China is deeply concerned over the European Union’s likely imposition of sanctions on the country related to human rights, Beijing’s ambassador to the EU said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
“We are against interference in other’s internal affairs, against sanctions and against groundless accusations,” Ambassador Zhang Ming told on online seminar.
“We want dialogue, not confrontation. We ask the EU to think twice,” he added.
The EU is set to sanction four Chinese officials and one entity, with travel bans and asset freezes, on March 22 over human rights abuses in China’s Uighur Muslim minority, according to EU diplomats.
Despite mounting alarm about Chinese disinformation and propaganda campaigns in Europe, the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment pact, a document that the two sides signed on Friday, gives Chinese firms a significant advantage in the media sector, critics say, Voice of America informed.
The deal, which was signed in principle in December, has drawn fire from Washington. Days before the agreement was struck, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan urged the Europeans to delay completing negotiations, calling in a tweet for “early consultation with our European partners on our common concerns about China’s economic practices.”
Critics on both sides of the Atlantic say the deal will give China preferential access to European markets while Beijing continues to tamp down Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and maintain detention centers in Xinjiang province, where China’s Communist government has interned more than a million Uyghurs, according to rights groups.
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