China announced on Monday "corresponding sanctions" against three senior Republican lawmakers and a US envoy in retaliation for visa bans and asset freezes on Chinese officials imposed by Washington over abuses of Uighur Muslim rights.
The sanctions will be applied on the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China, US State Department ambassador at large for religious freedom Sam Brownback, Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Ted Cruz and congressman Chris Smith, according to the foreign ministry.
Witnesses and human rights groups say that China has rounded up more than one million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in the Xinjiang region in a vast brainwashing campaign aimed at forcibly homogenizing minorities into the country's Han majority.
China counters that the facilities are benign vocational education centers where "students" learn Mandarin and job skills in an effort to eradicate extremism following a spate of deadly violence.
Exiled Uighurs urged the International Criminal Court on Tuesday to investigate China for genocide and crimes against humanity, filing a huge dossier of evidence with The Hague-based court to back their case.
