BEIJING-
As world leaders gather in New York for the annual UN General Assembly, rising superpower China is also focusing on another United Nations body that is meeting across the Atlantic Ocean in Geneva.
Chinese diplomats are speaking out and lobbying others at an ongoing Human Rights Council session to thwart a possible call for greater scrutiny of what they call their campaign against extremism in Xinjiang, following a United Nations report on abuses. against the Uyghurs and other Muslims. ethnic groups in the border region of western China.
The simultaneous meetings illustrate China’s divided approach to the United Nations and its growing global influence. Beijing looks to the UN, where it can count on the support of countries it has befriended and in many cases helped financially, as a counterweight to US-led blocs like the Group of Seven that have become increasingly hostile to China.
“China sees the UN as an important forum that it can use to advance its strategic interests and goals and to reform the global order,” said Helena Legarda of the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin.
While presenting the United Nations as a model of multilateralism, China rejects criticism or decisions that the ruling Communist Party considers contrary to its interests. Its diplomats responded to a report released last month by the UN human rights office raising concerns about possible “crimes against humanity” in Xinjiang, vowing to suspend cooperation with the office and criticizing what it described as a Western plot to undermine the rise of China.
China had lobbied hard to block the report on Xinjiang, delaying its release for more than a year. In the end, the information came to light, but only minutes before the embattled UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, left office.
Like the United States, China feels some freedom to ignore UN institutions whenever it wants: The Trump administration pulled the United States out of the Human Rights Council in 2018, accusing it of bias against Israel. The Biden administration took a leap back this year and has made defending Israel a priority in the 47-member-state body.
Like the United States, China is using its influence to get its way, effectively hampering a UN World Health Organization investigation into whether China was the birthplace of the coronavirus pandemic.
Ken Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Chinese President Xi Jinping is trying to redefine what human rights are, in part by viewing economic development as a key criterion. China, Roth said, “more than any other government in the past, is trying to undermine the UN human rights system,” by pressuring UN officials, retaliating against witnesses and trying to bribe governments.
“One of his top priorities right now, maybe after Taiwan, is to avoid condemnation from the Human Rights Council,” Roth said. The autonomous island of Taiwan is claimed by China as its sovereign territory, an issue on which the Beijing government is vociferous internationally.
Shi Yinhong, an international relations expert at Renmin University in China, said that advocating for the UN’s role in maintaining international order does not mean that China agrees with all UN bodies, citing the study on the origins of COVID-19 and the recent report from Xinjiang.
“When the UN high commissioner for human rights issues such a report, in China’s eyes, it is the same as all organizations in the world, whether official or private, defaming China,” Shi said.
But China does not want its resentment toward the rights office, which reports to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, to spill over into its deepening relationship with other parts of the world body dealing with refugees, climate, Internet, satellites, the world. hunger, atomic weapons, energy and much more.
China wields power as one of five veto-wielding members of the Security Council, helping it build relationships with the United States and others who needed China’s support for past resolutions on Iran and North Korea.
That influence has diminished somewhat with the general deterioration of US-China ties, Shi said. Both China and Russia subsequently vetoed a US-backed resolution in May to impose new sanctions on North Korea.
Under Xi, who came to power 10 years ago, China has expanded its participation in the UN from mainly international development to political, peace and security issues, Legarda said.
He pointed to how China has had its concepts and language embedded in UN resolutions and used the UN system to promote a “Global Development Initiative” proposed by Xi in a video address to the General Assembly last year.
“This is a reflection of China’s more assertive and ambitious foreign policy under Xi,” Legarda said.
China has entered a diplomatic vacuum created by a lack of US leadership, said Daniel Warner, a Geneva-based political analyst. Former President Donald Trump rejected many international institutions, Warner said, and successor Joe Biden has preoccupied himself with domestic affairs.
The Chinese hold top posts in two of the UN’s 18 specialized agencies: the Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Telecommunications Union, where the United States has fielded a candidate to succeed outgoing chief Houlin Zhao. Chinese officials also headed the International Civil Aviation Organization and the Industrial Development Organization until last year.
For China, it is a matter of both prestige and influence, Warner said.
“The United States and Western countries were very involved in the initial United Nations,” he said. “China doesn’t want to have that kind of leadership. They are not talking about liberal values, but they want to make sure that their interests are defended in the UN system.”
Chinese diplomats led a joint statement, which they said was backed by 30 countries including Russia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, which criticized the “misinformation” behind the UN report on Xinjiang and the “erroneous conclusions” drawn. in the. And China’s ambassador in Geneva said that Beijing could no longer cooperate with the human rights office, without specifying how.
Sarah Brooks, a China expert at the International Society for Human Rights advocacy group in Geneva, said China could delay its funding for the office, which has recently reached $800,000 a year, far less than Western countries that contribute. tens of millions.
Still, Brooks said it would be a “huge blow” if funding from China stopped, in part because many countries appreciate and support the causes Beijing helps fund.
“The optics of this are really damaging,” he said. “You have a country that says, ‘Hello, I want to be responsible, but I’m very sensitive. I’m still going to lash out at the organization that drafted it.”
Keaten reported from Geneva. Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
This story has been corrected to show that Chinese officials hold the highest position in two UN agencies.