Editor's note: As the Uygur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 becomes law, the Trump administration has the legal tools to sanction Chinese officials for managing China's internal affairs. What's behind the U.S.' interference in China's internal politics? Timothy Kerswell, an assistant professor at the University of Macao, shares his view on this matter. The opinions expressed in the video are his own, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Timothy Kerswell: I think that this comes at a time when the United States is pretty much suffering based on its response to the COVID-19 crisis, which has been seen as a tremendous failure. And this failure has kind of exposed how flawed the United States and its politics is now. Unfortunately, the United States responded by, instead focusing on the problems, that are inside the United States, it has responded by externalizing the problem, trying to create worse situations for other countries rather than fixing its own internal flaws.

Now, with Xinjiang, we've seen that the United States is happy to support things like religious extremism, terrorism, or ethnic separatism, as long as these things happen outside of the United States, and as long as they're happening to countries that the United States doesn't control or influence. So if any country dares to exercise its sovereignty and do anything about problems like this, just like China has and just like other countries do, the United States threatens a lot of consequences for this. And the very fact that the United States passes laws in its Congress about the internal affairs of other countries, shows that the U.S. has no respect for the rights of other nation's sovereignty.

I think that at the moment, the United States is trying its best to deflect from many internal problems that it's currently facing, whether it's the current protests about racial inequality in the United States, and especially violence against African Americans or the many other problems that they have, the easiest ways to deflect from this problem, rather than actually address it themselves, and highlight the fact that other countries have done this or that, that they don't agree with.

Interviewer: Huang Jiyuan

Graphic design: Yi Yating

Video editing: Liu Shasha

Managing editor: Huang Jiyuan

Senior producer: Wei Wei

Managing director: Mei Yan

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com)