
Meeting in Brussels on Monday, European foreign ministers this time chose to walk the talk of the crackdown on the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang.
The sanctions they have given the green light target an entity and four senior Chinese officials.
Chen Mingguo, director of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau, senior officials Wang Mingshan and Wang Junzheng as well as ex-chief of China's Xinjiang region, Zhu Hailun, are now banned from traveling to the EU, and any assets they hold in the Union are frozen.
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Uighur camps: China on the dock
These unprecedented decisions are based on the new framework adopted by the EU at the end of 2020 to condemn human rights violations in the world and which is inspired by the Magnitsky law.
The Twenty-Seven had used it for the first time, in early March, by sanctioning senior Russian officials involved in the arrest and imprisonment of the opponent Alexei Navalny.
Besides China, ministers also sanctioned North Korea, Libya, Russia - on Monday for crackdowns on homosexuals, Eritrea and South Sudan, targeting a total of seven other people and three entities.
During their meeting, the Europeans also approved sanctions against eleven Burmese personalities, including the head of the military junta in power in Burma, General Min Aung Hlaing, nine of the highest ranking officers of the armed forces as well as the chairman of the electoral commission, for the repression carried out in the country since the coup.
Chinese response
EU diplomats seem determined to promote this new framework of sanctions which allows them to react much faster than in the past to human rights abuses observed in a third country.
As the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, recalled, the protection of human rights is "
one of the crucibles of the values of the Union
".
The participation on Monday of Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in the meeting of European diplomats is also not unrelated to the EU's decisions to strike hard, especially on China.
Moreover, a few hours after the announcement of the sanctions against Beijing, Washington, London and Ottawa in turn announced restrictive measures against Chinese personalities and entities, in what looked like a concerted operation.
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Uyghurs of Xinjiang: how China found itself in an impasse in a few weeks
Should we see in these unprecedented sanctions a turning point or a "simple" cooling in relations between China and the EU just three months after the agreement reached on investments, the finalization of which already seemed very fragile?
Be that as it may, Beijing reacted immediately, denouncing a "
decision which is based on nothing but lies and disinformation, ignores and distorts the facts
" and by announcing in turn that it blacklisted ten Europeans and four EU entities.
Among the personalities targeted, researchers, politicians and MEPs including the French Raphaël Glucksmann.
"
Those affected and their families are not allowed to enter the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and China,
"
China's
foreign ministry said.
"
China does not respond to any of the concerns of the EU and veils its face,
"
replied
calmly the head of European diplomacy.
The EU does not intend to back down.