Swiss-Chinese human rights talks resume after hiatus
Swiss relations with China have been through a tricky period since the 2014 free trade agreement came into force.
Keystone / Alexander F. Yuan
Switzerland and China have re-entered into dialogue over human rights issues four years after China froze regular talks in protest of a Swiss position on Uighur “re-education” camps.
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Riprendono dopo una pausa i colloqui svizzero-cinesi sui diritti umani
Officials from each country met in Switzerland on July 3 for a two-day dialogue on human rights.
The topics under discussion ranged from freedom of expression and best business practices to the rights of ethnic minorities, women and LGBTI groups.
“Specific human rights violations, such as those suffered by Tibetans and Uighurs, and human rights violations in Hong Kong as well as several individual cases were also explored during the discussions,” the Swiss government stated on Wednesday.
Human rights talks between the two countries were last staged in 2018. They stalled the following year after Beijing objected to Switzerland supporting a United Nations demand for the closure of controversial Uighur camps in China’s Xinjiang region.
In 2021, again at the UN, Switzerland withdrew its support for another joint statement by 43 states condemning the situation in Xinjiang.
That same year, Switzerland presented its new foreign policy regarding China that took a tougher stance on human rights issues but spelled out that Switzerland would not automatically follow the lead of larger western countries.
“It’s a balancing act. On the one hand, we have difficult discussions with China about human rights, but on the other hand, the country is an important partner in economic and other issues,” Cassis said in a newspaper interviewExternal link at the time.
A Swiss-Chinese free trade agreement has been in place since 2014 and China has become on the largest trading partners of the Alpine state.
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