Australia, insurance, car, home, live, holidays

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. But China has denied mistreatment of Uighur Muslims and says its Xinjiang camps provide vocational training and are needed to fight extremism.

The sanctions were imposed under the Global Magnitsky Act,which allows the US government to target human rights violators worldwide by freezing any assets they hold in the US,banning their travel to the US and prohibiting Americans from doing business with them.

Sanctions were also imposed on Zhu Hailun,a former deputy party secretary and current deputy secretary of regional legislative body the Xinjiang's People's Congress;Wang Mingshan,the director and Communist Party secretary of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau;and former party secretary of the bureau Huo Liujun.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington was also barring Chen,Zhu,Wang and their immediate families,as well as other unnamed Chinese Communist Party officials,from travelling to the United States.

Detained:a vocational"training centre"in Xinjiang,China. — Detained:a vocational "training centre" in Xinjiang,China.Credit:The Age/SMH

The main exile group the World Uighur Congress welcomed the move and called for the European Union and other countries to follow suit.

US Republican Senator Marco Rubio,who sponsored legislation signed by President Donald Trump in June that calls for sanctions over the repression of Uighurs,said the move was"long overdue"and that more steps were needed.

"For far too long,Chinese officials have not been held accountable for committing atrocities that likely constitute crimes against humanity,"Rubio said.

The Associated Press reported last month that China was trying to slash birth rates amongst Uighurs with forced birth control. China denounced the report as fabricated.

An internment camp in the Kunshan Industrial Park in Artux in China's Xinjiang region.Credit:AP

Despite Trump's hardline public remarks about Beijing,former national security adviser John Bolton alleged in his recent book that Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping should go ahead with building detention camps in Xinjiang andsought Xi's help to win reelection in November.

Trump said in an interview last month he had held off on tougher sanctions on China over Uighur human rights due to concerns such measures would have interfered in trade negotiations with Beijing.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had also raised objections to the Treasury sanctions,especially against a Politburo member,out of concerns they could further damage US-China relations,according to a person familiar with the matter.

"The United States is committed to using the full breadth of its financial powers to hold human rights abusers accountable in Xinjiang and across the world,"Mnuchin said in a statement.

Peter Harrell,a former US official and sanctions expert at the Centre for a New American Security,said the move may signal a continued shift by the Trump administration of"paying more attention to human rights abuses in China ... after several years of relative neglect".

Chen made his mark swiftly after taking the top post in Xinjiang in 2016,when mass"anti-terror"rallies were held in the region's largest cities involving tens of thousands of paramilitary troops and police. He is widely considered the senior official responsible for the security crackdown in Xinjiang.

United Nations experts and activists estimate more than a million Muslims have been detained in camps in the Xinjiang region.

Reuters