Editor's note: Timothy Kerswell is a research fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen). He lived in Macao for seven years, working as an assistant professor at the University of Macao. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

So, a "cross-regional joint statement" was made at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), repeating a tired narrative of criticism against China. Even a cursory analysis of this criticism exposes a substantial underbelly of Western hypocrisy, orientalist fantasies about the developing world, regime change influence operations, and networks of "research" who produce dubious reporting.

First, let us take a look at who is included in this little coalition. Unsurprisingly, it is the settler-colonists of the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel and their parent country in the UK. After attempting and often succeeding at erasing numerous peoples and cultures from existence, you would think that would be reason enough for these countries to engage in permanent silence on any question of human rights. 

France, also a part of this statement, only escapes the list of settler-colonial countries, not because it occupies a moral high ground, but because they were unceremoniously dumped out of Algeria in the 1960s. The list of signatories to this statement is a who is who of settler-colonists, imperialists, NATO members, NATO wannabes, and assorted U.S. client states. Strangely enough, the United States could not even get all of its "allies" to sign on.

Then, let's look at who isn't included in the joint statement. There's not a single country from Africa. Not a single country from Asia except Japan whose Yasukuni Shrine continues to celebrate Japanese war crimes and war criminals. Not a single country from South America. The best support they could drum up from the developing world was a handful of U.S. client states in Central America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. 

Despite Western pretense to care about the Muslim world (after spending the past two decades bombing a large part of it into rubble), there's only one Muslim majority country that signed onto the statement in the form of NATO aspirant Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Let's call this out for what it really is, then. It's another sanctimonious and hypocritical diatribe about human rights from the great human rights violators of world history. It's the psychological projection from countries like the United States whose rate of imprisonment per capita is the highest in the world, disproportionately targets ethnic minorities, and who profits from a gigantic industry of forced prison labor in what is a self-evident example of modern-day slavery. 

It is a beatdown by the developed world against the developing world for having the temerity ever to demonstrate sovereignty, to counter foreign influence, and to rise in status in a community of nations that previously looked like an old white men's club. It's no wonder that at the 47th session of the UNHRC, 65 countries including most of the Muslim world, signed a statement giving China their support and emphasizing any issues relating to Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Tibet are purely China's internal affairs. 

It is not just about China though, the same group of countries is now drumming up support for their latest "helpful" intervention into Africa that too in the 20th anniversary of their "helpful" intervention in Afghanistan.

So what about the so-called "credible reports" about the human rights situation in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region? Where do they come from? The fact is these are nothing but conspiratorial nonsense. If we now live in a post-truth world, the research behind these reports has been extracted from the bottom of the post-truth dumpster. Look at who is behind these reports and what do you see? 

Far-right evangelicals who believe they are "led by God" in a crusade against China and whose research has been thoroughly discredited and defense industry-sponsored think tanks. For example, U.S.-sponsored separatist organizations like the World Uygur Congress funded to the tune of millions by the National Endowment for Democracy, in turn, funded by the same U.S. government that gave the world the gift of Islamic fundamentalism by sponsoring it in the 80s and 90s.

These same groups also have a problem with any developing country that dares express sovereignty in a way that even remotely challenges the hegemony of the Western powers. They willfully ignore the economic, social, and cultural rights that have been promoted by various countries around the world, of which China is a prominent example. Instead, they engage in slanderous misinformation designed to weaken any opponents of the United States and their allies. They are the least credible information sources imaginable.

So maybe instead of adopting a shoot first and ask questions later policy on information gathering, UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet would do well to hold her tongue until visiting China. China is currently in negotiations with Bachelet for a visit to Xinjiang, and let us hope when China extends the invitation, she actually accepts it. She'd be one step ahead of the ambassadors of the Western countries who signed this statement and who repeatedly turn down China's invitations to visit Xinjiang. I guess it is far more comfortable to hurl slander from the opulence of an embassy compound in Beijing. 

Maybe Bachelet can also visit Hong Kong where she will find a newly peaceful society fast recovering its sovereignty after the success of its National Security Law. A society that is better off having dealt with the malignant effects of foreign interference whose sources originate from many of the signatories of this absurd statement.

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