China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has contradicted the White House‘s claim that President Joe Biden spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping about genocide and forced labor.
The Chinese MFA claimed that Biden didn’t raise concerns about the ethical nature of some of China‘s alleged treatment of minority groups.
The Chinese MFA cited the White House press secretary’s comments about the conversation calling it “disinformation.”
“According to White House Press Secretary, ‘genocide’ & ‘forced labor’ came up in last night’s call between Chinese [and] US Presidents,” the spokesperson for China’s MFA said on Twitter. “That is disinformation.”
According to White House Press Secretary, “genocide” & “forced labor” came up in last night’s call between Chinese & US Presidents. That is disinformation. pic.twitter.com/sKdZQfqVnJ
— CHINA MFA Spokesperson 中国外交部发言人 (@MFA_China) July 29, 2022
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Thursday that the president brought up concerns about forced labor and ethnic cleansing in China, Fox News reported.
“Pure lies,” MFA spokesperson Lijian Zhao, said according to Fox News. “White House spokesperson said the issues of genocide and forced labor were mentioned in the call last night, that is false information.”
The contradiction between the White House and the Chinese government came after a Thursday morning call between Biden and Xi where the Chinese leader spoke to Biden for over two hours according to Fox News.
This was the fifth phone conversation between the two presidents and addressed issues of international diplomacy.
As IJR previously reported, Xi warned Biden that the United States would be playing with “fire” if U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visits the island of Taiwan.
“Those who play with fire will only get burnt,” Chinese state media quote Xi as telling Biden, according to Reuters. “(We) hope the U.S. side can see this clearly.”
According to Reuters’ recent reporting, a visit from the House speaker would be seen as a show of support for the island nation.
China has been accused of genocide of the Uyghurs people with escapees alleging that there is physical, mental, and sexual torture taking place in camps where Uyghurs people are kept, according to the BBC.
Some groups estimate that China could be imprisoning up to 3 million Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region and carrying out forced sterilizations and abortions, according to Fox News. China claims that these camps are nothing more than “re-education” facilities to combat Islamic extremism.
However, the country was recently found to be lobbying the United Nations to block the publication of a report by the UN’s top human rights body about the conditions of Uygurs and other minority groups in China, according to the South China Morning Post.
