China slaps retaliatory sanctions on 2 Americans over Tibet 

DHARAMSALA, 26 Dec: China has announced sanctions against two Americans “as countermeasures to the illegal US sanctions against two Chinese officials” over human rights abuses in Tibet earlier this month. 

“In recent years, every time the US has harmed China’s national interests, China has launched reciprocal countermeasures in a timely manner,” Chinese state-run media, Global Times reported citing the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Friday as it announced sanctions on Todd Stein, Deputy Staff Director of the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China(CECC) and historian Miles Yu.

According to the report, Beijing’s sanctions are in retaliation for the sanctions imposed on two Chinese officials by the United States over human rights issues in Chinese-occupied Tibet earlier this month on 9 Dec.

China has maintained that the “US sanctions against Chinese officials are pure interference in China’s internal affairs and completely illegal” while declaring that the two Americans “China has sanctioned fully deserve it.”

On Dec. 9, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Wu Yingjie, the top official in Tibet from 2016 to 2021, and Zhang Hongbo, the chief of Chinese police in Tibet since 2018 for serious human rights abuse in Tibet.

“Both are representative figures who have performed extremely badly on China-related issues for a long time,” the report added.

According to media reports, China will now freeze Yu and Stein’s assets in China and ban any organisation or individual within China from engaging with them. 

Additionally, the duo and their family members are also banned from entering China. 

Todd Stein has joined the CECC in March 2021. Previously, he has worked on a range of foreign policy and human rights issues from the perspectives of the U.S. Congress, the Executive Branch and the NGO sector. He has previously served as the senior advisor to Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights Sarah Sewall, including as lead staffer in her dual role as Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues.  He also served as the Director of Government Relations at the International Campaign for Tibet.

Miles Yu is an American historian and strategist who served as the principal China policy and planning adviser to former United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

According to media reports, neither Stein nor Yu could immediately be reached for comment.