China says UN rights chief’s visit to Xinjiang will be closed loop

China has said that the UN rights chief's visit to the country this week will be conducted in a closed loop referring to the Chinese model of isolating people inside a bubble in order to contain the spread of Covid - 19.

Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, embarked on a six-day trip to China on Monday. She will be visiting the southern city of Guangzhou and two locations in the Xinjiang region, where Chinese authorities have been accused of human rights abuses against Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim ethnic group.

No international journalists will be allowed to travel with Bachelet but she will hold a press conference on May 28th, her office said.

On Monday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said Beijing welcomed Bachelet but rejected political manipulation over Xinjiang. Wang Wenbin told a daily media briefing that the purpose of the private visit is to promote exchanges and cooperation between both sides and promote the international cause of human rights.

Pressure over Bachelet's trip has been building since it was confirmed last week. A group of 40 politicians from 18 countries warned the commissioner on Friday that she risked causing damage to the credibility of her office if she went ahead with the visit to Xinjiang.

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, including six parliamentarians who have been subject to sanctions, accused Beijing of organising a Potemkin-style tour and said they feared the government would use coronavirus restrictions to prevent the visit from being as free as it needed to be.

Bachelet's trip to China this week will be closely followed by Beijing as well as the international community. Caroline Wilson, the British ambassador to China, spoke to the UN rights chief in a video call.

Wilson said on Twitter that there was no excuse for preventing UN representatives from completing their investigations, because she stressed the importance of unfettered access to Xinjiang and private conversations with its people. Bachelet's trip is the first official visit by a UN human rights chief since 2005 to China, and follows months of intense negotiations with the Chinese government over the terms of her access.

Since the UN human rights commissioner, Louise Arbour visited 17 years ago, activists say China has violated human rights on a scope and scale unimaginable. Xinjiang has been accused of forced labour, forced sterilisation and the arbitrary detention of at least a million Uyghur Muslims.

Beijing has denied these charges and blamed anti-China forces for stoking controversy, as well as the allegations of genocide levelled by the US and a number of other western countries.