India’s long held position is that country specific resolutions are never helpful and dialogue is the way forward. Does its surprising abstention from voting on human rights in China serve its national interest?
By Col R Hariharan | Columns| India Legal
Magazine | October 15, 2022
https://www.indialegallive.com/magazine/india-china-uygur-xinjiang-unhrc-abstention/
India’s abstention
from voting on a draft resolution at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to
debate on the human rights situation in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous
Region (XUAR) on October 6, has surprised many at home and abroad. The draft
resolution, moved by a core group of eight nations—Canada, Denmark, Finland,
Iceland, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the US—could find support from only 17
members in the 47-strong Council. Nineteen others, led by China and most of the
Islamic countries, including Pakistan, voted against it, confirming our
neighbour’s clout in the UN body.
Since 2017,
international civil society organisations and media have been highlighting
China’s increasing rights violations to systematically brainwash and subjugate
the Uygur people. Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle
Bachelet had recently submitted a scathing report on China’s coercive conduct
against Uygur in XUAR. Had the resolution been voted, China would have been
hauled up for the first time in the history of UNHRC to account for its
terrible human rights record in XUAR.
It
was reasonable to expect that India would vote for the draft resolution,
particularly as China’s conduct at the UN had been hurting its interests on
several issues relating to Pakistan’s support to jihadi terrorist operations.
This has been going on for quite some time to suit China’s emerging strategic
interests in the Af-Pak region.
Two
years ago on January 20, at the behest of Pakistan, China tried to revive the
Kashmir issue for “closed-door consultation” under “AOB” (Any Other Business)
at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Its attempt miserably failed
after all the other 14 members of this Council rejected it. That is a small
consolation for India as China has also been repeatedly blocking the UN listing
of jihadi terrorists based in Pakistan as global terrorists under the UNSC 1267
Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee. China had been placing them on “technical hold”
without giving specific reasons for its action.
Last
month, China had blocked for the third time in four months, a proposal by India
and the US at the UN to blacklist Sajid Mir, a mastermind of Lashkar-e-Taiba in
the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in 2008. The UN listing of Mir as a global terrorist
would have led to the freezing of all his assets and subjected him to travel
ban and arms embargo. Mir was the most wanted 26/11 terrorist in India. He also
figures in the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists and carries a bounty of $5
million for his capture and arrest. As early as August 2012, the US Treasury
Department had designated Mir as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist,
freezing all his property in the US.
In August, China
blocked yet another proposal by the US and India at the UNSC to blacklist Abdul
Rauf Azhar, the brother of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar and a
senior leader in the terrorist organisation. He had carried out the attack in
Pulwama on February 14, 2019, killing 40 CRPF personnel. For long, China had
blocked the listing of Masood Azhar as a global terrorist by the UNSC, though
he was the chief of JeM, which is listed by the UN as a global terrorist
organisation. After blocking similar moves in 2016, 2017 and 2019, China
relented only in May 2019 for the UN to declare Azhar as a global terrorist.
Some reports
claimed the reason for China’s change of mind was “new factual evidence” of
Masood Azhar’s activities provided by some countries. However, its action was
probably prompted to help Pakistan’s case for removal from the “grey list” of
the Paris-based international terror-financing watch dog—the Financial Action
Task Force. This was evident from the alacrity with which Pakistani authorities
issued orders to freeze assets of Azhar and slapped a travel ban immediately
after the UNSC ruling.
After Pakistan
became a key member of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI),
China’s strategic interests in the region have become multifaceted. First and
foremost is to protect China’s growing investments in BRI projects in Pakistan.
The other is to ensure the safety of an increasing number of Chinese expatriates
working in Pakistan. According to a Geo-TV report on September 22, 2021, over
five million Chinese are expected to be working in Pakistan by 2025 under
various development, industrial and other projects, according to a senior
public health expert. Their security has become a major concern for China,
particularly after targeted attacks against them in Balochistan.
China would also
like to strengthen its strategic links with the Taliban after it came to power
in Afghanistan. It has been maintaining contact with the Taliban all along to
prevent any support to the Uygurs’ anti-China agitation in Xinjiang. In fact,
China’s ambassador to Pakistan Lu Shulin was the first senior diplomat of any
non-Islamic country to meet Taliban leader Mullah Omar in 2000. Omar is said to
have assured him that the Taliban will not allow Uygurs in its ranks to launch
attacks inside Xinjiang. It is significant that there have been no major
attacks by Uygurs against the Chinese in Xinjiang in recent times.
Taliban’s rival
Salafist outfit, the Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIS-K), has become active once
again after the Taliban subdued it in and around Kabul and Nangarhar province
in 2021. On August 19, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for a bomb blast in a
mosque in Kabul which killed 21 worshippers, including Rahimullah Haqqani, an
influential Taliban-linked cleric. The ISIS-K is said to enjoy financial and
political backing from the parent organisation. This must be worrying for China
because the members of the outfit have the ability to operate across the
borders in Xinjiang.
China’s crackdown
against the Uygurs, Kazakhs, and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities
in Xinjiang, carried out in the name of fighting terrorism since 2017, is well
documented. Given this background, why did India abstain when the UNHRC debated
China’s human rights violations against Uygurs in Xinjiang?
Answering the
question at a press briefing, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson
Arindam Bagchi said: “India remains committed to upholding all human rights.
India’s vote is in line with its long held position that country specific
resolutions are never helpful. India favours a dialogue to deal with such
issues.”
“We have taken note
of the OHCHR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights)
Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region,
People’s Republic of China. The human rights of the people of Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region should be respected and guaranteed. We hope that the relevant
party will address the situation objectively and properly,” he added.
The MEA explanation
may sound Machiavellian. But India has traditionally voted against or abstained
on such country specific resolutions at the UNHRC. Generally, India’s stand at
the UN is nuanced to serve its national interest while maintaining its focus on
core issues. In other words, it is an expression of realpolitik.
A recent example
was India’s abstention on the resolution on “Promoting reconciliation,
accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka”, adopted by the UNHRC at the 51st
Session in Geneva. Twenty of the 47 members voted for the resolution, seven
against, including China and Pakistan and 20 abstentions including India,
Japan, Nepal and Qatar.
In a statement
during the adoption of the resolution, India’s representative Indra Mani Pandey
said that while India has taken note of the commitments by Sri Lanka on
implementation of the measures in the spirit of the 13th Constitutional
Amendment and the early conduct of provincial elections, “we believe that the
progress towards the same remains inadequate.” In other words, while India
stood for the promotion of reconciliation, accountability and human rights in
Sri Lanka, it would like the island nation to fulfil its commitments to India
as per the 13th Constitutional Amendment and conduct the much-delayed
provincial elections.
This is amply borne
out by India’s stand on a spate of resolutions at the UNSC, UN General Assembly
and UNHRC relating to Russia’s war in Ukraine that started in February. It took
India six months before it voted against its trusted friend Russia for the
first time during a “procedural vote” at the UNSC. It was in favour of inviting
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to address a meeting of the UNSC
through a video-conference; Russia cast the lone vote against it.
A few days ago, for
the third time in the past few months, India voted against Russia when it
wanted a secret ballot on a draft resolution to condemn its “annexation” of
four regions of Ukraine at the UN General Assembly. The resolution will be
coming up for voting during the week. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar
was asked at an interaction in Lowy Institute in Canberra about how India would
vote on the resolution? He replied: “Nobody puts their decision to vote out in
front. You take the call when you have to…A large part of the world today is
hurting because of this conflict…because their lives are impacted in a very
damaging manner.”
Jaishankar in his
book “The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World”, written after his
retirement from the MEA and before he became a minister, explains the essence
of foreign policy making by the present government. It calls for realism in
terms of a policy which is not idealistic. A policy that does not believe
achieving peace is easy and cheap. And a policy which perceives national
security as a key component of foreign policy. This forms the backdrop of
India’s stand on various issues in international relations.
—The writer is a retired military intelligence specialist on South Asia
associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies
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