EDITORIAL
(TibetanReview.net, Jun15’25) – China expressed disdain for “so-called issues such as freedom of expression, religion and belief” during the 40th EU-China Human Rights Dialogue in Brussels on Jun 13, according to an opinion piece posted on China’s official globaltimes.cn Jun 15. Essentially, the piece is a commentary on why the dialogue could not happen, and should not have happened, in the first place, while insisting it should continue!
The piece did not refer to the issues of China’s interference in the Tibetan people’s religious belief system, including meddling in their right to recognize the reincarnation of their top spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and the EU’s query, for the umpteenth time, on the fate of the 30-year kidnap-disappeared 11th Panchen Lama Gedhun Choekyi Nyima. Rather, it said China justified its human rights record – criticized all-round by everyone but the “useful idiots” obligated to placate it – by calling them interference in its internal affairs.
The piece said that in an official statement on the dialogue released on Jun 14, China “protested against the China-related contents in the Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World 2024 recently released by the EU, emphasizing that affairs related to Xinjiang, Xizang and Hong Kong as well as individual judicial cases are purely China’s internal affairs that brook no external interference.”
The piece postulated that countries have their own different approaches to human rights, that different civilizations have diverse historical backgrounds, cultural traditions and development stages, and that China’s human rights framework prioritizes collective well-being and social stability alongside individual rights, reflecting its unique national conditions and development needs.
This line of argument negates the very idea of individual rights while claiming it is being sought to be respected.
And yet China claims that it respects the universality of human rights, for the commentary claims, “the EU’s approach reveals a troubling pattern of passing judgment on China’s internal affairs using standards and values that reflect Western political systems rather than universal principles.”
The piece makes it clear that China’s approach to human rights is very different from Western individualism-centred models, thereby sneakily justifying its trampling on the civil and political rights of its citizens and colonial subjects without any sense of accountability.
According to China, genuine dialogue requires acknowledging that both sides face human rights challenges, that within EU countries, rising xenophobia, discrimination against minorities, the treatment of migrants and the growth of far-right extremism represent serious human rights concerns that warrant equal attention. Dialogue allows for the exchange of governance methods and experiences between both parties, which can effectively promote human rights progress for each, it continued.
However, the huge difference between the EU countries and broader other open democracies, on the one hand, and China, on the other hand, is that the former have institutionalized rule of law, independent judiciary, free press, and a vigilant civil society which all take the government to task for any such alleged violations while in the case of the latter, the party-state brooks no criticism, and anyone who points out its wrongdoing, even expresses a different opinion, risks annihilation.
After effectively making it clear that a dialogue on human rights between it and the EU is virtually impossible, due to what it calls ideological, historical, cultural, and developmental-stage and so forth differences, China sees public relations value in keeping the charade of it alive.
The commentary says that despite these disagreements, “China remains committed to constructive dialogue,” that “forty rounds of human rights exchanges demonstrate the value both sides place on this mechanism”, that “this commitment to dialogue is a reason for hope and optimism in the pursuit of mutual understanding and respect.”
The real reason is that by participating in such dialogues, as in the UN human rights system, China makes propaganda claims that it is actively engaged in promoting global human rights, even though all it does is to subvert the systems to avoid criticisms of its abysmal record, which is routinely critiqued, condemned or reported on in a plethora of periodic, special, incidental, and other reports by rights group, researchers, journalists and others from across the world.
Anyone can see that China’s bilateral dialogues, like that with the EU, and its participation in the UN human rights system have helped only to subvert rather than subserve the promotion of human rights.
For the EU and the UN, however, there appears to be little alternative but to keep China busy – the least they can do – defending its indefensible record with implausible excuses for the rest of the world to see.