The United States, United Kingdom, Canada and European Union have all announced fresh sanctions again Chinese officials for human rights abuses in Xinjiang. It's prompted Beijing to respond in kind, blacklisting several Europeans. 

Unlike the United States, the EU has sought to avoid confrontation with Beijing, but a decision to impose the first significant sanctions since an EU arms embargo in 1989 has inflamed tensions.

Accused of mass detentions of Muslim Uighurs in northwestern China, those targeted by the EU included Chen Mingguo, the director of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau. The EU said Chen was responsible for "serious human rights violations."

In its Official Journal, the EU accused Chen of "arbitrary detentions and degrading treatment inflicted upon Uighurs and people from other Muslim ethnic minorities, as well as systematic violations of their freedom of religion or belief".

Others hit with travel bans and asset freezes were: senior Chinese officials Wang Mingshan and Wang Junzheng, the former deputy party secretary in Xinjiang, Zhu Hailun, and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Public Security Bureau.

However, the EU avoided sanctioning the top official in Xinjiang, Chen Quanguo, who is blacklisted by the United States, suggesting that European governments sought a softer approach.

China denies any human rights abuses in Xinjiang and says its camps provide vocational training and are needed to fight extremism.

Following the European Union's move, the United States announced new sanctions against Wang and Chen.

While the actions by the United States and others avoided targeting China's top leadership, it was the first coordinated move under the Biden administration, which took office in January and has vowed to work closely with allies in pushing back against China.

Canada imposed new sanctions against four officials and one entity under the Special Economic Measures (People's Republic of China) Regulations.

"These sanctions underscore Canada’s grave concerns with the ongoing human rights violations occurring in the XUAR, affecting Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities. Mounting evidence points to systemic, state-led human rights violations by Chinese authorities," it said.

"This includes the mass arbitrary detention of more than 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities on the basis of their religion and ethnicity, as well as political re-education, forced labour, torture and forced sterilisation."

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Finally, the UK's Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab also announced sanctions against those linked to the Xinjiang abuses. 

"The UK will, for the first time, impose asset freezes and travel bans against four Chinese government officials, as well as a Xinjiang security body, under the UK’s Global Human Rights sanctions regime for systemic violations against Uyghurs and other minorities," Raab said.

"The measures come as part of intensive diplomacy by the UK, United States, Canada and European Union to deliver complementary action on Xinjiang. It follows the trend of a growing number of countries holding China to account for its human rights record, with 39 countries signing a joint statement at the UN."

Beijing immediately retaliated, saying it decided to impose sanctions on 10 EU individuals, including European lawmakers, the EU's main foreign policy decision-making body known as the Political and Security Committee and two leading think-tanks.

German politician Reinhard Butikofer, who chairs the European Parliament's delegation to China, was among the most high profile figures to be hit by Beijing's sanctions. The non-profit Alliance of Democracies Foundation, founded by former NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was also blacklisted, according to a statement by China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Restricted from entering China or doing business with it, Beijing accused of them seriously harming the country's sovereignty and interests over Xinjiang. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged the EU to "correct its mistake" and not to interfere in China's internal affairs.

While mainly symbolic, the EU sanctions mark a significant hardening in the bloc'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 EU had not sanctioned China significantly since it imposed an arms embargo in 1989 following the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy crackdown, although it targeted two computer hackers and a technology firm in 2020 as part of broader cyber sanctions. The arms embargo is still in place.

All 27 EU governments agreed to the punitive measures, but Hungary's foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, called them "harmful" and "pointless", reflecting the bloc's divisions on how to deal with China's rise and to protect business interests.

China is the EU's second-largest trading partner after the United States and Beijing is both a big market and a major investor which has courted poorer and central European states.

But the EU, which sees itself as a champion of human rights, is deeply worried about the fate of the Uighurs.

Activists and UN rights experts say at least 1 million Muslims are being detained in camps in the remote western region of Xinjiang. The activists and some Western politicians accuse China of using torture, forced labour and sterilisations.

The EU's sanctions affect officials seen to have designed and enforced the detentions in Xinjiang and come after the Dutch parliament followed Canada and the United States in calling China's treatment of Uighurs genocide, which China rejects.