China Invites UN To Visit 'Education Centers' in Xinjiang

The Chinese envoy to the United Nations has formally welcomed U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet to visit China, including Xinjiang, where Beijing has been accused of putting more than one million ethnic Uyghurs in mass detention centers.

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According to the Chinese envoy, the U.N. human rights chief is more than welcome to visit their “education training centers”, which Beijing claims is helping stamp out extremism and give people new skills.

 “We hope to see the high commissioner pay a visit to China including a trip to Xinjiang to see by herself ... Seeing is believing,” Chen Xu, China’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, told a news conference hosted by the U.N. correspondents’ association, ACANU.

“The invitation to the high commissioner is always there, we hope to define a time which is convenient to both sides”, he said. “What is happening in Xinjiang is education training centers help young people, especially young people, to get skills, to be well-equipped for their reintegration into society,” Chen said, adding that “there are no so-called re-education camps”.

Bachelet’s approach was one of “dialogue and cooperation”, he said, contrasting this with that of her predecessor Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein. “I think this is the right direction.”

A spokeswoman for Bachelet’s office had no immediate comment.

Bachelet, a former president of Chile who has been U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights since August, has repeatedly pushed China to grant the United Nations access to investigate reports of disappearances and arbitrary detentions, particularly of Muslims in Xinjiang. China has previously said it would welcome U.N. officials if they avoided “interfering in domestic matters”.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng, addressing the U.N. Human Rights Council last March, defended the complexes in Xinjiang and said the “campuses” would be closed down gradually as extremist ideology was vanquished in the region.