China calls Xinjiang vote at UN Human Rights Council a win against US ‘coercion’

Name: China’s President Xi visits far western Xinjiang region for first time in 8 years
Uploaded: 2022-10-07T12:30:11.000Z
Duration: 2 min 4 s
Description: China’s President Xi visits far western Xinjiang region for first time in 8 years

After defeating a bid to debate China’s alleged abuses in Xinjiang, Beijing says developing countries are ‘clearly aware’ of Western motives

Germany says the vote marks ‘a dark day for human rights’

Reading Time:3 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

99+

After defeating a bid to debate China’s alleged abuses in Xinjiang, Beijing says developing countries are ‘clearly aware’ of Western motives, and urged the UN Human Rights Council to pay attention to violations by Western governments. Photo: AP

Cyril Ip

Published: 8:30pm, 7 Oct 2022Updated: 12:46am, 8 Oct 2022

The international community is “clearly aware” that the United States and other Western nations intend to use accusations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang as a “tool” to meddle in China’s internal affairs, China’s foreign ministry said on Thursday.

The remark came after the United Nations’ top human rights body rejected a US-led proposal to debate alleged abuses targeting Uygurs and other Muslim minority groups in the far western Chinese region.

“For some time now, the US and some other Western countries have been misinforming the public about Xinjiang and seeking political manipulation in the name of human rights simply to smear China’s image and contain China’s development … the international community would not be easily misled,” a foreign ministry spokesman said.

02:04

China’s President Xi visits far western Xinjiang region for first time in 8 years

“The international community is clearly aware that the ultimate motive of the US and some other Western countries behind their Xinjiang narrative is to contain China and does not like this pattern of using human rights as a pretext to meddle in other countries’ internal affairs.”

At the 47-member Human Rights Council, 17 countries, including most Western states as well as Japan and South Korea, voted in favour of the proposal to hold a debate on Xinjiang at its next session in March.

Nineteen countries – almost all Muslim-majority states and all African countries, with the exception of Somalia – sided with Beijing and voted against the proposal.

Eleven countries abstained, including India, Malaysia, Mexico and Ukraine.

Nations that voted for the debate said the result was a disappointment, but they would continue advocating for human rights.