A blow for Western diplomacy: the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Chilean national Michele Bachelet, has just completed a six-day visit to China, looking in particular for evidence of the “Uyghur genocide”, but had to leave empty-handed. Going back 17 years, none of her predecessors has ever set foot in China.
Ms. Bachelet interviewed several dignitaries, heads of associations, religious leaders and witnesses at large. She even paid a visit to Kashi prison, but could find nothing that conflicted with the official Chinese version.
During her final press conference, the High Commissioner specified that she had freely chosen her interlocutors and the places she visited.
Outraged, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a statement, pointing out that Ms. Bachelet failed to conduct her interviews in secret, exposing her terrorized interlocutors to the gaze of Chinese power. He recalled that, according to him, human rights are flouted in Tibet, Hong Kong and Xijiang; and that a million Uighurs are interned, subjected to forced labour, sterilized and tortured, etc. etc.
– “Concerns with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Visit to the People’s Republic of China“, Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, May 28, 2022.