Western powers hypocritical in smearing China on Xinjiang but neglecting Palestinians’ suffering

On 18 October 2023, the UK ambassador to the UN, James Kariuki, read a joint statement about putative human rights violations in Xinjiang at the Third Committee of the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

The statement – which was signed by Albania, Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Eswatini, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Nauru, Netherlands, North Macedonia, New Zealand, Norway, Palau, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Marshall Islands, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tuvalu, Ukraine, the US and UK – repeated the various now-familiar tropes about the treatment of Xinjiang’s Uyghur population: “arbitrary detention and systematic use of invasive surveillance on the basis of religion and ethnicity”, forced labour, forced sterilisation and more.

At the same session, Pakistan, on behalf of 72 countries, made a statement explicitly supporting China’s position on Xinjiang-, Hong Kong- and Tibet-related issues, strongly opposing the politicisation of human rights, double standards, and interference in other countries’ internal affairs under the pretext of human rights.

Meanwhile Venezuela, on behalf of 19 members of the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations, made a joint statement to support China’s position and to fiercely criticise the Western powers’ outrageous double standards in the field of human rights, racial discrimination and unilateral coercive measures.

The following article, originally carried in Global Times on 19 October, summarises ambassador Zhang Jun’s contribution to the session, in which he resolutely rebuffs the slanders thrown by the imperialist countries and their hangers-on. Observing that the whole narrative around Xinjiang is aimed entirely at weakening and maligning China, Zhang noted the astounding irony of accusing China of anti-Muslim discrimination at a time when Gaza is facing a ferocious assault and the same countries throwing accusations at China are at the same time impeding a ceasefire in the Middle East.

Zhang further addressed the rise in racism and Islamophobia in the Western world:

It is the UK that has seen a rise in racism in recent years. It is the US that is known for committing genocide against Native Americans. Its hypocrisy and double standards on the Israeli-Palestinian issue have also aroused anger among Muslims worldwide. It is some European countries that, under the guise of freedom of speech, condone the desecration of Koran and fuel Islamophobia. The list goes on and on! Your hypocrisy, darkness, and evil are the biggest obstacles to the progress of the international human rights cause.

With the countries of the Global South, including the vast majority of Muslim-majority countries, showing their support for China, it’s abundantly clear that “the political plot to destabilize Xinjiang and contain China has long been seen through by the world and has already completely failed”.

China strongly opposed the US, UK, and a small number of other nations’ attempts to misuse the UN platform to incite conflict and baselessly defame China after they groundlessly blamed China on topics related to the country’s Xinjiang region at a session of the UN General Assembly. Analysts said that the world has once again witnessed the hypocrisy and political motivations of the US and some other Western nations as they claim to “care about” Muslims in China’s Xinjiang area, who live peacefually, while turning a blind eye to the pain of the people in Gaza.

On Wednesday, James Kariuki, UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, represented some countries and delivered a joint statement at the 78th session of the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee, in which they alleged China has “violated” human rights of Muslims minorities in the country’s Xinjiang region. 

Zhang Jun, China’s permanent representative to the United Nations,  strongly refuted these accusations and stated that the bad habits of a few countries like the UK and the US remain unchanged, as they once again abused the Third Committee of the General Assembly to provoke confrontation and groundlessly accuse China, which China firmly opposes and strongly rejects.

“I want to seriously tell a few countries like the UK and the US that the various lies and deceptions about Xinjiang cannot deceive the world. Currently, Xinjiang enjoys social stability and harmony, economic prosperity and development, and religious harmony. These are basic facts that any unbiased person can see clearly,” Zhang said. 

No matter what political performance the US, UK and some countries put on or how desperately they try to rally other countries, their political plot to destabilize Xinjiang and contain China has long been seen through by the world and has already completely failed, said Zhang. 

While refuting lies about China’s Xinjiang region, Ambassador Zhang also warned that a few countries like the UK and the US that using human rights issues as an excuse to accuse and attack China cannot cover up their own blemishes.

“It is the UK that has seen a rise in racism in recent years… It is the US that is known for committing genocide against Native Americans… Its hypocrisy and double standards on the Israeli-Palestinian issue have also aroused anger among Muslims worldwide. It is some European countries that, under the guise of freedom of speech, condone the desecration of Koran and fuel Islamophobia… This list can go on and on! Your hypocrisy, darkness, and evil are the biggest obstacles to the progress of the international human rights cause,” Zhang added. 

It is not uncommon to see the US and other Western nations take advantage of international forums, particularly the UN Assembly, to “siege” China by spotlighting “human rights” issues in China’s Xinjiang. Their goal is to keep these topics the focus in the international media and to continue stigmatizing China, analysts said.

“China has invited foreign diplomats, reporters, professors, and individuals from a variety of fields to see what actually happened in the Xinjiang region with their own eyes for the past few years. These individuals have then come out to debunk lies propagated by anti-China forces in the US and other nations,” Jia Chunyang, an expert at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times.

“Do the US and other Western countries sincerely care about the welfare of Muslims across the world? The response is ‘no,'” Jia brought out the worsening discrimination toward Muslims living in the US. 

Additionally, the US and some Western nations ignore the suffering of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip while voicing their “concerns” for Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region – this amply demonstrates that their true priorities are to use the Xinjiang topic to contain China rather than to genuinely care about the lives of the people living there, analysts said. 

Also on Wednesday, the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have called for “humanitarian pauses” to deliver lifesaving aid to millions in Gaza, according to media reports. 

The US’ biased stance on the current situation in the Middle East fully exposed its hypocrisies and its practices of politicizing and instrumentalizing human rights, Wang Jiang, an expert at the Institute of China’s Borderland Studies at Zhejiang Normal University, told the Global Times.

The West and the US have historically contributed to the human rights cause, but what they are doing now completely contradicts the ideas and perspectives that were first introduced about human rights. The US and certain other Western nations have various standards on human rights for other nations, as well as for adversaries and allies, and which standard they employ depends on their own political requirements, Wang said. 

Ambassador Zhang on Wednesday also criticized the US and some Western countries’ politicization of human rights, noting that such actions are “completely unpopular.”

On Wednesday, the representative of Oman, on behalf of the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, made a joint statement in support of China. In the meeting held the previous day, developing countries and friendly nations actively spoke in support of China.