Periodic report of China on elimination of racial discrimination

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination today concluded its consideration of the combined fourteenth to the seventeenth periodic report of China on measures taken to implement the provisions of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination today concluded its consideration of the combined fourteenth to the seventeenth periodic report of China on measures taken to implement the provisions of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Presenting China's report, Yu Jianhua, Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva, said that the March 2018 changes to the Constitution reflected more fully the ethnic policy focused on ethnic equality and solidarity, and that the ethnic legal framework had taken shape, underpinned by the Constitution and the Law on Regional National Autonomy.

Great efforts were being made to bridge the developmental gap between ethnic and other areas, including through the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan of Economic and Social Development 2016-2020.

The economy in five autonomous regions (Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Tibet, Ningxia and Xinjiang) and three multi-ethnic provinces (Guizhou, Yunnan, and Qinghai) had made significant progress and people's living standards continued to rise: the population living in poverty went down from 31 million in 2012 to 10 million, and the poverty rate dropped from 34 percent to six percent.

Cheung Doi-Ching, Principal Assistant Secretary, Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, said that a steering committee had been set up in 2018 to coordinate and review the support for ethnic minorities, and Hong Kong $500 million had been earmarked for support services in the 2018-19 budget.

Chinese was being taught as a second language in primary and secondary schools to help the non-Chinese speakers join mainstream Chinese language classes as early as possible and dedicated employment services were being provided by the Labour Department.

Liu Dexue, Director of the Legal Affairs Bureau, Macao Special Administrative Region of China, reaffirmed that, as a city of tourism and culture, Macao Special Administrative Region of China embraced the values of tolerance and respect for cultural diversity; every ethnic group shared the same dignity and was entitled to its own cultural life, to practice its own religion and to use its own language. The public consultation mechanism for government policies and future legislation was an important tool to engage the population in public affairs, including different ethnic and minority groups.

Committee Experts, in the dialogue that followed, congratulated China for creating extraordinary prosperity and lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, including in the eight multi-ethnic provinces and regions, but remained concerned over the growing inequality, particularly for ethnic minorities who continued to disproportionally experience poverty.

China was lacking an anti-racial discrimination law and a national human rights institution in line with the Paris Principles, while the recent Foreign Non-Governmental Organization Management Law and the Charity Law imposed restrictions on the funding and operations of domestic non-governmental organizations.

A great source of concern was racial discrimination in the context of laws fighting terrorism, separatism, and extremism, particularly against Tibetans, Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities. In the name of combatting "religious extremism" and maintaining "social stability", an Expert said citing "credible sources", China had turned the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region into something that resembled a massive internment camp shrouded in secrecy, a "no rights zone", while members of the Xinjiang Uyghur minority, along with others who were identified as Muslim, were being treated as enemies of the State based on nothing more than their ethnoreligious identity.

Experts recognized China's vigorous efforts to promote education among ethnic minorities, and in this context raised concerns about the quality of and access to education in ethnic minority areas and the provision of bilingual education for ethnic minorities, which was sometimes at the detriment of ethnic languages.

Gun Kut, Committee Rapporteur for Follow-up to Concluding Observations, in his concluding remarks expressed disappointment because most of the answers were very defensive, while some rejected certain Experts' questions as baseless. There could have been a better and more fruitful discussion on how to ameliorate the situation in China, for the benefit of China itself.

Noureddine Amir, Committee Chairperson, in his closing remarks, stressed that the Committee worked on the exclusive basis of the Convention; it was a legal rather than a political Commitment, and it was not a tribunal or a court of justice.

Nicolás Marugán, Committee Rapporteur for China, thanked the delegation for the many good responses provided and emphasizing the importance that the Committee attached to freedom of expression, thanked civil society organizations for the reports and information submitted.

The Committee will resume in public at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 14 August, to informally meet with non-governmental organizations from Mauritius, Cuba, and Japan, whose reports it will review this week.