China's UN envoy refutes US accusations on Xinjiang

Dai Bing, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, told a General Assembly meeting on racism Friday that a US representative has "smeared" China by falsely claiming that there was "genocide" in Xinjiang, an accusation that China firmly rejected.

Dai said racism threatens international peace, stability and development. It's the common enemy of mankind. China is a staunch supporter of the active role that the UN plays in combating racism and calls for greater efforts to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance.

The purpose of Friday's meeting was to commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, but the American ambassador used the platform to spread false information and level baseless accusations against China with political purposes, which China unequivocally opposes and categorically rejects, Dai said.

"Speaking as an African descent on today's occasion, the representative of the US, in a rare case, admitted her country's ignoble human rights records, but that does not give her country the license to get on a high horse and tell other countries what to do," Dai said.

If the US truly cared about human rights, it should address "the deep-rooted problems of racial discrimination, social injustice, and police brutality on its own soil," the ambassador said. It should also control the pandemic, save lives and ensure equitable global distribution of vaccines.

He urged the US to "stop interfering in the internal affairs of the other countries and lift unilateral, coercive measures against developing countries".

"It should stop indiscriminately killing innocent lives in their overseas military operations, and hold the perpetrators accountable," he said.

"And it should do some soul searching, and reflect upon their history of colonization and aggression, and on the profound suffering inflicted on the populations of the countries colonized and invaded by them," the envoy added.

Dai said the allegation of "genocide" in Xinjiang referenced in the American ambassador's statement was "absurd and a complete lie with ulterior motives".

"The US is obsessed with manufacturing lies on the Xinjiang issue, but lies are just lies, and truth shall prevail eventually," he said.

Dai recalled that 64 countries issued a joint statement at the Human Rights Council on March 12 to support China's position on Xinjiang-related matters.

The statement urged the relevant countries to stop using the issue to interfere in China's internal affairs, to stop making unfounded accusations against China in the interest of their political agenda, and to stop using human rights as a cover to hold back developing countries in their development, he said.

"Here's my advice to the US, cast away your ideological prejudices, stop instrumentalizing human rights issues for political purposes, stop provoking political confrontations and disrupting international cooperation on human rights," he said.

He hoped the US will take practical measures to put an end to a continuous occurrence of discrimination and hatred, and even "violent murders" of people of African, Asian descents, and at the same time, "in the spirit of cooperation on equal footing, put more efforts into practical and good deeds for the cause of international human rights".