Fifty-nine organisations have appealed to US president Joe Biden to raise concerns regarding China’s “assault” on human rights during his meeting with Xi Jinping.
Both world leaders are expected to hold summit talks in San Francisco next week on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, with an aim to stabilise plummeting ties between US and China.
This would be their second in-person meeting in nearly three years, which was finalised following a six-month push from Washington. However, Beijing is yet to confirm if Mr Xi would attend the summit.
Prior to the talks, a group of 59 human rights organisations wrote to Mr Biden, urging him to "prioritise concerns about Beijing’s lack of concrete human rights improvements" during the meeting.
The Communist government in China has been criticised for its blatant abuse of the rights of citizens, which includes throttling dissent through a crackdown on civil society groups, arbitrary detentions and forced disappearances.
The US along with 50 other countries last month expressed "deep concern" over the violation of the rights of Uyghurs and other minorities in the northwestern Xinjiang region.
Beijing has been accused of committing “crimes against humanity" against the Uyghurs and other ethnic minority groups over the past decade through alleged widespread abuses, including mass incarceration, forced labour, torture and sexual assault.
The Xi Jinping administration has routinely denied the allegations of genocide made by the US and other Western nations as “the lie of the century".
"Xi Jinping and his government are assaulting human rights on a scale unprecedented in decades," the rights defenders said in the letter.
"President Biden, you have a unique opportunity to send strong messages to Xi Jinping about your position on human rights, which will likely have an impact in halting – and possibly reversing – this crisis."
Protesters are reportedly expected in San Francisco next week to demonstrate against China’s rights record.
Mr Biden will welcome other APEC leaders – including from Vietnam, the Philippines, Canada and Mexico – and both he and Xi will be playing to the gallery.
Washington believes that the two sides will be able to make some modest announcements following their meeting, but the fundamental differences in the ties will remain unchanged..
“What’s going on here is an attempt to have a deep conversation where the two sides directly share their concerns, but more importantly that the meeting unlocks, especially in the Chinese system, space for further engagement in constructive work,” Jude Blanchette, chair of China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told the Associated Press.
