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reGermany’s outgoing ambassador to the United Nations, Christoph Heusgen, has no prospect of receiving the Medal of Friendship from the People’s Republic of China. In any case, his farewell by China’s Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations was not very warm. “From the bottom of our hearts – lucky that we got rid of you,” Geng Shuang said at the last scheduled meeting of the UN Security Council.
Heusgen had previously used his latest panel speech to call on China to release two detained Canadians. “Let me end my term on the Security Council by asking my Chinese colleagues to ask Beijing to release Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor,” he said. “Christmas is the right time for such a gesture.”
The Canadians have been in custody for two years and are China’s bargaining chip for Huawei’s manager Meng Wanzhou, who is under house arrest in Canada. Chinese diplomat Geng Shuang accused Heusgen of wanting to “poison the work environment” at the council with “malicious” attacks. Germany will leave the Security Council as a non-permanent member at the end of the year.
Germany’s outgoing ambassador to the United Nations Christoph Heusgen in July 2020
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Image: dpa
China has held a grudge against Heusgen since October at the latest. The reason for this is a statement initiated by Berlin on the human rights situation in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. With skillful diplomacy, Heusgen was instrumental in bringing a total of 39 states to join the initiative. For China it was a loss of prestige. Because in July only 25 states had signed a similar declaration at the UN Human Rights Council.
These numbers play an important role for Beijing because it always argues that it has a majority on its side. The responsible department head of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs went into hiding. Rumors are circulating in Beijing that he has been called in to attend match training, which is more common in such cases.
Allegations of torture by an Australian
Meanwhile, another foreigner detained in China, Australian author Yang Hengjun, spoke out Wednesday with allegations of torture against Beijing. “After two years, particularly torture, more than 300 interrogations and many verbal attacks, I am now in a state of deep retrospection and meditation,” he wrote in a letter to his family and friends that he had presumably delivered to Australian diplomats. They had visited him while he was in detention last week. The Chinese Foreign Ministry rejected the allegations of torture. Human rights defenders regularly report on torture methods in Chinese prisons, citing those released.
The Australian is accused of espionage and endangering national security. It is unclear what exactly he is charged with. Yang claims to have worked for the Chinese Foreign Ministry before becoming an Australian citizen twelve years ago. In an earlier request to speak, he said he should be forced to confess, but refused to do so. In his letter he now wrote that “if he finds me guilty it will say a lot about whether the court is governed by the rule of law or by absolute and absolute power.
