Exclusive | EU and China to resume human rights dialogue next week, days before Xinjiang chief visits Brussels

Discussions will build on pledge after last April’s bilateral summit and take place in Brussels, sources tell Post
Resumption to happen just before arrival of senior Chinese official alleged to have played role in abuses

China-EU relations

Finbarr Berminghamin Brussels

Published: 3:35am, 11 Feb 2023

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The European Union and China will next week relaunch a human rights dialogue that stalled after a tit-for-tat sanctioning blitz two years ago.

EU sources confirmed that talks would take place in Brussels at the end of next week, following a pledge to resume them during the EU-China summit last April.

The Chinese delegation will be led by a deputy director general from Beijing’s Department of International Organisations and Conferences under the country’s foreign ministry, separate sources confirmed, while the EU will be represented by human rights staff in its External Action Service (EEAS).

The dialogue will be the 38th edition of the prickly discussions, which were suspended after the EU sanctioned four Chinese government officials for alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in March 2021.

The Chinese government has been accused of conducting a widespread campaign of persecution against Uygurs and other ethnic Muslim groups in the northwest territory.

In a long-awaited report last year, the United Nations said Beijing’s actions in Xinjiang may have constituted “crimes against humanity”.

Beijing countered that the allegations were “based on the disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces and out of presumption of guilt”.

In the latest dramatic turn of events, the resumed talks would take place just days before a visit to Brussels by a senior Chinese official who is said to have played a role in the alleged Xinjiang abuses.

Erkin Tuniyaz, the Chinese Communist Party deputy secretary in Xinjiang and chairman of the Xinjiang government, will arrive in the Belgian capital on February 21 for talks with EU bureaucrats following meetings with British government officials in London next week.

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He will meet with China specialists from the EEAS. An EU spokesperson said requests to meet with more senior officials in Brussels were declined. He is also expected to hold a Q&A event with media and scholars during the visit.

Tuniyaz was sanctioned by the US government for his role in the alleged abuses in Xinjiang in 2021. However, he has not been sanctioned by London or Brussels.

Nevertheless, some campaigners and lawmakers have condemned the European visit.

“The UK and EU should be investigating and imposing sanctions on Tuniyaz and other top Chinese officials for their role in crimes against humanity in Xinjiang,” said Yasmine Ahmed, UK director at Human Rights Watch.

“The UK and EU should not be drawn into meetings with senior Xinjiang officials so that China can whitewash its atrocities in the Uygur region,” she added.

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Samuel Cogalati, a Belgian lawmaker sanctioned by China in 2021, took to Twitter to say: “Yes to dialogue with China on climate and peace. But no to the red carpet rolled out to a leader directly implicated in crimes against humanity against the Uygurs.”

The renewed push for EU-China dialogue comes at a pivotal moment in bilateral relations.

A stream of European leaders has visited Beijing in recent months, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Council President Charles Michel.

This spring French President Emmanuel Macron and top EU diplomat Josep Borrell are set to follow suit amid a broad, pan-European conversation about how the bloc should move forward in its relations with China, its largest trading partner.

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After meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in December, Michel confirmed the resumption of the talks.

“Human rights are universal. I welcome the readiness to resume the EU-China human rights dialogue,” Michel said. “We will follow up on this commitment. This format has not convened for more than three years. So, this is an important signal.”

“The dialogue will allow us to focus on wider human rights policy issues and on individual cases,” he added. “The right of peaceful assembly is a fundamental right enshrined both in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in national constitutions.”

The last dialogue, held in Brussels in 2019, focused on issues such as the persecution of Uygurs and Tibetans, the detention of EU nationals in China, and religious rights in the country.