Pompeo's remarks about Xinjiang both ridiculous and irresponsible: China Daily editorial

It is ridiculous for US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to claim what China has done in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region has nothing to do with terrorism and suggest it is an "attempt to erase its own citizens".

He even called on countries to resist China's demands to repatriate ethnic Uygurs when he met with the foreign ministers of five Central Asian countries — Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan — in New York ahead of the United Nations General Assembly annual session this week.

It seems he believes that the United States has the sole mandate to decide what is terrorism and what is not, and what actions are counterterrorism and what are not.

It is with such an attitude that the US invaded Iraq, a sovereign country, on a false premise, justifying its aggression as part of a war on terror.

It is with such an attitude that Washington believes that it can do whatever it wants against any country simply by claiming it is fighting terrorism.

And it is with such an attitude that it besmirches other country's real actions against genuine terrorism.

Before the current measures were introduced to eliminate extremism and safeguard security and stability in Xinjiang, terrorism and extremism used to be rampant in the region, and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement was recognized as a terrorist organization all over the world.