Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned two current Chinese government officials in connection with serious human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). These designations include Wang Junzheng, the Secretary of the Party Committee of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), and Chen Mingguo, Director of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau (XPSB). Due to their roles in the XPCC and XPSB, respectively, Wang Junzheng (Wang) and Chen Mingguo (Chen) are connected to serious human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, which reportedly includes arbitrary detention and severe physical abuse, among other serious human rights abuses targeting Uyghurs, a Turkic Muslim population indigenous to Xinjiang, and other ethnic minorities in the region. Wang is designated pursuant to E.O. 13818 for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the XPCC.
On December 23, 2016, the President signed the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Pub. L. 114-328, Title XII, Subtitle F) (the “Act”) into law. The Act authorized the President to impose targeted sanctions on any foreign person the President determines is, among other things, responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, or a government official, or a senior associate of such an official, responsible for, or complicit in, ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, acts of significant corruption.
On December 20, 2017, the President, invoking the authority of, inter alia, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706) (IEEPA), issued Executive Order 13818 (82 FR 60839, December 26, 2017) (E.O. 13818), effective at 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time on December 21, 2017.
In E.O. 13818, the President determined that serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States and declared a national emergency to deal with that threat.
OFAC is issuing the Global Magnitsky Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 583 (the “Regulations”), to implement the Act and E.O. 13818, pursuant to authorities delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury in E.O. 13818. A copy of E.O. 13818 appears in appendix A to this part.
