Xi to Bachelet: no country can tell China how to defend human rights
Beijing, May 25 (EFE).- Chinese President Xi Jinping told the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, on Wednesday that there was no need for any country to “teach” others how to defend human rights, nor politicize the issue and interfere in the internal affairs of other nations.
Xi and Bachelet, who is visiting the Asian country until Friday, held a virtual meeting a day after a leak of thousands of photographs and documents taken inside internment camps in the western region of Xinjiang, where hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities have been held.
Bachelet arrived in China on Monday on a six-day visit to investigate alleged abuses in Xinjiang amid fears she will be given limited access in the country.
“We continue to develop people’s democracy in the whole process, promote the protection of human rights and the rule of law, and maintain social fairness and justice. The Chinese people enjoy broader, fuller, and more comprehensive democratic rights. The human rights of the Chinese people have been guaranteed unprecedentedly,” Xi said.
“China is willing to actively carry out human rights dialogue and cooperation with all parties on the basis of equality and mutual respect, expand consensus, reduce differences, learn from each other, and make progress together, so as to jointly advance the international human rights cause and benefit people of all countries,” he added.
However, Xi warned that there was no “ideal State” on human rights.
“There is no need for a ‘teacher’ who is arrogant to other countries, let alone politicizing and instrumentalizing human rights issues, engaging in double standards, and interfering in other countries’ internal affairs under the pretext of human rights,” he added, in a veiled reference to the United States and the European Union, which imposed sanctions on Chinese officials and entities last year on account of alleged abuses in Xinjiang.
“It is necessary to abide by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, carry forward the common values of all mankind, and promote the development of global human rights governance in a more fair, just, reasonable, and inclusive direction,” he said.
“China will continue to support the active efforts of the United Nations to promote the cause of international human rights.”
Xi also pointed out that countries “differ in their national conditions, their historical culture, social systems, and levels of economic and social development,” and so “must and can only explore their own human rights development path based on their own country’s actual situation and people’s needs.”
“To deviate from reality and copy the system model of other countries will not only be unacceptable, but also bring catastrophic consequences, and ultimately the people will suffer,” he warned. EFE
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