How UN’s Human Rights Chief Became a Propagandist for Communist China

While North Korea readies its next a-bomb test, it will tomorrow start a stint chairng the disarmament forum at the United Nations in Geneva. In March, Iran was elected to a seat on the world body’s women’s rights commission. So why wouldn’t the UN’s top human rights official sing the praises of Communist China?On the face of it, Michelle Bachelet’s aspirations to succeed Secretary-General Guterres in 2026 should have been harmed by the trip to China that she concluded yesterday. Even the State Department, normally besotted with the UN, issued a mild rebuke of her propaganda coup for the Chinese party boss, President Xi . A human rights commissioner aspiring to the top UN job might be expected, after all, to criticize a regime that puts its subjects in concentration camps, engages in forced re-education, or just kills its dissidents. Yet, when it came to assessing the regime’s human rights record, Ms. Bachelet, a former Chilean president, was oh-so-dainty as she completed her China tour.That is even though her week-long journey included an unprecedented tour of the Xinjiang region, where Uighur and other Chinese Muslims are victims of what the State Department has called “genocide.” Flanked by communist minders, Ms. Bachelet saw what the party bosses wanted her to see.An extensive round of arrests and intimidation on the eve of her tour assured that no one in Xinjiang would speak out of school. She saw a Potemkin village. No wonder the state-owned Xinhua news agency reported that Ms. Bachelet said, “I admire China’s efforts and achievements in eradicating poverty, protecting human rights, and realizing economic and social development.”Ms. Bachelet’s office issued a retraction, the New York Times reports, but one can forgive Beijing’s propaganda machine for overstating the case. During a press conference yesterday, Ms. Bachelet took only a couple of questions, and her longest answer was about gun violence in America. Even Secretary of State Blinken expressed concern about the fiasco. He issued a statement saying that Ms. Bachelet “should have been allowed confidential meetings with family members of Uyghur and other ethnic minority diaspora communities in Xinjiang.”So why was a trip that was promoted as a sign of bravery and speaking truth to power so badly botched? Part of it is Ms. Bachelet’s affinity for dictators. The Geneva-based director of UN Watch, Hillel Neuer, one of the real truth-tellers on this beat, recalled that on Twitter, in November 2016, Ms. Bachelet wrote, “My condolences to President Raúl Castro for the death of Fidel, a leader for dignity and social justice in Cuba and Latin America.” Ms. Bachelet knows the UN system all too well. Several diplomats and UN officials are convinced that she aspires to become the first woman general secretary at Turtle Bay. For that, she would need Beijing’s backing. The UN General Assembly elects a new UN chief every five years after it receives a recommendation from the 15-member Security Council. The five permanent members can veto any nomination.The council’s vote is based on secret ballots, but it is widely known that the decision is made in three capitals, Moscow, Beijing, and Washington. Mr. Blinken’s current “concern” aside, Ms. Bachelet is likely assuming that it would be difficult for America — or its French and British allies — to oppose the candidacy of a woman from a friendly democracy in the Western Hemisphere.That leaves Mr. Xi, who it is widely assumed will win, yet again, Communist Party backing later this summer and remain Beijing’s boss for the foreseeable future. Allowing Mr. Xi to portray her visit as praise of the regime’s human rights record would go a long way toward securing his support for Ms. Bachelet’s campaign. The UN Charter’s first words are “we the peoples.” Established in the aftermath of World War II, the institution aspired to become a world government resembling America and America’s Constitution. Yet, today’s anomalies make a farce of that aspiration. Membership in UN bodies is determined by acclamation votes that in most cases simply rubber stamp candidacies that are put forward by regional blocs. In many cases those regional candidacies are uncontested. That is how Pyongyang scored a seat on the disarmament body. Never mind that its nuclear arsenal has been declared illegal by the Security Council or that it has menaced its neighbors and the world.Forget, for that matter, the plight of women who are forced to wear head coverings and suffer various humiliations in Iran: The Islamic Republic now has a stage to propagandize its version of women rights.And that is how Ms. Bachelet turned into a Beijing mouthpiece.

How UN’s Human Rights Chief Became a Propagandist for Communist China

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