Twitter has locked the account of China's US embassy, citing "dehumanisation" after a statement on the restive Xinjiang province. News agency Reuters reported that the Chinese Embassy account, @ChineseEmbinUS, posted a tweet saying that Uyghur women were no longer "baby-making machines", citing a study reported by state-backed newspaper China Daily. The tweet is now no longer available. "We have taken action on this Tweet for violating our policy against dehumanisation," according to a Twitter statement. "Twitter prohibits the dehumanisation of a group of people based on their religion, caste, age, disability, serious disease, national origin, race, or ethnicity."
China has imprisoned more than one million people, including Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups, in a vast network of concentration camps, according to US officials and human rights groups. People have been subjected to torture, sterilisation and political indoctrination in addition to forced labor as part of an assimilation campaign in a region whose inhabitants are ethnically and culturally distinct from the Han Chinese majority.
The United States has already hardened its position against China, hitting the country with new sanctions by declaring that China's policies on Muslims and ethnic minorities in western Xinjiang Province constitute a "genocide." Many of those accused of having taken part in repression in Xinjiang are already under US sanctions, and this label seems to be Trump administration's parting kick against China.
Since last year, the administration has steadily ramped up pressure on Beijing, imposing sanctions on numerous officials and companies for their activities in Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong and the South China Sea.
Five days ago, the administration announced it would halt imports of cotton and tomatoes from Xinjiang with Customs and Border Protection officials saying they would block products from there suspected of being produced with forced labor.
Xinjiang is a major global supplier of cotton, so the order could have significant effects on international commerce. The Trump administration has already blocked imports from individual companies linked to forced labor in the region, and the US has imposed sanctions on Communist Party officials with prominent roles in the campaign.
