At G7, Biden will push allies to act on China's treatment of Uighurs: Report

The United States will urge its Group of Sevenalliesto increase pressure onChinaover the use offorcedlaborin its northwestern Xinjiang province, home to the Muslim Uighur minority, a top White House official said on Friday.

USPresident JoeBidenwill attend a meeting of theG7advanced economies in person in Britain in June, where he is expected to focus on what he sees as a strategic rivalry between democracies and autocratic states, particularlyChina.

Daleep Singh, deputy national securityadvisertoBidenand deputy director of the National Economic Council, said theG7meeting in Cornwall would focus on health security, a synchronized economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic, concreteactions on climate change, and "elevating shared democratic values within theG7."

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"These are like-mindedallies, and we want to take tangible and concreteactions that show our willingness to coordinate on non-market economies, such asChina," Singh, who is helping to coordinate the meeting, told Reuters in an interview.

"The galvanizing challenge for theG7is to show that open societies, democratic societies still have the best chance of solving the biggest problems in our world, and that top-down autocracies are not the best path," he said.

Singh said Washington has already taken strongactions againstChinaover human rights abuses in Xinjiang, but would seek to expand the effort withG7allies. Joint sanctions against Chinese officials accused of abuses in the province were announced last month by the United States, the European Union, Britain and Canada.

Chinadenies all accusations of abuse and has responded with punitive measures of its own against the EU.

Singh said details were still being worked out ahead of the meeting, but the summit offered an opportunity for USalliesto show solidarity on the issue.

"We've made our views clear that our consumers deserve to know when that the goods they're importing are made withforcedlabor," he said. "Our values need to be infused in our trading relationships."

Washington, he said, would be looking for theG7to take clear steps "to elevate our shared values, as democracies and, and those certainly apply to what's going on Xinjiang."

Activists and U.N. rights experts say at least 1 million Muslims have been detained in camps in Xinjiang. Theactivists and some Western politicians accuseChinaof using torture,forcedlaborand sterilizations.Chinasays its camps provide vocational training and are needed to fight extremism.

The White House said on Friday thatBidenwill travel to the United Kingdom and Belgium in June for his first overseas trip since taking office, including a stop at theG7Summit in Cornwall, UK, from June 11-13.