Context: The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a legislation calling for sanctions on Chinese officials responsible for oppression of Uighur Muslims. The Bill has been sent to the White House for President Donald Trump to veto or sign into law.
Key Points

• The Bill calls for sanctions against those responsible for repression of Uighurs and other Muslim groups in China’s Xinjiang province, where the United Nations estimates that more than a million Muslims have been detained in camps.
• It singles out the region’s Communist Party secretary, Chen Quanguo, as responsible for “gross human rights violations” against them.
• The Bill also calls on U.S. firms operating in Xinjiang region to ensure their products do not include parts using forced labour.
• This approval of legislation should be observed in the context of recent developments in the US-China relationship which have become increasingly tense.

Few noteworthy developments are:

• Covid-19 Blame: The USA President has blamed China again and again for worsening the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Trade War: Growing trade war between USA and China.
• Issue of Panchen Lama: Over the release of Tibetan Buddhism’s 11th Panchen Lama, who was taken into captivity at the age of six.
• Hong Kong’s Autonomy: China has approved a proposal for bringing new national security legislation in Hong Kong, despite apprehensions raised by the USA.
• South China Sea: China’s growing assertiveness over the South China Sea.

About Uighurs

• Uighurs are a Muslim minority community concentrated in the country’s northwestern Xinjiang province. 
• They claim closer ethnic ties to Turkey and other central Asian countries than to China, by brute — and brutal — force.
• The Uighurs are a predominantly Muslim minority Turkic ethnic group, whose origins can be traced to Central and East Asia.
• The Uighurs are considered to be one of the 55 officially recognized ethnic minority communities in China.
• However, China recognises the community only as a regional minority and rejects that they  are an indigenous group.
• A significant population of Uighurs also lives in the neighbouring Central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Why is China targeting the Uighurs?

• Xinjiang is technically an autonomous region within China — its largest region, rich in minerals, and sharing borders with eight countries, including India, Pakistan, Russia and Afghanistan.
• Over the past few decades, as economic prosperity has come to Xinjiang, it has brought with it in large numbers the majority Han Chinese,who have cornered the better jobs, and left the Uighurs feeling their livelihoods and identity were under threat.
• This led to sporadic violence, in 2009 culminating in a riot that killed 200 people, mostly Han Chinese, in the region’s capital Urumqi. And many other violent incidents have taken place since then.
• Beijing also says Uighur groups want to establish an independent state and, because of the Uighurs’ cultural ties to their neighbours, leaders fear that elements in places like Pakistan may back a separatist movement in Xinjiang.
• Therefore, the Chinese policy seems to have been one of treating the entire community as suspect,and launching a systematic project to chip away at every marker of a distinct Uighur identity.