China faces grilling in review of key rights by UN committee

GENEVA—China came in for a grilling Wednesday over its human rights record as a two-day hearing opened at the United Nations human rights office, with rights advocates raising issues like relocations from Tibet, Covid-19, reprisals against human rights defenders and a security law that crushed dissidents in Hong Kong.

With advocates of China’s Uyghur minority protesting loudly outside, Chinese Ambassador Chen Xu and a delegation of about 40 envoys from China, Hong Kong and Macau faced questions from the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which reviews respect of those rights in nearly all UN member states every few years.

The six-hour hearings mark the first time a Chinese delegation has traveled to answer to a UN body in Geneva since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in 2020, UN officials said.

Ambassador Chen rattled off an array of accomplishments, including poverty alleviation, education, longer life spans in China as well as support for other countries in his opening remarks.

“No one can claim a perfect record in human rights protection, as there is always room for improvement. China still faces multiple problems and challenges in promoting and protecting economic, social and cultural rights,” including “glaringly unbalanced” development and “stumbling blocks” in some areas of reform, Chen said. He cited problems in areas like education, jobs, medical care, housing and environmental protection.

The hearing was built around questions from submissions from nearly 20 nongovernmental groups, and conducted by independent experts working with the UN who

PRESIDENT Joe Biden sought to ease concerns about an alleged Chinese spy balloon and shootdowns of three other objects over the US in recent weeks, saying he intends to speak with President Xi Jinping to defuse tensions fanned by the uproar.

Biden said Thursday that intelligence agencies have no indication the three other downed objects were foreign surveillance aircraft but also promised new guidelines designed to secure US airspace. He also vowed to “responsibly manage” competition with China “so that it doesn’t veer into conflict.”

“We’re not looking for a new Cold War, but I make no apologies, and we will compete,” Biden said in remarks at the White House, his first extended effort to publicly address the episode.

Floating the prospect of a Biden-Xi call underscored the seriousness of the White House efforts to calm the relationship with Beijing. While Biden didn’t say when he planned to speak to Xi, they have done so before at times of heightened tension, including a call that lasted more than two hours when they confronted each other over Taiwan last July. They also met in Bali in November.

Bipartisan pressure

BIDEN has faced bipartisan pressure in Congress to provide Americans with more information about the alleged Chinese spy balloon that was downed by a US fighter jet on February 4 after crossing the US mainland, as well as three make up the committee, which aims to help countries uphold their commitments under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Michael Windfuhr, deputy director of the German Institute for Human Rights and the committee’s country rapporteur on China, laid out a number of questions on issues as diverse as discrimination, access to lawyers, and assurances that Chinese multinational firms wouldn’t undermine human rights abroad.

“Dealing with China in six hours devoted to a state review is a challenge for the committee,” he said.

“The committee will therefore prioritize the most pressing human rights issues under the covenant.”

He asked how many organizations have been classified as having endangered national security under the hotly contested National Security Law in Hong Kong, and asked how China would improve transparency in the sharing of data about Covid-19 with the international community.

But Hong Kong officials, speaking in English, insisted that the security law has specific provisions for respecting human rights, particularly in the context of some trade union activities, which they considered to have violated the law and had nothing to do with labor rights.

“The Hong Kong [Special Administrative Region] government is dedicated to defend and protect the lawful rights and freedom of association in Hong Kong,” said Hoi-shan Cheung, assistant commissioner in Hong Kong’s Labor Department.

Chinese delegates were expected to provide at least some answers as the hearing on China—one of six countries before the panel this month—concluded Thursday. AP other unidentified objects that were shot out of the skies over Alaska, Canada and Michigan in the following days.

The President said those objects weren’t related to the balloon incident and were likely tied to commercial or research ventures. But he added that the administration hasn’t determined definitively what they are because the debris hasn’t yet been recovered. He said he acted “out of an abundance of caution” in downing the other mystery objects.

“We don’t have any evidence that there has been a sudden increase in number of objects in the sky,” Biden said. Rather, he said the US military and civil aviation authorities have spotted more objects after tuning radar systems to be more sensitive following the Chinese balloon’s cross-country trip. Biden sought to defend his handling of the balloon incident in response to Republicans who said he was too slow to act as well as denunciations from the Chinese government. He said the downing of the balloon had sent “a clear message” that violations of US sovereignty are “unacceptable.”

“I hope we are going to get to the bottom of this, but I make no apologies for taking down that balloon,” Biden said.

New parameters Biden directed the government to create are intended to establish a better inventory of unmanned airborne objects and implement measures to better detect man-made objects in US airspace. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will also work with other nations to establish global norms on launching those devices and securing high-altitude spaces.

Biden’s address came before he leaves the country for a February 20 trip to Poland around the one-year mark of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The White House has faced calls from Republicans and Democrats in Congress to provide more information to lawmakers and the public. The administration has provided closed-door briefings to members on Capitol Hill, but lawmakers have said the information should be public and that officials should provide more of it. Much of what Biden said on Thursday repeated details shared by other US officials in recent days.

Defusing tensions

THE US has sought to dial back concern about the Chinese balloon, saying that it added only limited benefits to satellite surveillance and that sensitive US military facilities took steps to limit electronic spying as it passed over. China has maintained that it was a weather balloon that went astray.

In a sign that both sides are eager to turn the page, Blinken is said to be weighing a meeting with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference beginning Friday.

Still, tensions between the world’s two largest economies remain high. On Thursday, in a largely symbolic gesture, Beijing imposed fines and sanctions against two US defense companies,

Lockheed Martin Corp. and a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies Corp., due to their participation in arms sales to Taiwan, China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement.

Charlie Moore, a retired lieutenant general who was a former vice director of operations at Norad, the North American Air Defense Command, and who is now at Vanderbilt University, said the US should make clear that there will be consequences if more balloons enter US territory.

“The Chinese must understand there is a diplomatic and economic price to pay for the overt violation of international law,” he said. “We should not conduct the diplomatic meeting with Secretary Blinken until this is resolved.”

Late Thursday, the Financial Times reported that Michael Chase, the US’s deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, will go to Taiwan in the coming days. That appeared to be a signal that while the US wants to stabilize ties with China, it won’t back down from other actions, including its nurturing of relations with Taiwan, that have angered Beijing.

The White House said the spy balloon episode revealed a wideranging espionage program the Chinese government used to target 40 countries worldwide. US officials have briefed other nations that it says were overflown by such spy balloons in the past.

The US is now working to recover the payload of the Chinese craft as well as the other objects it downed. Significant amounts of equipment have been recovered from the Chinese airship in waters off of South Carolina, but weather conditions have made the ongoing work difficult—and have prevented personnel from collecting debris from the three other objects that fell in remote locations. Bloomberg News