A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson has hit back sharply at recent statements by a U.S. official on northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. After a meeting with the foreign ministers of five Central Asian countries, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused China of conducting a repressive campaign in Xinjiang, which he said was not about terrorism but an attempt to erase its own citizens. But the spokesperson said the U.S. official's words would not disrupt ties between China and its Central Asian neighbors.