Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned one Chinese government entity and four current or former government officials in connection with serious rights abuses against ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). These designations include Chen Quanguo, the Communist Party Secretary of XUAR, and Zhu Hailun, a former Deputy Party Secretary of the XUAR. Also designated today is the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau (XPSB), as well as the current Director and Communist Party Secretary of the XPSB, Wang Mingshan, and the former Party Secretary of the XPSB, Huo Liujun. Under the command of Huo Liujun (Huo), leader of the XPSB from at least March 2017 to 2018, and Wang Mingshan (Wang), leader of the XPSB since at least May 2018, the XPSB has deployed the “Integrated Joint Operations Platform” (IJOP), an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-assisted computer system that created biometric records for millions of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region. Huo and Wang are each being designated for being a foreign person who is or has been a leader or official of an entity whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to E.O. 13818 as a result of activities related to the leaders’ or officials’ tenure.
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.
