China claims support on Xinjiang, Hong Kong, but can dividing UN pay off?

Name: Trump and Xi trade barbs over Covid-19 as world leaders voice fears at UN’s 75th General Assembly
Uploaded: 2020-10-12T21:00:15.000Z
Duration: 3 min 2 s
Description: Trump and Xi trade barbs over Covid-19 as world leaders voice fears at UN’s 75th General Assembly

Beijing’s coalition-building as it rallies nations to back it on human rights issues is crystallising a war of values with the West

With confrontations between rival camps dominating international institutions, China’s credibility as a global leader may be at stake

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An ethnic Uygur protests against China in Turkey, one of the countries that has raised Beijing’s treatment of Muslim minorities at the UN. Photo: Reuters

Shi Jiangtao

Published: 5:00am, 13 Oct 2020Updated: 5:00am, 13 Oct 2020

Beijing has rebutted growing international criticism over its crackdowns in Xinjiang and Hong Kong at the United Nations in the past week, turning the fragmenting global institution into a battleground for the intensifying rivalry between China and the United States.

A group of 39 countries, mostly Western democracies, made a joint statement last Tuesday to the UN General Assembly’s human rights committee, condemning China over its alleged internment of more than a million ethnic Uygurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, in its far west.

The statement read out by Christoph Heusgen, the German ambassador to the UN, also expressed “deep concerns” over Beijing’s imposition of the draconian National Security Law in Hong Kong, which did “not conform to China’s international legal obligations”.

China’s UN ambassador Zhang Jun then accused the US, Germany and Britain on Tuesday of abusing the UN platform and showing a “hypocritical” attitude in politicising human rights issues.

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Trump and Xi trade barbs over Covid-19 as world leaders voice fears at UN’s 75th General Assembly

He claimed that a total of nearly 70 countries had given their support to China’s stance by Tuesday. Cuba made a statement on behalf of 45 countries “supporting China’s counterterrorism and deradicalisation measures in Xinjiang”, while Pakistan, another ally of Beijing, presented a joint statement signed by 54 countries defending China’s position on Hong Kong.

It is not the first time Beijing has mounted a showdown at the UN with Washington and its allies over China’s controversial human rights record.