China’s call for foreigners to ‘take a look’ and learn the truth should include Xinjiang and Tibet
- Officials are fond of inviting ‘fair-minded’ foreigners to ‘walk around’ China and ‘take a look’ before doubting the country’s human rights record
- Which is all well and good. But the invitation rings hollow when the regions where violations are said to have occurred are virtually off limits
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said this week that no country has the authority to “lecture and finger-point” on the human rights situation elsewhere.
Speaking at the latest session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, Qin said there is no one-size-fits-all model for protecting human rights and made it clear that all countries have the right to choose their own development path.
He accused foreign forces with a “hidden agenda” of “hyping up issues” related to Xinjiang and Tibet to “smear China and suppress its development” – adding that Beijing welcomes “all fair-minded people from across the world to China to visit more places and see more things, to learn what is truly happening on the ground”.
But surely this means that China has to make its difficult-to-access regions more accessible to these “fair-minded people” who want to make up their own minds?
In a slight departure from the English version of Qin’s speech, the Chinese text was more colloquial, inviting people “harbouring no prejudice” to “walk around and take a look (zou yi zou, kan yi kan) in China” and “understand the truth with their own eyes”.
Which is all well and good. Except that in recent years, “walking around” and “taking a look” at Xinjiang and Tibet hasn’t been as breezy for foreigners as that expression implies.
Tibet remains officially off limits to foreign journalists, except for those on official press tours organised by the State Council or foreign ministry, or who have been granted special permission by the government.
Last year, every single application to report from Tibet was rejected, according to the Foreign Correspondents Club of China’s annual media freedom report.
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Access to Xinjiang is similarly tightly controlled, with much of the far-flung western region closed off by Covid controls last year. Those who did manage to visit in 2021 reported being “visibly followed”, having their interviews “monitored and disrupted” and being ordered to delete photos or videos.
Even before the pandemic, it was much the same story. When I was on a reporting assignment in Kashgar about a decade ago, my colleagues and I were followed and forced to delete footage of the city’s bazaar.
Men in plain clothes also stood in front of our cameras to prevent us from doing our jobs.
Journalists, it seems, are clearly not welcome in these regions. But surely other foreign visitors are allowed to zou yi zou, kan yi kan?
Not if the holiday I went on to southern Xinjiang before the start of the pandemic is any indication.
Our group, consisting of both locals and foreigners, was stopped at the region’s numerous checkpoints and made to answer endless questions from police and security personnel about the purpose of our trip – despite having car boots full of expedition gear.
The foreigners among us were barred from entering smaller cities and told to go back to where we came from. Some hotels even refused to let us check in and when asked where we could stay instead, the staff would simply shrug.
It’s unlikely that this hostility towards outsiders will change, especially with the greater international scrutiny on rights violations in these regions.
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And while there are limits to how much of “the truth” can be understood by simply “walking around” or “taking a look”, the alternative of not having the chance to visit and see what is happening on the ground means independent watchers are left with a total information vacuum.
Many foreigners, journalists included, are “fair-minded” and “harbour no prejudice” towards China.
They would like nothing more than to zou yi zou, kan yi kan – an expression that Chinese officials other than Qin have used in recent years, especially when discussing foreigners sceptical of China’s progress and developments.
But unless there is a genuine desire to allow greater, unobstructed access to these regions, Chinese officialdom should consider retiring this meaningless phrase.
