What next for China after UN’s damning Uighur report?

The United Nations has accused China of “serious human rights violations” in a landmark report on allegations of abuse in Xinjiang province.

Researchers investigating claims of abuse against Uighur Muslims and other ethnic minorities have uncovered “credible evidence” of torture that may amount to “crimes against humanity”, according to the report by outgoing UN human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet.

The findings were published just 11 minutes before midnight on Wednesday, when her four-year term in office ended.

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What else did the report say?

Bachelet’s term as human rights chief had been dominated by the allegations of abuses in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region. Beijing has repeatedly denied any mistreatment of Uighurs.

The long-awaited report accuses China of using vague national security laws to clamp down on the rights of minorities and of establishing “systems of arbitrary detention”.

Prisoners in state-sponsored internment camps are alleged to have been subjected to “patterns of torture or ill-treatment” including “incidents of sexual and gender-based violence”. Some have faced forced medical treatment and “discriminatory enforcement of family planning and birth control policies”, the report said.

Beijing attempted to block the publication, branding the report a “farce”. The Chinese authorities published a 121-page counter report that emphasises the alleged threat of terrorism in the region. The state programme of “de-radicalisation” and “vocational education and training centres” has brought stability to Xinjiang, Beijing claimed.

Will the UN report lead to change?

The UN report affirms the findings of several Western governments and independent rights groups, including the US.

One of the final acts of the Donald Trump administration was to designate China’s “crackdown” in Xinjiang as genocide, a finding “a finding later affirmed” by the Joe Biden administration, said Bloomberg. The UN report “stopped short” of accusing China of genocide, however.

Beijing has denied committing rights violations in Xinjiang, dismissing genocide claims as “the lie of the century.”

The latest allegations will “likely rekindle” scrutiny of China’s policies in the region, and “spur further efforts by governments, activists and international businesses to push for a change”, the news site continued. The UN findings was published weeks after a report by the organisation’s top expert on slavery concluded that claims of forced labour in Xinjiang were “reasonable”.

But whether the fresh wave of allegations will lead to concrete change is a matter of debate. Human rights groups “have been sounding the alarm” about Xinjiang “for years”, and allege ”that more than one million Uighurs had been detained against their will”, said the BBC.

Activists “are calling for a commission of inquiry to be set up, and asking businesses around the world to cut all ties with anyone abetting the Chinese government” in the mistreatment of Uighurs, the broadcaster reported. But “there is unlikely to be much pressure from inside China”, where Uighur “human rights abuses has long been a taboo topic and heavily censored”.

What happens next?

Some Western governments, including the UK, have called for the UN to start a formal investigation of abuses in Xinjiang.

But Courtney Fung, a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute think tank, told the Financial Times that China still had an opportunity to “closely manage” criticism prompted by the report, which was released less than a fortnight before the final Human Rights Council session of 2022, and with no successor to Bachelet announced.

“The UN space isn’t a level playing field,” said Fung. “China’s rise in the UN system and its veto-empowered UN Security Council position affect any discussion over accountability.”

Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress advocacy group, was more hopeful. The “extremely important” UN report “paves the way for meaningful and tangible action by member states, UN bodies and the business community”, said Isa.

“Accountability starts now,” he added.