China putting minority Muslims in 'concentration camps,' U.S. says

Workers walk by the perimeter fence of what is officially known as a vocational skills education centre in Dabancheng in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China September 4, 2018. [File, Reuters]

The United States accused China on Friday of putting well more than a million minority Muslims in "concentration camps," in some of the strongest U.S. condemnation to date of what it calls Beijing's mass detention of mostly Muslim Uighur minority and other Muslim groups.

The comments by Randall Schriver, who leads Asia policy at the U.S. Defense Department, are likely to increase tension with Beijing, which is sensitive to international criticism and describes the sites as vocational education training centers aimed at stemming the threat of Islamic extremism.