Washington: The US has blacklisted 28 Chinese companies from purchasing any American products for being implicated in human rights violations and other abuses in China's Xinjiang region. The US Department of Commerce said the action constricts the export of items subject to the Export Administration Regulations to entities that have been implicated in human rights violations and abuses in China's campaign targeting Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

"The US Government cannot and will not tolerate the brutal suppression of ethnic minorities within China," Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said. "This action will ensure that our technologies fostered in an environment of individual liberty and free enterprise are not used to repress defenceless minority populations," he said.