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China is in the midst of its darkest period for human rights since the Tiananmen Square massacre, Human Rights Watch noted in its annual report.
But 2020 was also the year that world governments found “security in numbers” to reject China’s repressive policies, with less fear of retaliation, he said.
Worsening persecution of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet, attacks on whistleblowers, Hong Kong crackdown and attempts to cover up the coronavirus outbreak were part of the deterioration of the situation under President Xi Jinping the organization said.
“This has been the darkest period for human rights in China since the 1989 massacre that ended the Tiananmen Square democracy movement,” says the report on human rights abuses around the world.
“The authoritarianism of the Chinese government was on full display in 2020 as it grappled with the deadly coronavirus outbreak first reported in Wuhan,” says the report, describing the initial cover-up of the outbreak by authorities and punishment of doctors. whistleblowers, including Li Wenliang and journalists like Zhang Zhan, who reported on the Wuhan closure and surveillance and harassment of the families of virus victims.
At the same time, “Beijing’s crackdown, insisting on political loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party, deepened across the country,” he said.
“In Xinjiang, Turkish Muslims continue to be arbitrarily detained on the basis of their identity, while others are subjected to forced labor, mass surveillance and political indoctrination. In Inner Mongolia, protests broke out in September when education authorities decided to replace Mongolian with Mandarin Chinese in various classes in schools in the region. “
And in Tibet, the authorities continued to “severely restrict freedom of religion, expression, movement and assembly, and failed to address popular concerns about mining and land grabbing by local officials, which often involve intimidation and illegal use of force on the part of the security forces ”.
The demand for political loyalty also intensified in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. After more than six months of protests in 2019, Beijing implemented the internationally criticized national security law in the city, outlawing even benign opposition acts such as crimes of secession, sedition, foreign collusion and terrorism. About 90 people have been arrested under the law since June.
Internet censorship, mass surveillance and efforts to “sinicize” religion also deepened in China, according to the report. Prominent critics, human rights defenders and journalists were jailed, disappeared or forced into exile, many of them accused of “inciting subversion” or “provoking disputes and causing problems”, a common accusation against dissidents and activists.
“Since Xi Jinping came to power, the repression has been getting worse in general, in all aspects of Chinese society you can see how the party is becoming more intolerant of any kind of independent activity,” said HRW researcher Yaqiu. Wang.
The 386-page report focused on China in large part because of the international response to the worsening crackdown there. HRW said the rest of the world became more confident in criticizing Beijing, having previously feared retaliation.
The retaliation continued: China and the United States entered a trade war, negotiated sanctions and new regulations on visas, diplomats and journalists, and closed embassies. Australia was subjected to damaging trade tariffs and bans after it voiced calls for a “robust” investigation into the origins of the coronavirus.
HRW criticized the EU’s response to China and, in particular, the finalization of a trade deal with Beijing late last year.
“If the EU had been serious about ending forced labor in China’s Xinjiang province, they could have insisted on it before accepting the investment agreement,” said HRW Director Kenneth Roth.
But in 2020, many governments around the world found “security in numbers, reflecting Beijing’s inability to retaliate against the entire world,” HRW said. Fewer members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which in the past have tended to support China, supported Xinjiang’s policies, and there were multiple statements of condemnation at the UN.
The United States passed numerous laws against China’s abuses, while the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States broke extradition treaties with the country for their crackdown on Hong Kong.
“This growing international willingness to condemn the Chinese government forced it to respond,” the report said, and Beijing confirmed for the first time the number of Uighurs and other Turkish Muslims detained in Xinjiang, revealing that 1.3 million people had been through it. which he called “vocational training centers”.
Each UN statement was countered with statements in support of Beijing, which HRW says were “typically signed by many of the world’s worst human rights violators,” and appeared to involve economic influence.
The HRW report said the pullback was particularly notable for the “peripheral” role of the United States, in the sense that the Trump administration was often not involved or lacked credibility when it was.
“The lesson of recent years for other governments is that they can make a big difference even without Washington. Even under a more rights-friendly US administration, this broader collective defense of rights should continue. “
