China

China rejects growing Western criticism at UN rights forum

Reuters

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China rejects growing Western criticism at UN rights forum

SIGN. A demonstrator holds up a sign at a shopping mall in Hong Kong, China July 6, 2020. The sign reads: 'Without Communist party, there is no new China. Without the party, how do we have a country? Without a country how do we have a family? Come up, those who don't want to be slaves, let's protect the communist party, building new Hong Kong of our time.'

Photo by Joyce Zhou/Reuters

Chen Xu, China's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, suggests that Western powers should work to improve their own records, singling out for criticism overseas military interventions which resulted in 'repeated killing of innocent people'

China hit back on Wednesday at growing criticism by Western powers of its treatment of ethnic minorities in the regions of Xinjiang and Tibet and of citizens in the former British colony of Hong Kong.

Hours earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a wide-ranging speech to the UN Human Rights Council, said that the Biden administration would denounce atrocities in Xinjiang.

“At this high-level segment, the UK, EU, Germany, USA, Canada, and some other countries abused this forum of the Council to make groundless charges against China, to interfere in internal affairs of our country. We firmly oppose and categorically reject these attempts,” Chen Xu, China’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, told the forum.

Britain’s foreign minister Dominic Raab kicked off the Western rebukes on Monday, denouncing torture, forced labor, and sterilizations that he said were taking place against Muslim Uighurs on an “industrial scale” in Xinjiang.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called on China on Tuesday to allow UN human rights boss Michelle Bachelet to visit and investigate alleged mistreatment of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang and of people in Tibet.

“Ignoring reality, the above-mentioned countries fabricate and spread lies about Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong,” Chen said.

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Camps

Activists and UN rights experts have said that at least one million Muslims are detained in camps in the remote western region of Xinjiang. China denies abuses and says its camps provide vocational training and are needed to fight extremism.

Chen suggested that Western powers should work to improve their own records, singling out for criticism overseas military interventions which resulted in “repeated killing of innocent people.”

“They should resolve their own human rights problems such as deep-rooted racial discrimination, gaps between rich and poor, social inequity, injustice, police brutality,” he added. – Rappler.com

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