Michelle Bachelet arrived in China on Monday for a six-day trip – the first to the country by a United Nations human rights commissioner since 2005. Bachelet landed in the southern city of Guangzhou and will also visit Xinjiang in the country’s northwest , according to the Chinese foreign ministry. State news agency Xinhua quoted ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin as saying that China hoped the commissioner’s visit “will further promote exchanges and cooperation between the two sides, and play an active role in advancing the international human rights cause”. “Chinese leaders and heads of relevant departments will meet Bachelet during her visit,” Wang said, without elaborating. He also said China and the commissioner agreed that no reporters would accompany her on the trip. Agence France-Presse reported that Bachelet conducted virtual meetings with the heads of around 70 diplomatic missions in China on Monday, citing diplomatic sources in Beijing who said the commissioner gave assurances over her access to detention centres and rights defenders in China. It also said Bachelet would visit the Xinjiang cities of Kashgar and Urumqi. Citing unnamed sources on the call, Bloomberg reported that US ambassador Nicholas Burns expressed “profound concerns” to Bachelet about China’s human rights record in Xinjiang and attempts by Beijing to manipulate the trip. The report also quoted a UN human rights official as saying the commissioner would visit a detention centre in Xinjiang and had set up meetings independently of Chinese authorities. The European Union called for Bachelet to be granted “unfettered access” to Xinjiang for an “independent, objective, impartial and transparent assessment” of the rights situation there. “The EU remains committed to dialogue with China on human rights issues, and calls for meaningful and unsupervised visits of the UN High Commissioner to Human Rights, as well as independent experts, international journalists and foreign officials to the region,” said Nabila Massrali, the EU’s spokeswoman for foreign affairs. China has been widely accused of widespread human rights abuses in Xinjiang, especially against members of the Uygur ethnic community and other Muslim groups. Beijing has vehemently denied the accusations, saying they are lies to vilify China and distort its human rights record. China to hit US officials with visa restrictions over Xinjiang ‘lies’ Several human rights activists in China said they had not been contacted by Bachelet’s office about her visit and had mixed feelings about the trip. Wang Quanzhang , a prominent human rights lawyer who was detained for five years after the “709 crackdown” on legal activists in 2015, said he hoped Bachelet could come to a real understanding of conditions in China and advance human rights in China. “Of course, whatever she sees in China will be carefully choreographed, but I do hope that she can see the reality through the surface,” Wang said. Other activists were less optimistic, saying the commissioner was walking into a propaganda trap. Li Xuewen, a dissident writer and independent political researcher based in the central city of Wuhan, said that if he had the chance to meet Bachelet he would urge her to “pay real attention to the real human rights situation in China”. “But I know it is futile to have such hope,” Li said. “I expect nothing from her and the UN, due to their … inaction on human rights in China over the years. Her trip to China will have no results and no impact, [leading to] no structural impetus or changes, and may only help a few well-known cases [of dissidents]. “It won’t have much impact on Xinjiang either. What is done cannot be undone. “She won’t change what the international community thinks about China [on human rights], or Beijing’s views.” Wang Henan, wife of Guangzhou-based activist Wang Aizhong , who was detained a year ago and charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, said she hoped Bachelet would call on Beijing to release people like her husband who were in custody for speaking out for social justice. Additional reporting by Finbarr Bermingham