(TibetanReview.net, Jun25’24) — China has rejected all key recommendations urging it to end violations of human rights of its citizens while accepting only those from friendly governments which either do not criticize it or which, in fact, praises its repressive policies in the name of combating separatism and maintaining the socialist government system following the UN’s Universal Periodical Review (UPR) of its record held in Jan 2024.
The UPR is a process through which all UN member states’ human rights records are examined by other members and the latest was China’s fourth since 2009.
Announcing China’s response to the 418 recommendations made at the end of the review hearing, the UN has said Jun 11 that the Chinese government had agreed to accept 290 recommendations, partially accept 8, take note of 32, and reject 98.
China has cited the 290 as those it had either “accepted and (were) being implemented” or those it had “accepted and already implemented.”
However, none of the “accepted” recommendations address concerns raised by UN member states about crimes against humanity, torture, forced disappearance, persecution of human rights defenders and journalists, or other grave and well-documented violations, said a group of 13 human rights organizations that include Chinese, Tibetan, Uyghur, Hong Kong, as well as international groups such as Human Rights Watch in a joint statement on Jun 25.
The statement said that through intense lobbying campaign ahead of the review, China acted to whitewash its record, submitting false information and blocking any domestic civil society groups from participating in the preparation of the state report or from making contributions to the review. It also succeeded in having a number of states friendly to it to ask bland questions that made vague recommendations while using their platform to, in fact, praise the Chinese government’s rights record.
“This provided ample weak recommendations that the Chinese government could deem acceptable.”
Given this context, the numerous acceptances by the Chinese government does not mean actual intention to improve its rights record. No one should confuse a high number of accepted recommendations with any real commitment by Beijing on human rights, the statement said.
In fact, China’s latest rejection rate is stated to be 30%, much higher than in the last one, in 2018, at 18%.
The statement dismissed China’s claim made at the Jan 2024 review of the achievement from its “acceptance” of many recommendations from the 2018 review, citing NGO research which showed that “the overwhelming majority of those accepted recommendations were so weak, vague, or based on flawed assumptions, that progress towards them cannot be meaningfully verified.”
In fact, “dozens of the accepted recommendations clearly or implicitly endorse human rights violations. For example, Belarus recommended that China “[c]ombat separatism and promote modernization of the social governance system and capacity in Xizang” [using the Chinese government’s official name for Tibet], the statement pointed out.
Given the sorry state of the UPR recommendations and China’s rejection of their substantive contents, the statement suggested: “The Chinese government’s posture towards the UPR should prompt the HRC member states and other actors to press Beijing to follow up on recommendations made by independent UN human rights monitors and officials, including Special Procedures, treaty bodies, and the OHCHR.”
The joint statement came ahead of the adoption of China’s UPR at the ongoing Jun 18 – Jul 12, 2024, session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. China’s official position is that any discussion critical of its human rights record constitutes interference in its internal affair even as it plays an outsized role in the UN human rights system