The pressures were strong on each side. “Huge”. Michelle Bachelet, repeated it during her end-of-term press conference on Thursday August 25: “I have been under enormous pressure to publish or not to publish, but it is not these pressures that will make me publish it or that I renounce its publication”. A week later, and for her last day in office as head of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the former Chilean president finally had the institution’s report published. Highly anticipated therefore, it deals with human rights violations in the Chinese region of Xinjiang on the Uyghur populations.
The document, whose conclusions take up to fifty pages, evokes possible “crimes against humanity” and mentions “credible evidence” of torture and sexual violence. For L’Express, Antoine Bondaz, researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS), deciphers the scope of this report, particularly for China.
L’Express: If the report does not seem to contain any revelations compared to what was known about the situation of the Uyghurs, how symbolic is its publication?
Antoine Bondaz: The publication of a report by a UN body has symbolism but above all has political weight. Chinese authorities now have to deal not with reports from international NGOs or criticism from Western leaders, but with a factual report from an international organization that cannot in any way be presented by Beijing as being biased or “anti- Chinese”.
There are no revelations but there was no need for them. There was a need for a neutral and multilateral body to produce a report whose methodology could not be criticized. And that is what the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights did, relying not on existing reports, but on official Chinese documents and several dozen interviews. And the elements are overwhelming for Beijing, particularly in terms of internment and freedom of religion, but also, even if the dedicated parts are quite short, on issues of forced labor and birth control.
Among the recommendations made in the report, the Chinese government is ordered to take “swift measures” to release all those arbitrarily imprisoned in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, whether in camps or in any other detention center. Can this report fundamentally change anything?
The fact that this report exists is in itself a victory for human rights, and for the credibility of the UN institutions so criticized, as Beijing had sought to hinder and then prevent its publication. The Chinese authorities had also begun a new political sequence at the end of July by seeking to discredit the report, given that its publication was announced before the end of the mandate of High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet. We remember, for example, this obscure forum signed by more than a thousand “organizations”, almost all Chinese, believing that there was absolutely no problem in Xinjiang.
So unfortunately, this report, and especially its conclusions, are not binding on Beijing, and China will continue to block any UN initiative on this subject. But politically, it increases international pressure to hold Beijing to account, and may lead to some positive changes for people there. But in any case, Beijing will deny that this report, this “so-called report” as the authorities say, changes anything.
Can it lead to proceedings on the part of the UN, such as an exhaustive investigation into “crimes against humanity”?
We can think that if the High Commission evokes the probability of crimes against humanity, it will seek to deepen and to have more information. However, it is now unrealistic to expect a trial that could rule on the nature of human rights violations in the Chinese autonomous region. China obviously opposes it.
In your opinion, why does the UN not use the term “genocide” used by the United States?
The American government is indeed the only one to officially speak of genocide. Abroad, as in the United Kingdom and Canada, it is parliamentary resolutions that use the term, which therefore does not bind governments. There is a legal dimension, the crime of genocide is defined with precise criteria in a 1948 Convention, and a political dimension, the use of a term in order to exert pressure and mobilize public opinion. On the legal level, Washington evokes forced sterilizations to cite article II paragraph D of the Convention which specifies that “measures aimed at preventing births within the group” are an act characteristic of genocide if it is committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
The UN does not seem to have enough elements to take up the accusation of genocide, even if it must be understood that the accusation of possible crimes against humanity is extremely serious. Moreover, and without obviously commenting on the legal nature of the human rights violations in Xinjiang, there is a fundamental question on this semantic question: was it the right American political strategy to speak of genocide? Because if an international campaign had been carried out using the term crimes against humanity, then surely more countries would have officially supported it.
Can this document give rise to the implementation of additional pressure or sanctions on China by Western countries?
The pressure exerted by Western chancelleries is old and, in fact, began even before the strong media coverage of the last two years. As for sanctions, both Washington and Brussels have adopted political sanctions. On the question of the adoption of targeted economic sanctions, like the ban on imports of tomatoes and cotton from Xinjiang decided on January 13, 2021 by Washington, there is no consensus at European level. . However, a fundamental debate has been launched on the “duty of vigilance” of companies, i.e. making them legally liable for human rights violations and environmental damage committed in their production lines.
I do not think that this UN report therefore radically changes the European position. This will make it possible to further justify the political sanctions which are not ready to be lifted, and will reinforce the need for the Europeans not to be complicit, indirectly, in these human rights violations by making change our behavior as consumers.