Video image shows a session of the UN Human Rights Council held in Geneva, Switzerland. Photo: Xinhua
The UK knew that China invited the High Commissioner for UN Human Rights to Xinjiang. However, the UK still called for the UN to pass a resolution to have "urgent and unfettered" access to the region, which was pure political manipulation aimed at pressuring China; it would severely undermine the cooperation between China and the High Commissioner for UN Human Rights if some countries pushed forward the resolution, Chinese observers said on Friday.
A source close to the matter told the Global Times on Friday that Britain insisted on calling for a UN resolution on the Xinjiang visit when it already knew that China had invited the High Commissioner for UN Human Rights to Xinjiang, which is a move by the UK to deceive the international society, put pressure on China and undermine China's cooperation with the High Commissioner through so-called human rights investigation.
But this trick to fool the international society will not succeed, as countries that uphold justice are aware of the UK's plot. What the UK needs to do is to look in the mirror and improve its own human rights situation through concrete actions, the source said.
China has always held an open attitude and has sent invitations to the West and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit the Xinjiang region and see the situation there with their own eyes, Jia Chunyang, an expert at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times on Friday.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab's proposal for an "independent investigation" of Xinjiang at the 46th session of the Human Rights Council is a pure political move, aimed at pressuring the UN High Commissioner, and by fooling the UN body, the UK wants an "investigation" totally led by the West without any limits in China's Xinjiang, Jia said, noting that any sovereign nation would not allow such "trip with a presumption of guilt."
We firmly oppose anyone or any country to use the visit of the High Commissioner for UN Human Rights to Xinjiang to pressure China or make a presumption of guilt. And if a small number of countries wanted to push such a resolution at the Human Rights Council, it would severely damage China's cooperation with the High Commissioner, Jia said.
Photo: Xinhua
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Wednesday that the purpose of visits to Xinjiang is to promote communication and cooperation, not to conduct so-called investigations with the presumption of guilt.
Raab's proposal intentionally disrupts Chinese cooperation with the High Commissioner for UN Human Rights, Wang said. Wang said China has sent invitations to the High Commissioner for UN Human Rights for a trip to Xinjiang, and the two sides have maintained communication on this and the door of Xinjiang is always open.
Given the BBC's notorious record in distorting reports on China, especially the lies in its Xinjiang reports, as well as Western countries' injustice in regarding to Xinjiang topics, China would not accept the so-called "independent investigation", Jia said.
Following the US, the UK has actively engaged in pressuring China by using human rights topics, which fully exposed its arrogance and ignorance for a self-deemed human rights defender which is actually a clumsy political manipulator, analysts said.
China welcomes people from all over the world to take a look at Xinjiang and its residents' happy lives. In recent years, more than 1,200 diplomats, officials of international organizations, journalists, and religious figures from more than 100 countries have visited Xinjiang. They learned about the facts and truths in Xinjiang on the spot, and what they saw and heard in Xinjiang was completely different from what the Western media reported, Wang said.
China-UK ties have spiraled downward since the UK decided to issue special five-year visas and a pathway to full British citizenship to BN(O) passport holders in Hong Kong and their dependents, a move repeatedly slammed by China as "interfering in China's domestic affairs." This month, some British political figures called for British athletes to boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, following the US.
The UK has fallen from a Golden Age partner of China to a vanguard that attacks China on various fronts, and the US factor is the biggest influence behind the freezing China-UK ties; London is striving to stand up in the contest between Beijing and Washington, but such opportunistic diplomatic tricks will backfire, observers said.