Xi Jinping criticised as 'shameless' for touting China's record on rights for women at United Nations
President insists Chinese women 'have the opportunity to excel' while US and other critics question why they are still being locked up for expressing their views
President Xi Jinping told the United Nations on Sunday that all Chinese women have the opportunity to excel, touting his government’s record on women’s rights as the United States slammed Beijing and others for jailing women for their views.
China and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon co-hosted a UN meeting of world leaders on gender equality and women’s empowerment, raising eyebrows among some western diplomats and human rights defenders in China and abroad.
“As the Chinese people pursue a happy life, all Chinese women have the opportunity to excel in life and make their dreams come true,” Xi told the meeting on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly.
Leaders from about 80 countries and dozens of diplomats attended the meeting to mark the 20th anniversary of the UN women’s conference in Beijing and press for implementation of its 150-page action plan for gender equality – which remains one of the 17 new development goals adopted by world leaders on Friday.
Among the Chinese leader’s strongest critics was Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton who tweeted: “Xi hosting a meeting on women’s rights at the UN while persecuting feminists? Shameless.”
As US first lady, Clinton galvanised the 1995 Beijing conference with a rousing speech that included words that have become a mantra for the global women’s movement: “human rights are women’s rights – and women’s rights are human rights.”
Xi partly echoed her words, telling Sunday’s meeting that “women’s rights and interests are basic human rights. They must be protected by laws and regulations.”
China was criticised internationally for detaining five women who were taken into custody on the weekend of March 8, International Women’s Day, after they planned to demonstrate against sexual harassment on public transport.
While the women were released a month later, they say their status as criminal suspects has stopped them from returning to activism and had a chilling effect on women’s rights groups.
“If you want to empower women, don’t imprison them on the basis of their views or beliefs,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power – a member of President Barack Obama’s cabinet – said in a statement.
Over the past couple of weeks, Power has highlighted 20 cases of women unjustly detained around the world for their beliefs or defence of the rights of others, including Chinese journalist Gao Yu, 71, who was jailed in April for seven years for providing state secrets to foreign contacts.
Xi’s administration has detained hundreds of rights activists in the past two years in what some rights groups say is the worst clampdown on dissent in the Communist-led country for two decades.
“In too many places – from China to Egypt, from Russia to Venezuela – women have been swept up in repressive crackdowns on civil society, and deprived of their universal rights and fundamental freedoms,” Obama said in a statement.
Xi said China would do more to enhance gender equality as its “basic state policy” and called on developed countries to “scale up financial and technical assistance to developing countries”. He said China would donate US$10 million to the UN gender equality body, UN Women, to “support women’s development worldwide”.
Chinese officials have said the country’s achievements on women’s issues are clear and that authorities handled the recent case of the five activists according to law.
Li Junhua, the director general of the department of international organisations and conferences at China’s Foreign Ministry said some of the criticisms were “groundless” and other people were just misinformed.
“I believe the people in the best position to judge the state of women’s issues in China are Chinese people, particularly Chinese women,” Li told reporters at a briefing.
Ahead of Sunday’s UN meeting the five women said in a letter: “We sincerely hope ... President Xi can lead by example.”
China has also faced international criticism for effectively placing Liu Xia, the wife of jailed Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, under house arrest since 2010.
Switzerland exceeded China’s donation to UN Women. President Simonetta Sommaruga said it would increase its contribution to almost US$50 million for the 2015 to 2017 period, but most other commitments from more than 45 countries were in promised actions rather than money.
Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah pledged to “spare no effort” to implement a law ending violence against women. Austrian President Heinz Fischer made a commitment “to further tackling gender stereotyping”.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her government would launch an initiative to improve the professional qualifications of women in developing countries and promote “the entrepreneurial power of women”.
Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi committed “to combatting harmful gender practices that violate human rights such as early marriage, sexual abuse and trafficking of children”.
Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf told the meeting that “for women and girls throughout the world, my election is commitment to women’s equality”.
But she said much more remained to be done including ensuring that a bill to prevent domestic violence was passed by the legislature.
