By Jerome A. Cohen
China went through its third review in the UN Human Rights Council last November (“Universal Periodic Review”), in which many concerns about Xinjiang were raised. On Friday, the Council considered the report prepared for China (report link here). While China was able to summon many countries that have close ties to praise China’s human rights performance, such as Russia, Cuba and Iran, many countries urged China to stop its abuse in Xinjiang (including the US, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Australia etc). In response, China resorted to its usual rhetoric and stated that, “the Xinjiang vocational skills education and training institutions, which had been established for counter-terrorism purposes in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, were focused on the study of legal knowledge, vocational and language skills and on deradicalization, and that they were employment oriented.”
Then the China Daily put out a report that China’s human rights record was praised by the Human Rights Council, with no mention whatsoever of the extensive international criticisms actually voiced against China. Ironically, the report features the photo of smiling Uyghur women dressed in colorful outfits (screenshot below)!
Screenshot, China Daily
This reminds me of the 1977-8 first-time visit of Ted Kennedy and eleven family members to China that I helped arrange and escort. Ted wanted very much to visit a Chinese university and make a speech that might electrify the students the way Bobby had done on a Moscow visit. In order to prevent this, our hosts were instructed by the leadership that in no circumstances were we to be allowed to visit a university. In Shanghai we were told that Beijing would be the best place for a university visit. In Beijing we were told the universities were all on holiday but that Changsha would be a good place. In Changsha we were told that it only had eight universities but that Guangzhou, our next stop, had sixteen. At that point we really protested, so the hosts arranged a visit to a beautiful hilltop overlooking Hunan University so we could say that we had “seen” it and there, in a lovely knoll, were five assorted worker, peasant and soldier “students” dressed in colorful native costumes playing a variety of musical instruments. That, of course, enabled us to say we had “met with” students! When this farce led to ridicule and the assurance to our hosts that we would broadcast their charades on leaving China, they “relented” and arranged a visit to a Guangzhou university teacher’s home that they claimed was on campus!