Sanctions against China are a delicate matter for Switzerland.
Keystone / Adrian Bradshaw
While the US and European Union slapped sanctions on China some time ago for its human rights abuses against minority Uyghurs, the Swiss government is still playing for time, writes the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper.
Bern has since March 2021 left open whether or not it would follow EU sanctions on Beijing, says the paper. After waiting a year and a half, the federal government discussed the issue for a second time in December but still did not reach a decision, and Brussels is getting impatient.
Asked about the December 9 meeting, the economics ministry told NZZ am Sonntag that the government had decided to examine “more deeply” the existing legal bases for sanctions. But the paper says the ministry’s words are at odds with the “meticulous groundwork of the federal administration where the legal clarifications regarding the sanctions have been ready for quite some time”.
More than a year ago, the EU imposed sanctions on selected Chinese Community Party officials and organisations over alleged human rights abuses of Uyghurs and other minority groups in the Xinjiang region. A UN report released at the end of August 2022 found evidence of abuses in Xinjiang which it said may amount to “crimes against humanity”.
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