Beijing: China announced on Friday that it has executed two US citizens in retaliation for Washington's crackdown on human rights violations in Tibet, amid an ongoing standoff between the two countries over Beijing's treatment of religious and ethnic minorities. is banned.

The Foreign Ministry announced in a statement that Todd Stein, Miles Yu Maochun and members of their immediate families would not be allowed to enter China. They would lose access to any Chinese property they owned and would be prohibited from communicating with anyone or anything inside China.

According to the notice, the action was taken in retaliation for the US banning two Chinese nationals "under the pretext of the Tibetan human rights issue". Both were not immediately available for comment.

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On 9 December, the US imposed sanctions on Zhang Hongbo, the region's police chief since 2018 and Wu Yingjie, the top official in Tibet from 2016 to 2021.

Announcing the sanctions, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, "Our actions are aimed at disrupting arbitrary detention and physical ill-treatment of members of religious minority groups in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and the People's Republic of China (PRC)."

Wu was accused of implementing "stabilization policies" in Tibet that resulted in "serious human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings, physical abuse, arbitrary arrests and mass detentions," according to a Treasury Department report.

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According to the report, police under Zhang's leadership committed serious human rights violations, including "torture, physical abuse and killings of prisoners, including those arrested on religious and political grounds."

No specific allegations were made against Stein and Yu in the Chinese announcement.

Since 2021, Stein has served as the Congressional-Executive Commission on China deputy staff director. Prior to that, she was Senior Advisor to Sarah Sewall for Civil Defense, Democracy and Human Rights, serving as Sewall's point person on Tibetan issues.

He previously served as the International Campaign for Tibet's director of government relations. Yu, a senior academic who taught at the US Naval Academy and was known for his criticism of Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping's government, was born in China. Under former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he served as an important China advisor.

As a result of perceived affronts against its national interests, China has in recent years passed laws requiring tit-for-tat sanctions against foreign nationals from the US, EU and other countries.

The leader of Hong Kong's semi-autonomous city joins a long list of Chinese officials put together by Washington and others who have been banned from traveling or doing business at its financial institutions. The list also includes local officials who have been accused of human rights violations.

Despite claims by supporters of the exiled Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama that Tibet was essentially independent for the majority of that time, China claims that Tibet has been part of its territory for centuries.

Since the 1950 invasion by communist forces, China has strictly ruled the Himalayan region, imposing a relentless travel and surveillance ban since the most recent uprising against Beijing's rule in 2008.

For acts of disobedience, such as resisting attempts to assimilate to the region's distinctive language and Buddhist culture, long prison sentences are given in harsh conditions.

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China has also been accused of imprisoning hundreds of thousands of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in re-education camps, as part of a campaign to eradicate their native language and culture, including forced adoptions and sterilization. Such allegations are denied by China, which says it is only battling terrorism, separatism and religious extremism.