Dmitry Kosyrev
America is returning to work on the UN Human Rights Council today. But, as attentive observers gently suggest to her – and to all of us – it will not be easy for her in the Council, because China has been ordering the music there for three years. You, that is, the United States, do not like this – and you should not have left with a scandal.
Recall that Washington slammed the door to the HRC in 2018 under Donald Trump, realizing the long-held dream of the indignant: what kind of Council is this if anyone and everyone is equal, and if someone can object to America there and lecture it about the saint – oh human rights? After all, the United States is the eternal master teacher on this issue.
The principal decision to return was announced in February this year, with this text by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken : the departure from 2018 “created a vacuum of American leadership that countries with authoritarian agendas have used to their advantage.”
Slamming doors is a quick task, but it takes a long time to return; after all, the US still had to elect to the HRC by the votes of all UN members. The fact is that membership is not guaranteed to anyone, and they may not be elected. Russia was not elected in 2016; it returned to the Council only this year. The HRC has only 47 seats, and the UN has 193, which means constant rotation, the fight for the right to speak out in this UN body sitting in Geneva.
But everything turned out okay, America, as already mentioned, starts full-fledged work – and finds out what kind of phenomenon this is, when China has become almost a global trendsetter in terms of human rights over the past period. The point is not so much what the Chinese say, but who listens to them and supports them.
And here are some episodes we can catch from the many publications on this topic. Last year, Beijing gathered at the UN for a collective statement from 53 countries (13 of them HRC members) on whether the protracted protests in Hong Kong could and should be suppressed. And only 27 countries (the collective West) signed a document of the opposite content. In July 2019, 20 HRC members supported China on the question of whether it was true that genocide and other horror was taking place in Xinjiang.
And the point is not only in China and its policies, but in the fact that the UN constantly elects not only the West (27, or 30, or a little more countries) as members of the HRC, but also Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Venezuela, Iraq, the same Russia. Some kind of rampant democracy turns out. But it turned out that it was China that formulated the idea that has long and sometimes invisibly stood behind all these elections and discussions. The idea that we still need to see what these very human rights are. And at least not to allow only one group of states to dictate their will on this issue to others.
An alternative concept of human rights “according to Beijing” looks like this: in the first place should be the rights to life and existence of people and states, that is, including the right to economic development. Next: people should feel happy, imagine. And if they do not feel, despite the fact that they have an absolutely democratic system (as in Afghanistan under the American occupation), then something is wrong here. Finally, the world must recognize that all of these issues are a subject for discussion, which must take into account the enormous difference in cultures and civilizations of our world.
That is, Beijing could use, among other things, its membership in the HRC for defense. For example, to state there facts about the disgustingly false story of accusations of “genocide in Xinjiang” – and this is really a fake of enormous proportions. But he went on the offensive. And not alone. Russia in the HRC – and not only there – actively supports Chinese philosophy, especially since agai-nst us – and not only against us – they launch their “Xinjiang” with dreary regularity. Moscow in the same HRC fought against equally false resolutions on Belarus and other topics.
Can it be considered that the Chinese concept of human rights has absolutely and forever defeated the Western one and that China is right in everything? Of course no. There is a lot to argue about here. For example, about the idea of “social ratings” invented there to discriminate against those who cross the street at a red light and do not pay loans on time. Or talk about how permissible are brutal covid quarantines in China (or, say, in France ) – and such issues are also discussed in the Council.
But it is supported by many UN members, and very often – the majority of them, not only and so many China. This country has become a world moral leader because it upholds the very principle underlying the HRC, which was created in 2006: that it is a discussion platform, a global philosophical club where everyone should argue on equal terms.
It is precisely this principle that the current American and Western teams are opposing – quite openly -. Nobody hides that the United States returned to the HRC in order to destroy it. And turn from a philosophical club into a tribunal, where the judges will be permanently the same, that is, the same West. Because the idea of what human rights are is not a reason for discussion, but the inheritance of this team of about 30 states.
The program for the destruction of the HRC is not hidden by anyone. First, it is necessary to deal with the elections of the members of the Council, “to make them more competitive.” Now there are countries according to regional quotas, for example, 13 countries from Asia, seven are Western Europe and the United States, Israel and Canada, which have joined it. Etc. “Competitive” elections can mean that no one from Africa or Latin America will get to Geneva. Further: candidates need to set tough filters and pre-select them.
And this is a great story. The fact is that there is a huge and very expensive network, but simply a community of all kinds of human rights organizations, which are supported exclusively by Westerners, keepers of the purity of the idea of human rights. For this mafia, the UN Human Rights Council is an unwelcome competitor, undermi-ning the West’s monopoly on deciding who is democratic and respectful of rights and who is not. And now it is planned to make sure that only people from the very mafia, and not so-meone else, sit in the expert teams under the HRC. And they were filtering who needed before the vote.
Then, however, only the “alliance of democracies” will need this tribunal, and no one else will benefit from it. But this does not mean that the HRC will then disappear. And it does not mean that it will be necessary to repeat the American mistake and leave it, slamming doors.
