China denies linking Cambodia aid with deportation of Uighurs

China denied on Tuesday it had linked aid to Cambodia with the Southeast Asian nation’s decision to deport a group of Uighurs back to China despite protests from the United Nations and the United States.

Cambodia signed 14 deals worth an estimated $850 million with China on Monday, two days after defying international pressure by expelling 20 Uighur asylum-seekers, underlining growing trade and diplomatic links.

Uighurs are a Turkic Muslim group native to China’s far western region of Xinjiang, where ethnic rioting in July killed 197 people. Many there chafe under Chinese restrictions on their culture and religion. A group of Uighurs were smuggled into Cambodia about a month ago and applied for asylum at the United Nations refugee office. Yet Cambodia brushed off concerns they would be mistreated if returned and deported them for immigration offenses.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu declined to say where the deported Uighurs currently were, but said their case was not connected with China providing Cambodia aid. ”These accusations are groundless. These Chinese nationals’ illegal boarder crossing and entry into Cambodia violated both China’s Entry and Exit Law and relevant Cambodian laws,” she told a regular news briefing in Beijing.

“Furthermore, they are suspected of crimes. I think any country in this situation has the right to make its own decision according to domestic laws,” Jiang said. US-based Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, reviled by Beijing as a separatist, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Cambodia’s deportation was “no doubt influenced by enormous Chinese pressure, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in aid”.

The UN accused Cambodia of bowing to pressure and deporting the asylum seekers despite having given “strong assurances” it would be allowed to complete its investigation to determine their status.