China pledged to retaliate after the US sanctioned a top member of China’s ruling Communist Party and three other officials over human rights abuses in the far western region of Xinjiang. “We urge the US to withdraw this wrong decision, stop interfering in China’s domestic affairs and stop harming Chinese interests,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a daily briefing in Beijing on Friday. “If the US insists on going forward, China will take firm countermeasures.” The sanctions are a “grave violation of basic norms governing international relations and deeply detrimental to US-China relations,” Zhao said. “We reject and condemn that.” He didn’t give details of the reciprocal measures against “individuals and institutions,” but said they would be known “soon enough.” The Trump administration’s move on Thursday marked an escalation in the increasingly tense rivalry between the world’s two biggest economies. The sanctioned individuals included Chen Quanguo, the Xinjiang party secretary who sits on the 25-member Politburo, as well as Zhu Hailun, party secretary of the Xinjiang Political and Legal Committee, and the current and former directors of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau.