EU envoys agree first China sanctions in three decades

BRUSSELS (Reuters), 17 March, 2021-The European Union agreed on Wednesday to blacklist Chinese officials for human rights abuses, two diplomats said, the first sanctions against Beijing since an EU arms embargo in 1989 following the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

EU ambassadors approved the travel bans and asset freezes on four Chinese individuals and one entity, whose names will not be made public until formal approval by EU foreign ministers on March 22, as part of a new and wider rights sanctions list.

While the sanctions are mainly symbolic, the adoption marks a significant hardening in the EU’s policy towards China, which Brussels long regarded as a benign trading partner but now views as a systematic abuser of basic rights and freedoms.

The 1989 EU arms embargo on China, its second-largest trade partner, is still in place.

“Restrictive measures against serious human rights violations and abuses adopted,” one EU diplomat said.