China is expected to be restrained in response to fresh US sanctions against two senior Chinese officials over activities in Tibet, as Beijing tries to avoid worsening ties with Washington, according to diplomatic observers.

They also said the sanctions were not unexpected and ties between the two countries showed no sign of improving.

On Friday, Washington froze the US assets of Wu Yingjie, the top official in Tibet from 2016 to 2021, and those of Zhang Hongbo, Tibet’s police chief since 2018. It also blocked transactions between them and “US persons” and people in the US who were not authorised by the US Treasury to do so.

The Treasury accused Wu and Zhang of involvement in human rights abuses in Tibet and China of subjecting Tibetans to arbitrary detention, extrajudicial killings and physical abuse as part of efforts to restrict religious freedoms in the region.

The announcement came just three weeks after Chinese President Xi Jinping held three hours of talks with his US counterpart Joe Biden on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali.

Many had hoped the first in-person meeting of the leaders since Biden’s inauguration would lead to lower tensions but strains have persisted over contentious issues, including the South China Sea, Taiwan and human rights.

Lu Xiang, an expert on US-China relations at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Washington had returned to human rights issues in Tibet to show that it had not forgotten the region.

In recent years, Washington’s human rights focus has been more on Xinjiang and Hong Kong.

“The US has been issuing sanctions against Chinese officials for a long time, and Beijing knows it’s part of the US’ strategy towards China of maintaining adversarial relations while engaging with you at the same time,” Lu said.

Human rights groups and Western governments have accused China of detaining members of the Uygur community en masse and subjecting them to indoctrination and forced labour in internment camps in Xinjiang.

The UN Human Rights Office said China had committed serious human rights violations in Xinjiang with its strategies to tackle terrorism that included arbitrary and discriminatory detention.

Beijing says the camps are “vocational education and training centres” built to counter terrorism.

Beijing has yet to respond to the sanctions, but foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Friday in response to a Wall Street Journal report that China opposed US sanctions on principle and “interfering in other countries’ internal affairs under the pretext of human rights”.

Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University, said there was no major change in US policy towards China so it was not surprising to see US sanctions on Chinese officials for the alleged human rights issues.

“The Chinese and US leaders agreed on only one thing in Bali: to prevent further serious deterioration of bilateral relations,” Shi said.

“But there was no sign of any willingness that one side would like to make significant concessions to the other side on major issues.”

Shi said the US sanctions would worsen China-US relations slightly, but China was unlikely to take actions that could lead to a further serious deterioration in ties.

“[The sanctions] create new difficulties for the tiny, positive changes on major issues in China-US relations.”

Wang Yiwei, also an international relations professor at Renmin University, said Beijing’s response to the sanctions could not worsen ties given they were already at a low point.

“There will be a response, that’s for certain,” he said. “But what it will look like? It will try not to ruin the atmosphere created by Bali meeting.”

by Jack Lau in SCMP, Dec11, 2022 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3202843/china-tipped-temper-response-us-sanctions-tibet-officials