China’s growing influence threatens to undermine global human rights, new research finds

The report also found that China was using increasingly sophisticated maneuvering of key UNHRC mechanisms to contain criticism, with states increasingly partaking in the whitewash of Beijing’s rights record.

It said the most “astounding diplomatic victory” came with the rejection of a U.S.-proposed draft resolution on holding a debate on Xinjiang in October 2022, which was backed by Muslim-majority states and BRI signatories including Indonesia, the UAE and Qatar.

Human rights groups accuse Beijing of abuses against Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority group indigenous to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China. The U.S. has accused China of committing genocide. Beijing has vigorously denied it carries out any abuses.

The findings come at a time of heightened Western skepticism toward China, with U.S. and European allies raising various concerns ranging from the potential national security threats posed by Chinese technology to Beijing’s alliance with Moscow.

“Beijing’s increasingly active role in the international human rights system comes at a precarious period of global democratic deterioration, economic slowdown and severe geopolitical polarization — all with knock-on effects on human rights,” Sofia Nazalya, senior human rights analyst at Verisk Maplecroft and the report’s author, said.

“The upshot is that international human rights norms may weaken at the expense of vulnerable populations, while businesses will have to navigate and decode competing, and often conflicting, views on what constitutes an abuse and what doesn’t from the Council itself.”

Separate analysis released Tuesday found that China has significantly increased its bailout lending for distressed nations over recent years, loaning $185 billion to BRI debtors in the past five years alone.

The report, which was co-authored by the World Bank, said the uptick marked a shift toward a more “opaque and uncoordinated” global system for cross-border rescue lending, which threatens to undermine existing monetary architecture and the role of traditional institutions like the International Monetary Fund.

On Monday, Amnesty International released its latest “the state of the world’s human rights” report, in which it said that the world had experienced increased war crimes, crimes against humanity, repression of universal freedoms, economic crises and rising inequality over the past year.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/30/chinas-growing-influence-threatens-to-undermine-global-human-rights.html