China’s ambassador to the United Nations, Chen Xu, said Friday that his government will no longer cooperate with the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) following its release of a report on China’s human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang province.
The OHCHR report on Xinjiang was delayed for months under heavy pressure from China, to the mounting consternation of human rights activists, but it finally dropped on the very last day of Michele Bachelet’s term as High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The report dismayed many observers by coming up short of accusing China of genocide against the Uyghurs, but it still presented extensive documentation of Beijing’s abuses, including arbitrary detention for millions of Uyghurs in a vast system of brutal prison camps.
A protester from the Uyghur community living in Turkey, holds an anti-China placard during a protest in Istanbul, Thursday, March 25, against against the visit of China’s FM Wang Yi to Turkey. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)
The Chinese Communist government furiously denounced the report as “disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China force,” dismissing it as “a patchwork of false information that serves as a political tool for the U.S. and other Western countries to strategically use Xinjiang to contain China.”
Outgoing United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet gives a final press conference at the United Nations offices in Geneva on August 25, 2022. (FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)
The report called on Beijing to release the remaining Uyghur detainees and work more closely with OHCHR to ensure further abuses do not occur. Ambassador Chen on Friday said there would be no cooperation whatsoever because OHCHR insisted on publishing its “illegal and invalid” report.
Uyghur security personnel patrol near the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar in western China’s Xinjiang region. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
“The office closed the door of cooperation by releasing the so-called assessment,” Chen told reporters in Geneva.
“Now the whole set of ideas is shelved because of the release of the report. You cannot hurt us while in the meantime enjoying cooperation with us,” he said.
Chen claimed Bachelet’s decision to withhold the report until her final minutes behind the High Commissioner’s desk was a sign she disagreed with its conclusions. Bachelet was heavily criticized for allowing the Chinese Communist Party to stage-manage her much-delayed visit to Xinjiang in May.
“If I read her mind correctly, I don’t think she’s on board with the report and that’s why it was released in the last minute,” Chen said.
The U.N. Human Rights Council is scheduled to meet next week, with the Xinjiang report a likely topic of discussion. Chen vowed to “firmly oppose” any measures proposed against China.
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