Beijing’s recent sanctions on U.S. religious freedom officials mark its latest “affront against universal rights” and will only spur further global scrutiny into its human rights violations, Secretary Antony Blinken said on Jan. 10. The secretary was referring to sanctions Beijing announced on Dec. 21 targeting four commissioners of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which the Chinese foreign ministry said at the time was enacted in response to recent U.S. actions on Xinjiang. That is in addition to another three current or former members from the panel the Chinese regime sanctioned last year, on top of dozens of U.S. officials and organizations that promote “democracy and respect for human rights around the world”—sanctions which Blinken described as “without merit.” The regime’s retaliatory sanctions will not deter the United States from deploying “all diplomatic and economic tools to promote accountability” over human rights, he added. “Beijing’s continued attempts …