Bachelet to China: Anti-terror actions must respect rights

Bloomberg

The United Nation’s top human rights official said any actions by China’s government to address alleged terrorism and reverse what Beijing terms radicalism must not come at the expense of human rights.
Michelle Bachelet spoke at a press briefing at the end of her six-day trip to China, which she’s repeatedly said wasn’t an “investigation” of Chinese practices in the Xinjiang region or elsewhere.
“I encouraged the government to undertake a review of all counterterrorism and deradicalisation policies to ensure they fully comply with international human right standards, and in particular — that they are not applied in an arbitrary and discriminatory way,” Bachelet said.
Her comments were quickly criticised by human rights advocates on social media.
“It is absolutely stunning,” Adrian Zenz, senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, told Bloomberg News of the remarks. “It betrays a lack of understanding or wanting to understand what has been taking place in the region.”
Bachelet said she raised “the lack of independent judicial oversight” of the VETC system, or what China refers to as Vocational Education and Training Centers in Xinjiang, but are effectively detention camps. Yet she wasn’t able to “assess the full scale” of the VETCs, she added.
Bachelet mostly steered clear of controversy in her press conference, at which she took questions from reporters in English and Chinese, Her most detailed answer was to a question about gun violence and racism in the US from a reporter with Chinese state media.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s press office said in a statement that the US remained concerned about efforts to restrict and manipulate Bachelet’s visit. “We are concerned the conditions Beijing authorities imposed on the visit did not enable a complete and independent assessment of the human rights environment” in China, according to the statement.
“We are further troubled by reports that residents of Xinjiang were warned not to complain or speak openly about conditions in the region.”
Bachelet’s visit had already been criticised for failing to secure guarantees of unfettered access to Xinjiang, where a 2019 United Nations assessment said an estimated 1 million people have been detained.