Chinese leader Xi defends record to UN human rights chief
Other countries critical of trip to Xinjiang, site of alleged Uyghur genocide
Chinese leader Xi Jinping defended his country’s record to the top UN human rights official on Wednesday, saying each nation should be allowed to find its own path.
Xi, who heads the ruling Communist Party that allows no political opposition and strictly limits speech, criticized countries that he said lecture others on human rights and politicize the issue.
“Through long-term and persistent hard work, China has successfully embarked on a path of human rights development that conforms to the trend of the times and suits its own national conditions,” Xi told UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet in a video call, according to an online report by state broadcaster CCTV.
Bachelet is in the middle of a sixday visit to China that includes stops in Xinjiang, a remote northwestern region where the Chinese government has been accused of human rights violations and genocide against Uyghurs and other ethnic groups. Her trip has been criticized by the U.S. and others, who think that China will limit whom she can talk to, stage manage her trip and use it for propaganda purposes.
The CCTV report didn’t mention Xinjiang or the Communist Party’s often harsh treatment of dissidents and activists and ethnic groups in Tibet and Inner Mongolia.
Xi laid out the Communist Party’s long-held position on human rights, which argues that China should find its own path and not completely copy the models of other countries and rejects outside criticism as interference in its domestic affairs. It also says that bettering the lives of people is the most important human right for developing countries, and points to China’s success in lifting people out of poverty.
“On the issue of human rights, there is no perfect ‘utopia,’ ” he was quoted as saying. “We don’t need ‘masters’ that dictate to other countries, let alone politicizing and turning the human rights issue into a tool, practicing double standards and interference in the internal affairs of other countries under the pretext of human rights.”
Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said it had been valuable to have direct talks with Xi and senior Chinese officials on human rights issues and concerns in China and globally, a tweet from her UN office said.
“For me, it is a priority to engage with the government of China directly, on human rights issues, domestic, regional and global,” she said in her opening remarks at the meeting.