China accused of manipulating UN reports, bribing officials to serve its interest

The Chinese government has been benefiting from “dangerous favours” from the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) as per the evidence submitted by former OHCHR employee and whistleblower Emma Reilly.

The evidence indicates China’s attempts to manipulate the UN to advance its national interests. The report alleges that during the two-year negotiation on sustainable development goals, China paid bribes to General Assembly Presidents who had significant influence over the final texts. Additionally, according to the whistleblower, China stipulated that funds provided to the UN should not be used in countries with diplomatic ties to Taiwan.

“The Chief of the Human Rights Council Branch in OHCHR, a French national, was secretly providing the PRC with advance information on which human rights activists planned to attend the Human Rights Council," she said in her written evidence.

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It was also revealed that both the reports of WHO and the United Nations Environment Programme on the origins of COVID-19 were altered to reduce any references that point to the possibility of a laboratory leak. A submission from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) that has been included in the evidence claims that China is trying to “shape the multilateral system to align more with a state-centric, authoritarian world view."

The evidence also disclosed that the Chief of the Human Rights Council Branch in OHCHR had been secretly providing inside information to China on which human rights activists planned to attend the Human Rights Council. It accused the UN officials of lying to other member states when they enquired about the UN policy of handing names to China without their knowledge.

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“In cases where the PRC was provided with names of NGO delegates in advance by the UN Secretariat, the delegates have reported that family members were visited by Chinese police, forced to phone them to tell them to stop their advocacy, arbitrarily arrested, placed under house arrest for the period of the meeting, disappeared, sentenced to long prison terms without cause, tortured, or, as regards Uyghurs, put in concentration camps”.

Some of their family members even died in detention, the whistleblower revealed. On April 16, the Foreign Affairs Committee held its first evidence session in this inquiry, hearing from whistleblower Reilly and other expert witnesses.

With inputs from Reuters.