Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying described the former United States secretary of state Mike Pompeo as "a doomsday clown" on Wednesday after he declared, less than 24 hours before leaving office, that China committed genocide in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

"Pompeo has told so many lies in the previous years. This so-called designation is nothing but a piece of wastepaper," Hua told reporters at a regular news briefing in Beijing.

Hua said that the US politician, "notorious for lying and cheating, is turning himself into a doomsday clown" and the joke of the century with his last-day madness and lies of the century.

Pompeo's announcement is the latest in a series of accusations recently made against China by the US administration over Xinjiang, human rights and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hua noted that the so-called allegation of crimes against humanity and genocide in Xinjiang is a sensational pseudo-proposition and an absurd farce concocted by Pompeo and other anti-China and anti-Communist forces.

"Pompeo's lie will be thrown into the dustbin of history, and he will be punished and judged by history," Hua said.

The spokeswoman said that the lies fabricated by Pompeo, including those related to Xinjiang, are not only an insult to the 25 million people in Xinjiang and the 1.4 billion Chinese people, but are also a great insult to the judgment of the American people and the international community.

As for those in the US who wrongly believe the lies about Xinjiang, Hua said that's because they lack understanding and are the victims of Pompeo's lies.

"We welcome them to visit Xinjiang and see with their own eyes the true harmony, unity and happy life in Xinjiang as long as they are not deliberately biased against China," she said.

According to Hua, China also hopes the new US administration and the international community can learn the truth about Xinjiang in an objective and rational way.

The serious damage to China-US relations, which was caused by the US administration's fundamental mistake of regarding China as an adversary, is not in the interests of either the Chinese or American people, she said.