There is no reason for China not to respond to the sanctions the United States has imposed on four Chinese officials for being the alleged perpetrators of "genocide" in Xinjiang, which is an utter fabrication.

What Washington has done with its long-arm coercion based on domestic law violates the conventions of international relations.

In its tit-for-tat response, China has imposed sanctions on four members of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. USCIRF chairwoman Nadine Maenza, vice chair Nury Turkel, and commissioners Anurima Bhargava and James W. Carr are prohibited from entering China and their assets on the Chinese mainland and in Hong Kong and Macao have been frozen.

Nadine Maenza, the USCIRF chairwoman, has on many occasions, told lies about Xinjiang. Once when interviewed, she said that more than 1 million Uygurs in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region were held in concentration camps and their blood and DNA samples were taken, and their organs would be harvested at any time. How did she come to make such absurd claims? Who fed her such lies?

The vice chair of the USCIRF, Nury Turkel, was born in Xinjiang. The lies he has told about Xinjiang are well documented. When he was interviewed by BBC in 2018, he stated that about 1 million Uygurs were detained in secret camps. He has not visited China since he left in 1995, so how would he be able to verify such a fact, which is in fact nonsense?

Nury Turkel is closely related to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and was once vice-chairman of the World Uygur Congress' US association.

The other two commissioners have also told lies on many occasions about Xinjiang.

The USCIRF releases a report every year about religious freedom in other countries. The lies and fabrications the report contains are what Washington uses as a pretext to wield its weapon of sanctions against any country it does not like.

The four members of the USCIRF know nothing about China and the situation in Xinjiang. They are bold enough to tell lies simply because of their ignorance. And the USCIRF itself has no qualms about accepting as truth whatever it is told by secessionists or extremists simply because it is a commission under the US government, which is hostile to China.

In the US, it seems that anything that portrays China as bad or evil which is spread on the grapevine is accepted as truth.

Organizations such as the USCIRF have been established simply to smear countries such as China that the US is trying to suppress. But China's principled development in all respects will prove the futility of their efforts.