The long-running efforts to create a special envoy to probe China’s genocide of its mostly Muslim Uyghur population picked up Thursday.

In an overwhelming bipartisan vote, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a Republican amendment requiring the State Department to create the post. The amendment will be part of a larger bill, the Ensuring American Global Leadership and Engagement Act, to combat China’s aggression worldwide.

This amendment will have a significant and positive impact on the urgent effort to bring additional scrutiny to the ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party in the Xinjiang Province, said Rep. Chris Smith, New Jersey Republican and the amendment’s lead author.