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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, September 13, 2022

On August 31, 2022, after a year-plus delay, criticism from the human rights community, and a Chinese government-run trip to China to “investigate” atrocities, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued its long-awaited report (“report” or “U.N. Xinjiang report”) about the Chinese government’s human rights violations in China’s predominately Muslim province of Xinjiang.  With high drama, then-Human Rights Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, published the report 13 minutes before she was to step down from her position.

Many have reported on the Chinese government’s extensive lobbying to prevent the report from seeing the light of day so the fact that it was published at all is significant.  But according to Politico, the Chinese government was able to sufficiently water down the report’s conclusions (OHCHR provided China with a pre-publication draft).  And there is much to be critical of: the report states that all these human rights violations “may” constitute crimes against humanity when they clearly do; it glosses over the use of surveillance that makes the whole of Xinjiang – even outside of the internment camps – feel like a prison; there is no mention of possible genocide even though it is obvious that the Chinese government is preventing Uyghur births, a covered act under the Genocide Convention (“imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”); and the report’s section on family separation shockingly omits any mention of the forced placement of over 800,000 Uyghur children in state-run boarding schools, also a covered act under the Genocide Convention (“forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”).  

Nevertheless, there are some strengths in the report that should not be ignored, most notably OHCHR’s complete rejection of the Chinese government’s statements that its actions in Xinjiang are necessary for national security.  Instead, OHCHR condemned China’s Counterterrorism Law, enacted in 2015, and calls it out for criminalizing the practice of Islam in China.  The Counterterrorism Law, and its corresponding implementing regulations, fail to abide by international human rights norms according to the report.  The definition of terrorism in the law is so vague that it “leaves the potential that acts of legitimate protest, dissent and other human rights activities, or of genuine religious activity, can fall within the ambit of ‘terrorism’. . . .”  OHCHR saves its strongest criticism for the law’s definition of extremism.  First the report notes that under international and U.N. practices, only “violent extremism” is to be punished; the Counterterrorism Law fails to make that distinction.  Instead, by defining extremism through “ideas,” “thoughts,” “clothing,” and “symbols,” it also punishes the mere practice of religion.  But even worse than the vagueness of the law, is that its implementation is even more nebulous.  In reviewing available Xinjiang judicial decisions that used the term “extremism,” OHCHR found that courts often labeled acts as extremist without explaining how those acts fulfilled the legal standards, leaving the OHCHR with the only conclusion that in China all Islamic religious behavior is “extreme.” 

These might seem like small points but the Chinese government constantly bats away criticism of its human rights violations in Xinjiang as necessary to prevent terrorism. So countering these false assertions is imperative.  Just look at the Chinese government’s response to the report.  The majority of its 122-page response is about the need to stamp out terrorism in Xinjiang.  But if OHCHR is now calling this b.s., other countries can no longer accept China’s excuses. 

Another positive is the report’s clear command that member states not send Uyghurs and other Chinese Turkic Muslims back to China, even if the Chinese government demands that they do.  Although the report makes no mention of genocide and only mentions crimes against humanity as “may” be happening, one has to wonder – if things weren’t so bad, why would OHCHR be telling countries not to send Uyghurs back to China?  OHCHR repeatedly states that sending Uyghurs back would violate the prohibition against refoulement (the forcible return of refugees or asylum seekers to a country where they are liable to be subjected to persecution) which means something pretty bad is happening in Xinjiang even if OHCHR does not want to slap a label on it.

Finally, perhaps the report’s most significant contribution is that even with its watered-down conclusions, OHCHR has put out such damning facts concerning the arbitrary detention, sexual violence, torture, and forced birth control perpetrated against Uyghurs that the world can no longer look away.  Expect this report to roil to the Human Rights Council (HCR) over the next few months, emboldening those countries who have long called on the HCR to do more and causing other countries that once might have defended China to no longer do so. 

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, March 30, 2020

Guest Author, Sara L.M. Davis

By Sara L.M. Davis*
This post is co-published on Meg Davis Consulting

A few weeks ago – it feels like longer, given the COVID-19 crisis – I sat in a studio at the UN in Geneva with BBC journalist Imogen Foulkes, Sarah Brooks (ISHR) and Daniel Warner for a great chat about China at the United Nations. You can hear the conversation here .

Foulkes asked the panel: After years of marginalization, China is exercising growing influence at the UN, increasing its UN spending and heading five UN agencies. But what does China’s commitment to multilateralism mean in practice?

The panelists disagreed about some things, but we agreed overall that China still seems to be finding its way at the UN. In speaking with friends inside UN agencies and serving on governance boards, China’s presence at the UN appears hesitant; Chinese representatives are formal, careful with protocol, and reluctant to speak off the script without authorization from Beijing. This impedes their ability to cut deals, influence others and build relationships in the UN that are key to exercising power. Such hesitancy may link to China’s restrictive human rights climate at home.

In 2017, Chinese leader Xi Jinping gave a series of major speeches in defense of global governance, such as this one at the World Economic Forum. In line with his report to the 19^th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi pledged that China would show greater leadership in world affairs, and spoke of a shared destiny for humanity. Since then, Chinese directors have taken the helm at four UN agencies, and a Chinese delegation also chairs the Programme Coordinating Board of UNAIDS.

Current Chinese Ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun

However, in my experience working in global health, in contrast to some other countries – such as India, France, the US or UK, for example – there are still relatively few Chinese technical experts working in the international organizations, academic institutes, private foundations and think-tanks that develop and advise on UN policy. China is rich in experts on development, social science, health, environment, law and economics. The fact that few of them staff technical roles at global health institutions means those policies rarely draw on research or policy experience from the world’s largest country.

Similarly, while NGOs play an important role in the UN – they share policy expertise and real-life experience, advocate for women and marginalized groups, and work together across national borders to promote accountability – there are very few Chinese NGOs engaged in UN policy discussions in Geneva. They are not to be seen organizing or speaking on side events, signing onto international coalitions, or speaking up in media discussions – and the one I participated in was an unfortunate case in point. Foulkes said she made an effort to recruit a Chinese panelist (I also suggested a couple of names), but everyone politely declined. Our podcast discussion would have been enriched by a Chinese perspective – we might not have agreed about everything, but it would have been a richer conversation.

The end result of these absences is that no one is sure what China’s agenda is at the UN, and everyone is walking on eggshells: UN agencies are afraid to say the wrong thing and risk angering a famously thin-skinned government; WHO has lavished praise on China’s COVID19 response, in part because it needs to win China’s cooperation in the global response. Similarly, Chinese representatives and academics are probably also afraid of getting into trouble at home, and are sticking closely to the approved script, or choosing to stay silent.

China Mission to Geneva

The reticence of China’s representatives in Geneva is likely a reflection of the chilling effect created at home by sweeping attacks on human rights groups, civil society groups, public interest lawyers, civil society leaders, other critics, and even family members of those critics under Xi Jingping’s regime. Fear of making a misstep may actually inhibit the kind of warm, informal personal relationships, off-the-cuff media remarks, deal-making, and intel-swapping over dinners, at bars and around the coffee urn that are usually – in normal days, when we can speak from closer than six feet apart – the currency in a political town like Geneva.

Weak and restricted civil society at home also deprives Chinese authorities of a crucial stream of intelligence and insight that would only advance their multilateral strategy. Civil society activists from many other prominent countries, including global North and global South, are actively engaged in UN advisory groups, civil society forums, coalitions and workshops in Geneva. As a result, these activists develop personal relationships with technical experts and managers of international organizations, as well as with diplomats from other countries, and get insights into how those agencies work in practice and what everyone’s agendas are. Activists then use that intel to inform and advise their own governments, pushing for policies while creating a feedback loop. But Chinese civil society leaders aren’t in those coalitions and advisory groups, for the most part, because they are not allowed to come to Geneva to speak critically about their own countries’ policies, and hobknob freely with their peers, the way an activist from Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia or Latin America might do. Chinese activists who speak up in Geneva, like Cao Shunli (who tried to come to Geneva for a human rights meeting, and later died in detention) face the risk of serious repercussions.

Activist Cao Shunli

In other words, human rights restrictions at home are undermining the multilateralism China has promoted as a national policy. Leadership at the UN is not just about having the title at the head of international organizations: leadership is also exercised through academics, NGOs, lawyers and others who are part of the UN community, who feel confident and free to express their opinions, and make experience- and evidence-based policy recommendations. Until China has a strong and free civil society, the country may have a difficult time fulfilling its ambitions of global leadership.

*Sara L.M. Davis (known as Meg) is an anthropologist and human rights advocate. She is Special Advisor on Strategy and Partnerships at the Graduate Institute’s Global Health Centre and teaches at the Geneva Centre for Education and Research in Humanitarian Action (CERAH).  A former China researcher for Human Rights Watch and founding Executive director of Asia Catalyst, Davis is fluent in Mandarin.  Her forthcoming book, The Uncounted: Politics of Data in Global Health, is set to be published in June 2020