2LT International News

BEIJING, China: In a rebuke to the United States and other western countries, the foreign ministers of China and Russia met on Tuesday to reaffirm their countries’ close ties, while denouncing criticism of human rights abuses in their countries.

China’s Wang Yi and Russia’s Sergei Lavrov rejected outside criticism of their authoritarian political systems, claiming their countries are working on international issues, such as climate change and the coronavirus pandemic.

Meeting in the Chinese city of Nanning, Wang and Lavrov said the U.S. was interfering in other countries’ affairs, while urging the U.S. to rejoin the Iran nuclear agreement.

During a news conference on Tuesday, Wang was critical of the ongoing coordinated sanctions brought by the European Union, Britain, Canada and the United States against Chinese officials over human rights abuses in China’s far western Xinjiang region.

“Countries should stand together to oppose all forms of unilateral sanctions,” Wang said, as reported by the Associated Press. “These measures will not be embraced by the international community.”

Russia’s Lavrov noted that western sanctions were bringing together China and Russia, while accusing the West of “imposing their own rules on everyone else, which they believe should underpin the world order.”

“If Europe broke these relations, simply destroying all the mechanisms that have been created for many years … then, probably, objectively, this leads to the fact that our relations with China are developing faster than what’s left of relations with European countries,” Lavrov said.

The west imposed sanctions on China following its imprisoning up to 1 million Uyghur and other Muslim minority groups from Xinjiang in special camps.

China claims these people have voluntarily taken part in job training and de-radicalization courses.