Brief Thoughts on the Statement by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet after official visit to China (28 May 2022)

 

"I should state from the outset what this visit was – and what it wasn’t. This visit was not an investigation – official visits by a High Commissioner are by their nature high-profile and simply not conducive to the kind of detailed, methodical, discreet work of an investigative nature. The visit was an opportunity to hold direct discussions – with China’s most senior leaders – on human rights, to listen to each other, raise concerns, explore and pave the way for more regular, meaningful interactions in the future, with a view to supporting China in fulfilling its obligations under international human rights law."Michelle Bachelet, Statement by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet after official visit to China (28 May 2022))

That, reduced to its essence, is the sum total of the value of the recent visit, the first of its kind, of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (herself a former sitting head of state) to the People's Republic of China.

The text of High Commissioner Bachelet follows below in full. A broadcast quality video is available at https://vimeo.com/714742493. 

Brief comments follow:

1. Official visits are always disappointing to those who believe that they produce something other than the start, deepening, or continuation of relationships.  But that is no small matter. The absence of relationship makes interaction, if not impossible, then perhaps less fruitful.  Yet the building of relationships can, in the end, offer nothing ore than that there will be a relationship.  Duty, ideology, and the internal politics of those with mutual relationships may cause those relationships to produce little more than an intensification of failure. In this case it is far too early to determine the extent to which the visit produced the positive of a relationship, and that this relationship may facilitate communication, if not solidarity. 

2. If the visit was meant as little more than the theatre of legitimacy, it is not clear who got the better part of the deal.  For Chinese officials, the visit enhanced the narrative of Chinese engagement in the world, and more specifically with international organs, even one with the (bad) habit of being critical.  It also offered the opportunity to educate (though at this level of officialdom the value of education is likely quite attenuated). Additionally it might suggest a special status for China as a global power--China ought not to be subjected to 2nd or 3rd level functionaries but ought to be accommodated by being dealt with only at the highest level of the global institutions for human rights. In return for this it might well have been worth the inconvenience of hosting the OHCHR. For Michelle Bachelet and the OHCHR the visit also offered the opportunity to enhance legitimacy.  But more than that to extend and project a narrative of effective engagement--that the OHCHR and its bureau is worth not just keeping but enhancing.  The OHCHR might also have gambled that such a visit might make it easier for 2nd and 3rd level functionaries to penetrate China and insinuate its narrative into the operation and development of Socialist human rights. That fits nicely into the imaginaries of European and sometimes Latin American elites who cling to the idea that any form of engagement will, like Christians witnessing the gospel to pagans, eventually bring the heathen to the spirit of the (human rights) Lord. Thus the grand prize for the OHCHR (from their perspective): "We agreed to establish regular engagement between the UN Human Rights Office and the Government of China, including through an annual senior strategic meeting for discussion of issues of respective interest at national, regional, or global levels." (Ibid.)

3. And, indeed, the remarks of the High Commissioner suggested the great difficulties in a context in which the same words are used by both parties with quite distinctive cultural-political referents.  An example from the remarks: "In my discussions with senior officials, the themes of development, peace and security arose in every meeting. Of course, for development, peace and security to be sustainable, it needs to be inclusive and rooted in protection of human rights." (Statement by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights ). The semiotic limits, and perhaps the tragedy, of the visit is thus on full display. And that was the point.  The High Commissioner dutifully did her duty--she raised all of the issues on the international human rights wish list (from the perspective of the elite elements of the UN Geneva and NY  staff establishment along with their supporting consultancies in the academy and the NGO worlds). And Chinese officials dutifully listened and then equally dutifully reframed all of those issues from the foundational perspectives of Socialist human rights (development, peace, security).  And so it will go dutifully at periodic intervals going forward.  And yet that is a good thing. It opens even the smallest possibility that at some point both sides will not merely understand each other, but that they may begin to have the conversation that is really necessary--a conversation about first principles of human rights and the means of bridging the gaps between its liberal democratic, developing state, and Marxist-Leninist foundational premises.

But not today.

And not by these actors. 

Perhaps in some tomorrow. We ought to salute all actors for opening the door to that future possibility.