US-led nations criticise China at UN for treatment of Uighurs

Bloomberg

The US and its Western allies at the United Nations sharply criticised China’s treatment of its ethnic Uighurs, stepping up pressure over human rights just as Washington and Beijing seek to complete a “phase one” deal in their lingering trade dispute.
“We call on the Chinese government to uphold its national laws and international obligations and commitments to respect human rights, including freedom of religion or belief,” UK Ambassador Karen Pierce said in a statement at the UN General Assembly’s human rights committee on behalf of 23 countries including the US, Germany, France and Japan.
The Western criticism of China — which the US has sought to galvanise at the UN and other global bodies — comes at a sensitive time. Vice President Mike Pence criticised China’s actions against protesters in Hong Kong as the two countries remain locked in a trade war and jostle for military and commercial dominance in the Pacific.
China quickly pushed back against the criticism. A group of 54 countries including Russia, Egypt, Bolivia and Pakistan signed a joint statement commending “China’s remarkable achievements in the field of human rights.”
The statement added that China’s actions in the western province of Xinjiang have been a justifiable response to the “challenge of terrorism and extremism.”
The US-led letter criticised China’s efforts to “restrict cultural and religious practices, mass surveillance disproportionately targeting ethnic Uighurs, and other human rights violations and abuses” in Xinjiang. It called on the Chinese government to allow the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and UN Special Procedures “immediate unfettered, meaningful access,” to the province.
Moreover, China has been condemned for setting up complexes in Xinjiang, an autonomous territory in northwest China, that the mainland describes as “vocational training centres” to stamp out extremism and give people new skills. At least 1 million ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims have been detained, according to the UN.
The Trump administration this month slapped visa bans on Chinese officials linked to the mass detention of Muslims, the latest in an escalating series of US steps to pressure Beijing over what Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has called “the stain of the century.”