!-- Google tag (gtag.js) -->

UN Rights Chief Bachelet Begins “Closed Loop” China Tour, to Visit Xinjiang

China revealed that her visit will be conducted in a “closed loop,” meaning she will not be allowed to meet anyone who has not been pre-verified by the government.

May 24, 2022
UN Rights Chief Bachelet Begins “Closed Loop” China Tour, to Visit Xinjiang
Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) with Michelle Bachelet in Nov 2016. 
IMAGE SOURCE: REUTERS

United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet began her six-day official visit to China on Monday, during which she will visit the Xinjiang region, where it is alleged that the Chinese government has subjected Uighurs and other Muslim minorities to forced labour, sexual and physical abuse, and repressive ‘re-education’ programmes.

“I look forward to the exchanges I will have with many different people during my visit. I will be discussing some very important issues and sensitive issues. I hope this will help us build confidence,” Bachelet said in the southern city of Guangzhou.

Bachelet, a former president of Chile, has been negotiating to gain access to China’s western Xinjiang province since September 2018 in order to look into reports of serious violations against the Uighur minority. The UN chief has been under increasing pressure from the West to secure unrestricted access to the secretive Chinese province, where at least one million Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group, are reported to have been detained. This will be the first country visit by a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to China since 2005.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that while it welcomes the UN chief’s visit, it rejects the “political manipulation” of the issue. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin
noted on Monday that Bachelet’s visit “will be conducted in a closed-loop” and that both sides “have agreed that there will not be journalists travelling with her.”

Closed-loop” meetings refer to a way of isolating people within a bubble to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This means that Bachelet would be unable to hold spontaneous in-person meetings with anyone who is not pre-verified by the Chinese government.

On Monday, Bachelet met with Chinese Foreign Minister (FM) Wang Yi. Wang expressed hope that the trip would “help enhance understanding and cooperation, and clarify misinformation.” He added that China “has always given top priority to ensuring the right to subsistence, put enhancing the right to development high on its agenda, and made the protection of citizens’ legitimate rights and interests its basic task.” He further added that Beijing has “made safeguarding the ethnic minorities’ rights an important part of its work.” 

Referring to speculation of human rights abuses, Wang added that China has “vigorously” promoted “the development of its own human rights cause” and “has been a champion of the universal values of peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy and freedom.” He stressed that Beijing “has been promoting the development of human rights” across the globe.

According to a press release by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Bachelet “congratulated China on its important achievements in human rights protection” in response and “spoke positively of China’s contributions in… areas concerning the development of human rights.”

In this regard, the High Commissioner is set to meet with several high-level officials at the national and local levels during her visit. The UN chief will also meet with civil society organisations, business representatives, and academics. Bachelet will visit Guangzhou, Kashgar, Urumqi, and a detention centre in Xinjiang. At the end of the trip, she is expected to issue a statement and is scheduled to hold a press conference on 28 May.

China agreed to the Xinjiang visit in January, on the condition that it would take place after the Beijing Winter Olympics. In addition, Beijing set forth the prerequisite that the trip must be “friendly” in nature and not disguised as “an investigation with the presumption of guilt.” China had also requested that Bachelet’s office hold off on publishing a report into Xinjiang ahead of the Olympics, which had been requested by the United States.

Referring to the request, Bachelet
said that her trip was not a probe but rather an initiative to promote, protect, and respect human rights. Bachelet said her visit was also “an opportunity to enhance mutual understanding and trust between the two sides to jointly and advance the international human rights cause.”

Through various intelligence reports, it is widely believed that over one million Uighur Muslims and other Muslim minorities are detained in over 85 camps across the region. Beijing has been accused of numerous crimes against ethnic and religious minorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, including setting up a mass detention and surveillance system and subjecting Muslims to forced labour, birth control, sterilisation, and marriages, as well as torture. The international community has decried China’s actions in Xinjiang as genocide, with the US and the European Union even imposing sanctions against senior Chinese officials over their involvement in human rights abuses.

However, China has consistently dismissed such criticism, maintaining that the facilities in Xinjiang are job training centres, aimed at countering religious extremism and terrorism. It has further justified their need as a necessary measure against separatist violence in Xinjiang.