China values UN relationship despite human rights criticism

BEIJING (AP) — As world leaders gather in New York at the annual U.N. General Assembly, rising superpower China is also focusing on another United Nations body that is meeting across the Atlantic Ocean in Geneva.

Chinese diplomats are speaking out and lobbying others at an ongoing session of the Human Rights Council to thwart a possible call for further scrutiny of what it calls its anti-extremism campaign in Xinjiang, following a U.N. report on abuses against Uyghurs and other largely Muslim ethnic groups in the western China border region.

The concurrent meetings, on opposite sides of the Atlantic, illustrate China's divided approach to the United Nations and its growing global influence. Beijing looks to the U.N., where it can count on support from countries it has befriended and in many cases assisted financially, as a counterweight to U.S.-led blocs such as the Group of Seven, which have grown increasingly hostile toward China.

“China sees the U.N. as an important forum that it can use to further its strategic interests and goals, and to reform the global order,” said Helena Legarda from the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin.