China's "victory" at the Human Rights Council
It was much less impressive than Chinese media accounts are suggesting.
Chinese media outlets are celebrating a show of international support for its policies in Hong Kong. The Global Times trumpeted “landslide support” for China’s new security legislation at none other than the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The reality is far less impressive than the headline suggests. At a Human Rights Council session this week, the Cuban government read out a statement supporting China’s recent security legislation in Hong Kong. The Cuban statement was followed by a British statement criticizing the Beijing’s Hong Kong policy. Axios reported yesterday on the countries backing the respective statements. If their count is accurate, 53 countries backed the Cuban statement, with only 27 in favor of the British criticism. Thus, the reports of a landslide in favor of China.
But several points are worth noting. The statement itself was not a Human Rights Council resolution or any other kind of formal Council action. Moreover, the published list of countries supporting the respective statements includes many countries (on both sides) that are not Human Rights Council members. (The Council has only 47 members, who are elected by the broader General Assembly.) By my tally, only nine of the 53 countries purportedly backing Beijing’s moves are Council members. And many Council countries appear not to have backed either of the statements (as the Axios report notes, India offered a more mild criticism of China). Those countries that reportedly did back Cuba’s statement comprised almost all of the world’s authoritarian governments, including Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.
If the Cuban statement was not a formal Council action, it also does not have any immediate implications for the work of the Council’s many rights experts. As one of these officials pointed out, a collection of Council experts in fact recently demanded that China comply with international human rights law.
If the show of support for Beijing is far less than meets the eye, it is certainly not irrelevant. It is further evidence of both the substantial authoritarian constituency at the United Nations—and China’s adroitness in using multilateral levers to gin up the appearance of even wider backing than it enjoys.