Blinken says his judgment that China committed genocide has not changed

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday said his views that Chinese officials are engaged in genocide against the Uyghur in China's Xinjiang province remains unchanged.

"My judgment remains that genocide was committed against the Uyghurs and that has not changed," Blinken said at a press briefing on Wednesday.

On the current US-China bilateral ties, he said, "It's not a secret that the relationship between the United States and China is arguably the most important relationship in the world going forward. It's going to shape the future that we all live in. And increasingly that relationship has some adversarial aspects to it, it has competitive ones and it also has cooperative ones."

It is in the interest of the United States to cooperate with China on climate change, though that fits within the larger context of areas of concern between the two countries, Blinken added.

Earlier on Wednesday, President Joe Biden's nominee for UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the State Department was reviewing its designation of China's treatment of Uyghurs and other minority groups in the Xinjiang as "genocide."

Prior to this, during his confirmation hearings, Blinken had agreed with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's designation of the Chinese Communist Party as having participated in genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Sputnik reported.