China Direct: UN’s Xinjiang showdown — UK backs Taiwan — Drone row - POLITICO Europe

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Exploring Europe’s diplomatic and commercial relationship with China.

By STUART LAU

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FLYING INTO TROUBLE: Geneva’s diplomats are on high alert. Beijing this week confirmed that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet would be visiting Xinjiang, with officials saying she could set off in late-May. Bachelet’s long-overdue trip to the center of allegations of what the U.S. calls genocide against Uyghur Muslims will be closely scrutinized. Diplomats say Beijing would likely cite the COVID-19 pandemic to limit her access to the far-western region bordering Central Asia.

On their minds: “What’s the point of visiting if she’s only going to be shown around the mosques to watch happily dancing Uyghurs?” a senior European diplomat in Geneva told China Direct.

UK TALKS TOUGH: In another sign of escalating tensions with Beijing, U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss says China’s rise “is not inevitable” and calls on NATO to bolster Taiwanese defense capabilities. “China is not impervious. By talking about the rise of China as inevitable, we are doing China’s work for it. In fact, their rise isn’t inevitable,” Truss said in a major foreign policy speech last night. “China needs trade with the G7 — we represent half of the global economy. And we have choices … We have shown that we are prepared to prioritize security and respect for sovereignty over short-term economic gain.”

Why NATO must protect Taiwan: “NATO must have a global outlook, ready to tackle global threats,” Truss said. “We need to pre-empt threats in the Indo-Pacific, working with allies like Japan and Australia to ensure that the Pacific is protected. We must ensure that democracies like Taiwan are able to defend themselves.” Truss said Beijing has not condemned Russian aggression, or its war crimes, and has tried to “coerce” Lithuania. Meanwhile, trade between Russia and China is rising. Beijing, she warned, is “rapidly building a military capable of projecting power deep into areas of European strategic interests.”

Good Thursday morning. Welcome to China Direct. What’s it like to live in China right now? Drop me an email and we’ll of course keep you anonymous.

RED CARPET IN XINJIANG

TRAVEL PLAN: Bachelet is planning the first visit to China by a U.N. human rights chief in 17 years. She has already sent an advance team to China, and the five members are currently under quarantine for the next two weeks or so. When they’re released, they will spend roughly a week scoping out the options for her visit, according to Western diplomats with knowledge of the trip. The five-member team is there “at the invitation of the [Chinese] government,” said Liz Throssell, U.N. human rights spokesperson.

Four years later … The U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has been negotiating with Beijing authorities since 2018 seeking “unfettered, meaningful access” to Xinjiang. There’s been evidence, based on satellite visuals and survivors’ accounts, showing mass internment imposed by Beijing on a region it considered to be a hotbed of ethnic and religious terrorism.

Will she see the camps? A U.N. human rights panel said in 2018 that it had received many credible reports that one million ethnic Uyghurs in China were held in what resembles a “massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy.” Beijing said the facilities were for “re-education and vocational training,” adding in late 2019 that all the “trainees” had “graduated.” It also promised to facilitate her visit so long as it is “not based on an assumption of guilt.”

DISQUIET IN GENEVA: Diplomats have doubts about Bachelet’s trip, questioning whether it would be used as a propaganda tool by Beijing, which has firmly rejected U.S. and European concerns about human rights violations. “We are pretty skeptical that the Chinese government will offer the High Commissioner and her team the kind of open and unfettered access to information and witnesses that would actually make this trip useful,” one Western diplomat said.

Where is her report? Human rights groups say Bachelet’s team has been withholding the publication of a report pertaining to the situation in Xinjiang. The U.N. chief has previously said that she would finalize the report after a “meaningful” visit to the troubled region. Frustrated Western diplomats want her to publish the report anyway, even if Beijing does not give her the kind of “unfettered” access she has asked for.

“The High Commissioner already has enough information from credible sources – including major international NGOs, reputable media, and eyewitnesses in third countries – to make an initial assessment of the situation in Xinjiang,” the diplomat said. “Indeed, OHCHR staff prepared a report already last summer, but for reasons we don’t understand, the High Commissioner has refused to release it. Nor has she or her office issued a single press release in three years calling attention to conditions in Xinjiang.”

CHINA-RUSSIA LATEST

NO MORE DRONES FOR RUSSIA — OR UKRAINE: Shenzhen-based drone giant DJI Technology Co said it would temporarily suspend business in Russia and Ukraine to avoid its products being deployed in combat.

GROWING SUSPICION: The decision was made days after the Wall Street Journal detailed Ukrainian suspicions of the drone maker’s role in aiding Russia’s war. Western governments previously warned Beijing of serious consequences should it get involved in helping Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

1- Can’t switch the gear on: According to the WSJ report, Ukrainian officials complained about the failure of a number of DJI’s AeroScopes, which are drone-detection systems to identify and track other drones and their pilots. These AeroScopes were located around the country, in some cases to protect critical infrastructure. However, at the start of the war, Ukrainian officials said that several of these systems wouldn’t switch on, leading some to allege that DJI tampered with the systems to allow Russian drones to fly undetected.

2- While the Russians can do it: The Ukrainians’ failure to activate the system was contrasted with Russia’s successful use of DJI equipment, the WSJ reported.

3- Fear of cybersecurity risks: Ukrainian soldiers were also asked to disconnect DJI drones from Wi-Fi or mobile networks, with a Ukrainian government report saying that DJI drones aren’t completely safe.

BUILDING BRIDGES: Russia has officially completed its section of the first rail bridge linking it to China on Wednesday, The Moscow Times reported. The whole bridge is expected to open within the next month.

The Russians love it: President Vladimir Putin’s envoy in Russia’s Far East, Yury Trutnev, reportedly called the Tongjiang-Nizhneleninskoye bridge a “key link” in Russian-Chinese cooperation “especially in the situation of new challenges from unfriendly countries.”

BOOK INTERVIEW

AARON FRIEDBERG, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, sits down with China Direct to talk about his new book, Getting China Wrong. Here are his five takeaways on China’s likely position in the wake of the Russian war:

Standing by Russia: “It’s become clear that first, China is not going to abandon its relationship with Russia, Xi Jinping has no intention of doing that. At the other end of the spectrum, at least so far, the Chinese appear to have been cautious about doing things that might, I think, in particular, provoke secondary economic sanctions. But they’re already I think, finding ways to work around that.”

Not helping the West: “If you listen to what Chinese commentators say, it’s essentially that you are asking us to turn on our closest friend, and once we help you finish them off, then you’re going to turn on us. And we’re not going to do that. And I think that’s the underlying geopolitical logic.”

Shared values: “Russia and China don’t have a common ideology — but they have a common anti-ideology. And that’s opposition to liberal democracy, to basically what the Chinese referred to as so-called ‘universal values.’ Both feel threatened by that. They feel they face a common enemy in, principally, the United States, but democratic societies both in Europe and in Asia.”

Watching sanctions: “There’s the question of what are the lessons of Ukraine for China as it thinks about Taiwan … We don’t know how long the sanctions are going to be maintained. There may already be increasing disagreement inside the Western alliance about how far to go, how long we can keep them.”

Taiwanese defensive tactics: “One last factor that is also going to influence the calculation is the question of the impact of the lessons of Ukraine on Taiwan, and on Taiwan’s defense preparations. And that could be quite considerable. And it looks like it is likely to encourage the Taiwanese to do a number of things that the United States and others have been encouraging them to do for several years, but they’d been reluctant to do — which is to place more reliance on smaller forces, armed with precision munitions, maybe even to prepare for kind of guerrilla warfare, to create a territorial army in case the Chinese do actually invade, rather than buying a few big flashy airplanes or trying to build their own submarines.”

EU-CHINA THIS WEEK

GERMANY INVOKES INVESTMENT SCREENING: The Berlin government stopped a Chinese company from purchasing a German medical device manufacturer, citing “dangers to public safety”, German daily Handelsblatt reported Wednesday, citing government sources. Aeonmed Group, which was hoping to acquire Heyer Medical AG, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

EU, US DISCUSS CHINA: Late last week the U.S. and EU held their third China dialogue, chaired by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Stefano Sannino, the No 2 at the EU External Action Service. Taiwan featured prominently in the discussion. “On Taiwan, they underscored the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait to regional and global security and prosperity. They expressed their support for the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues, and discouraged any actions which undermine the status quo,” a joint statement read.

And its response to the Ukraine war: The two “underscored they will continue to urge China not to circumvent or undermine sanctions against Russia, and not to provide any form of support for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and reaffirmed that such support would have consequences for our respective relationships with China,” the statement said. “They also expressed concern about China’s repeated information manipulation, including amplification of Russia’s disinformation regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

Beijing reacts: Responding to the dialogue, Beijing stuck to its usual playbook of hitting out at the U.S. while trying to play nice with Europe. “We hope the EU will face the facts and stop encouraging the tyrant to be abusive,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.

LOOKING TO INDIA: EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen this week took her tough China message to India, where she inaugurated the Raisina Dialogue. “If we consider what it means, for Europe and Asia, that Russia and China have forged a seemingly unrestrained pact. They have declared that the friendship between them has ‘no limits’; that there are ‘no forbidden areas of cooperation’; this was in February this year. And then, the invasion of Ukraine followed. What can we expect from the ‘new international relations’ that both have called for?” she asked.

Strategic challenge: “On China, we will continue to encourage Beijing to play its part in a peaceful and thriving Indo-Pacific region. The relationship between the European Union and China is simultaneously strategically important and challenging,” von der Leyen said.

Modi to visit Germany: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Berlin next Monday for the 6th German-Indian government consultations, my colleague Hans von der Burchard writes in to report. Modi will meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, followed by a joint meeting of the German and Indian cabinets and a Modi-Scholz dinner.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR: MERICS is calling for applications by May 9 for its flagship European China Talent Program. Check the details here.

THANK YOU: to editor Tim Ross and reporter Leonie Kijewski.