An academic with Trinity College Dublin (TCD), has expressed surprise that officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and staff from the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) are separately meeting with representatives of what she says is a “deeply hypocritical” Chinese human rights organisation.
Dr Isabella Jackson, assistant professor of Chinese history, turned down an invitation from the IIEA to attend a meeting with visiting representatives of the China Foundation for Human Rights Development in the institute’s Dublin offices on Tuesday.
Dr Jackson told the institute she could not “in good conscience” attend a meeting with what she said was a white-washing state body “that exists to pretend China cares about human rights despite the severe abuses of human rights throughout the country but especially in Tibet and Xinjiang”.
“I am happy to engage with Chinese diplomats conducting diplomacy, but not a body as deeply hypocritical as this,” she told the institute.
RM Block
Dr Jackson told The Irish Times that, globally, the Beijing government is “trying to change the narrative so we can’t talk about Chinese abuses of human rights” and the foundation was part of this effort.
She was “quite surprised” that officials from the Department were meeting with the foundation which, she said, sought to highlight “hypocrisy” in the West over human rights abuses while seeking to deflect attention from even worse human rights abuses in China.
“The foundation is trying to present China as a positive international actor for human rights whereas the opposite is the case,” she said.
“It’s just propaganda.”
“Unless they [the officials] use the opportunity to speak about China’s human rights abuses, it seems very odd to me,” she said.
She declined an invitation to attend a meeting in Berlin a number of years ago with the Chinese foundation “for the very same reasons.”
According to its website, the Chinese Foundation for the Development of Human Rights is registered with Beijing’s ministry for foreign affairs and its “business advisor” is the publicity department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
The foundation, which has special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, is involved in promoting “the development of China’s human rights cause, and enhancing communication and understanding among Chinese and foreign civil societies on human rights issues,” according to the website.
Senator Malcolm Byrne, co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said it “strikes me as odd” that IIEA was facilitating a meeting with the Chinese delegation.
It was very important to have good relations with China and to trade with China, he said, but “the CPC has a particular mission and that mission does not have respect for human rights, and they need to be called out on it”.
Considered Ireland’s premier think tank on international affairs, the IIEA is funded mainly by member subscriptions and state grants.
The Chinese embassy in Dublin, which is a member of IIEA, is understood to have requested the meeting with the institute.
A spokeswoman for the IIEA said Tuesday’s meeting would be attended by “members of the IIEA research team and some of the senior leadership team, as available”.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said officials from the department were to meet with representatives of the foundation and that the meeting had been requested by the Chinese embassy in Dublin.
A request for a comment from the embassy met with no response.
