On April 1, it was no fool's trick that China scored a spot on the U.N.'s Human Rights Council panel, which is in charge of choosing human rights monitors globally. Then on April 27, in the throes of a controversy over its handling of the coronavirus and its questionable relationship with the World Health Organization (WHO), China was appointed chair for selecting the upcoming Special Rapporteur, or "U.N. expert on free speech."
That selection was announced this week — the Chinese Communist Party named Bangladeshi-born attorney Irene Khan, who has become something of a controversial figure in recent years for her support of the Beijing leadership.
"The U.N. is often an upside-down parallel universe. The election process and governance structure of organizations like the Human Rights Council make it easily susceptible to exploitation by China and other U.S. adversaries," Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) told Fox News. "We need a proactive diplomatic campaign to delegitimize and degrade the organization while establishing credible, alternative mechanisms to hold human rights abusers accountable."
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According to Hillel Neuer, the executive director of the Geneva-based, independent human rights organization U.N. Watch, Khan "enjoys close ties with the Communist regime" and has "showered praise for the Chinese regime" and its Belt and Road Initiative, which is considered one of the factors fueling the persecution of minorities like the Uighurs.
In addition, Khan is said to have lauded China's "contribution to global sustainable development" through a $1 trillion infrastructure program tailored to increase its reach and ownership of strategic places and organizations in at least 70 countries.
Khan – whose appointment as Special Rapporteur will go into effect next month – served as Secretary-General of Amnesty International from 2001 to 2009, and left under unclear circumstances. Throughout her tenure, critics accused Khan of redirecting the human rights watchdog into fighting poverty and away from its original mandate centered on advocacy for prisoners of conscience. In 2011, she went on to become director-general of the Rome-based International Development Law Organization, which focuses on the rule of law and sustainable development, of which China is one of the eight state financiers.
"[Khan] has a record of being a supporter of economic and social rights over political and civil liberties," noted Sean Roberts, director and associate professor of International Development Studies at the George Washington University. "As such, it is likely that China is banking on the idea that she will continue this legacy at the U.N. and avoid highlighting freedom of speech issues related to the internal politics of any given country, including China."
As chair of the five-nation Human Rights Council, which the U.S. withdrew from in 2018 at the behest of then-Ambassador Nikki Haley, China vetted and picked Khan out of 48 applicants to serve as the United Nations Special Rapporteur for freedom of expression and opinion, becoming the first woman to hold such a title.
"The Chinese government has been working hard to be a participant in as many of the U.N.'s initiatives as possible, both in terms of funding and engagement. At the same time, the United States is increasingly stepping back from the U.N., allowing China to take on an even greater role," Roberts underscored. "And China's soft power globally, especially in the developing world, is on the rise at the same time as that of the U.S. is on the wane. Thus, China is able to get support from a lot of other U.N. member states to achieve its goals of more authority in the U.N."
Roberts cautioned that while the U.N. "has never been effective enough to live up to its lofty mission," it remains a dominant force in global politics.
"If the U.S. continues to retreat from its role in the organization and allows China to expand its power there, China's position as a global leader will inevitably be enhanced regardless of its respect for human rights," he said. "Most of all, this threatens to deteriorate any power that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights still holds in the world."