Xinjiang and Tibet: UN report accuses China of slavery

For months, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, has been delaying the publication of a report on the situation of the Uyghurs in China. Now their special rapporteur, Tomoya Obokata, comes first and makes serious accusations against Beijing.

A few days after the ceremonial ratification of international conventions against forced labor, the People’s Republic of China faces serious accusations from a UN representative. The Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council believes that “forms of slavery” exist both in the autonomous region of Xinjiang and in Tibet.

“Independent academic research, open sources, victim testimonies, stakeholder consultations and government reports” supported this conclusion, the report said. Moreover, “excessive surveillance, abusive living and working conditions, restriction of movement through detention, threats, physical and/or sexual violence and other inhuman or degrading treatment” could constitute crimes against humanity.

The stark conclusion by Japan’s special rapporteur on modern forms of slavery, Tomoya Obokata, is part of a 20-page report released this week. The paper not only addresses forced labor in China but also in other parts of the world. It serves as a basis for discussion by the Human Rights Council at its 51st session in September in Geneva.

When the council meets, the current UN human rights commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, will no longer be there. Actually, it was the Chilean who should have submitted a report on the situation of the Uyghurs and other minorities. However, a release has already been postponed several times. The High Commissioner, who visited the People’s Republic at the end of May, is accused of delaying the report in the interest of the Chinese government and of having appropriated the language used to play it down.

Now the document is said to be released on her last day in office at the end of August. Beijing has already been able to view the report and comment on its assessments. It is considered highly likely that critical formulations will be wrestled to the end and that China will iron out the allegations.

China didn’t like Obokata’s report at all, as he bluntly formulates precisely those allegations that the country always wants to banish to the realm of fables. A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded with verbal counterattacks and reflexively thought the People’s Republic was playing the victim role. Obokata chose to “believe lies and misinformation fabricated by the US and anti-Chinese forces.” The special rapporteur “maliciously” sullies China’s reputation.

For years, the People’s Republic has been trying to paint a different picture of Xinjiang with a meticulously controlled information policy. In order to take the weight off the increasingly massive allegations, Beijing is also relying on economic constraints on foreign companies, many of which fear the consequences for their sales in the country. They either remain silent on the subject or squirm in dubious whitewashing.

Accordingly, Obokata’s report also makes international companies responsible. He describes the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) in the USA or supply chain laws in Germany, France, Great Britain or at EU level as good examples of obliging companies to exercise due diligence.

Uyghur stakeholders reacted hopefully. “The findings of this report must be a wake-up call for those who have so far refused to take action against the proliferation of goods manufactured through forced Uyghur labor in global supply chains,” said World Uiuren Congress (WUC) President Dolkun Isa. The WUC is also calling on Michelle Bachelet to publish her report immediately.

There was also a positive response from Tibetan organizations. The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) welcomed the report’s explicit reference to forced labor in the Tibetan settlement areas of the People’s Republic. “The Special Rapporteur’s finding also underscores the drama of the situation in Tibet and the fact that it also deserves special attention,” said ICT Managing Director Kai Mueller in a statement. “We have repeatedly pointed out the Chinese government’s so-called work programs into which hundreds of thousands of Tibetans are being forced,” said Müller, who supported the call for Bachelet’s report to be published immediately.

Only at the end of last week did China ratify Conventions 29 and 105 of the International Labor Organization (ILO). The 1930 Convention on Forced Labor and the 1957 Convention on the Abolition of Forced Labor oblige the People’s Republic to prohibit any form of “forced or compulsory labour” and not to use it “as a means of political coercion”.

“The timing of the report is quite sensitive given China’s recent ratification of two ILO conventions banning the use of forced labour,” German anthropologist Adrian Zenz commented on Twitter. With his meticulous research into forced labor in Xinjiang, Zenz had drastically increased awareness of the problem worldwide. He assesses the UN paper as an “extremely important and strong assessment”.

But as compelling as the evidence supporting the report is, China is likely to continue to field a front of advocates trying to refute the allegations. At the beginning of August, the Chinese government invited envoys from 30 Islamic countries to Xinjiang, including representatives from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Algeria, Iraq and Yemen. According to the Chinese media, the conclusion of the delegation was that the participants had come to the conclusion that the rights of ethnic minorities such as the Uyghurs were being protected. The Algerian ambassador said: “The fruits here are as sweet as the lives of the people here.”