Can the United Nations get a true picture of China?

There’s one dominant topic in international Geneva these days, and that is Russia’s assault on Ukraine. United Nations aid agencies are scrambling to cope with this new and terrible humanitarian crisis, diplomats are pressuring Russia in every UN arena possible, and all of us are wondering how and when this violence will end.

But there are other, very important, issues that need attention too. The UN Human Rights Council is currently holding its annual five-week session, and, before Moscow’s invasion, one thing that was supposed to be top of the council’s agenda was China. For years human rights activists have been pointing to chilling evidence from Xinjiang province, where Beijing has reportedly interned over a million Uighur Moslems in so-called “re-education” camps.

There are reports of forced sterilisation, forced labour, and other violations which could amount, some say, to crimes against humanity or even genocide. Yet the few journalists and other observers who have been allowed (accompanied by the obligatory Chinese officials) into Xinjiang have been shown only consistently smiling – singing and dancing even – young members of the Uighur community.

What’s needed, human rights groups say, is independent scrutiny of China, a UN investigation, and, ideally, a full access unfettered visit by the UN Human Rights Commissioner herself, Michelle Bachelet. How, and under what conditions, UN Human Rights can get an accurate picture of what’s happening in China is the subject of our Inside Geneva podcast this week.

Surprise announcement

No UN Human Rights Commissioner has visited China for 17 years. Beijing regularly says UN officials are welcome anytime, but remains vague when it comes to agreeing to the UN terms of “meaningful unfettered access” for such visits. Since Michelle Bachelet took office, she has made clear her wish to go to China, but the wish and the reality have appeared very far apart.

Her announcement, then, slipped into her speech to the human rights council on March 8th, that her office was “pleased to announce that we have recently reached an agreement with the government of China for a visit”, took journalists in Geneva aback.

“Surprise, for all the obvious reasons,” New York Times contributor Nick-Cumming Bruce tells Inside Geneva. “When you look at the very shrill denunciations that come from Beijing any time anyone utters a word of criticism of its human rights record, it’s really difficult to see how there is any expectation that she can conduct a visit that would meet the requirements of a high commissioner’s visit.”

Ms Bachelet says she foresees going to China in May, and that her staff are currently engaging with Beijing on the terms of her visit. Her staff assure journalists those terms will have to include unfettered access.

Where’s the report?

But human rights defenders are sceptical. Ahead of the current human rights council session, 192 rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, published an open letter calling for Michelle Bachelet to publish her long awaited report on conditions in Xinjiang.

That report, containing evidence gathered over three years, has reportedly been ready since August, and yet it remains, rights defenders say “sitting on Ms Bachelet’s desk.”

“There’s no reason she couldn’t release it tomorrow,” HRW’s China Director Sophie Richardson tells Inside Geneva. “We understand the report to be strong; it’s based on interviews and a very solid review of evidence.”

“If she publishes the report it can make for a much more substantive visit,” adds Phil Lynch, director of the International Service for Human Rights. “We as civil society will have more confidence in the integrity of the visit, and there is some substance for discussion.”

Why the hesitation?

No one is quite sure why the report has been delayed for so long. Some analysts suggest China has become virtually untouchable by the UN, because of its economic power. The massive investment Beijing has been making in some of the world’s least developed countries, notably in Africa, has, it has been suggested, virtually bought the loyalty of many member states.

But the UN Human Rights Office does not need the permission of member states to publish this report, and, as our guests on Inside Geneva point out, UN independent experts have, in the recent past, spoken out about their concerns.

In June 2020, 50 UN experts published a joint statemenExternal linkt expressing their “alarm regarding the repression of fundamental freedoms in China” and calling for “decisive measures” to protect them.

In 2017, when Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, delivered his report on his visit to China, he made clear his fear that some of the human rights defenders he spoke to in China may have been subject to reprisals. Chinese officials told him not to make direct contact with local activists, the report said, requested full details of any private meetings he held, and even appointed security officers to follow Alston and his team in disguise.

Terms of visit

Alston’s experience is one reason human rights groups expect Michelle Bachelet to reveal full details of the terms of her visit before she ever gets on the plane to Beijing. Full and unfettered access is not the only essential, Lynch says. There must also be rock solid guarantees that there will be no punishment of anyone who speaks to her.

“China has been cited by the Secretary General himself as engaging in a pattern of reprisals against those who engaged with the UN previously,” Lynch points out.

And, adds Richardson, if, once Bachelet arrives in China, there is any suggestion that her visit has become stage managed, that what she sees and the people she talks to are being controlled by Beijing, then she must have an “off ramp” – she must be ready to curtail her visit and say openly that China has not cooperated.

It’s a tricky position for the UN. On the one hand, after 17 years of no visits, it is understandable that Michelle Bachelet, and her team, may be thinking that any trip to China may be better than no trip at all.

But a visit which shows the UN’s top human rights official surrounded by the smiling, singing and dancing young Uighurs that journalists have been allowed to see could damage the credibility of the office, and human rights groups fear, seriously undermine attempts to document what’s really going on in Xinjiang.

At the end of the day, says Richardson, Bachelet needs to stick to her role. “Her job, her main function in this universe is to document and advocate for solutions to human rights violations as endured by victims.”

“Her mandate,” adds Lynch, “is to stand with victims, and report on violations.”