“Currently, the Chinese authorities are also planning a visit to Tibet by several European External Action Service officials responsible for human rights,” European Union foreign affairs spokeswoman Nabila Maslari said.
The EU team will be led by Paola Pampaloni, Deputy Commander for Asia within the EU Diplomatic Corps.
A visit to Tibet would surely attract attention – European delegations are rarely allowed into the isolated region, and Brussels has long been a vocal critic of Beijing over human rights abuses there.
In a statement marking Human Rights Day last year, the EU pointed to practices such as “compulsory boarding school education and DNA sampling” as “further signs of the dire human rights situation.”
“The EU will continue to call for meaningful, unrestricted and unmonitored access for independent international experts, foreign journalists and diplomats to Tibet, Xinjiang and other parts of China,” the statement said.
In a published report lLast month, Human Rights Watch said the Chinese government has “dramatically accelerated the relocation of Tibetan rural residents and nomadic people” since 2016.
The group said Beijing said the relocations, “often to areas hundreds of kilometres away”, were voluntary and that authorities justified them by saying they would improve residents’ lives and protect the ecological environment.
The Chinese government denies all charges of human rights abuses in Tibet and has long denied accusations that it is restricting religious freedom in the region, while saying Tibetan Buddhism should adapt to conditions in China.
The situation in Xinjiang is also expected to be on the agenda in Chongqing.
During the meeting in the Belgian capital, the EU also addressed “the deteriorating situation of freedom of peaceful assembly, association and freedom of expression in Hong Kong,” according to an EU statement on the talks.
According to the statement, China “focused on the situation and treatment of refugees and migrants in the EU, as well as manifestations of racism and xenophobia in the EU.”
At the EU-China summit in 2022, a pledge was made to resume talks.
The ongoing sanctions relate to the human rights situation in Xinjiang, where the Chinese government is accused of carrying out widespread persecution targeting Uighurs and other Muslim minorities across the northwestern region.
Lawmakers say that if companies are unable to carry out the necessary due diligence on their suppliers – as is often the case in Xinjiang, where Western auditing agencies have little operation – they should withdraw from the region in question.
Beijing countered that the allegations were “based on disinformation and lies fabricated by anti-China forces and are based on a presumption of guilt.”
