Beijing, Mar 23 (IANS): China's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday summoned the head of the European Union's (EU) delegation to Beijing in protest after the bloc imposed sanctions on Chinese officials over human rights abuses against the Uighurs in Xinjiang.

In a statement, the Ministry said that Nicolas Chapuis was summoned during talks on Monday after Vice Foreign Minister Qin Gang said the punitive measures were based on "lies and false information", reports dpa news agency.

The sanctions are contrary to reality and reason, and the EU is not qualified to act as a human rights teacher, Qin Gang was cited as saying.

China is urging the EU to recognise the seriousness of its mistake, correct it and end the confrontation "in order to not harm Chinese-European relations any further", the statement added.

The EU sanctioned four Chinese officials and one entity in Xinjiang on Monday, targeting them with assets freezes and travel bans.

They are the first such sanctions against China since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

The US, the UK and Canada followed with their own sanctions.

Within hours, Beijing responded with a tit-for-tat move, imposing sanctions on 10 European lawmakers and four European institutions.

In the last few years, hundreds of Uighurs, Kazakhs and Huis have testified that they were held in internment camps in Xinjiang province as part of what observers say is a government campaign to forcibly assimilate ethnic minorities.

The Chinese government says the camps, estimated to have held more than 1 million people since 2017, are "vocational education centres" to eradicate extremism and terrorism.