China’s human rights record faced rare public scrutiny at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva last week, and while Beijing was able to lobby some countries from the Global South to praise human rights conditions in the country, analysts and advocates say its charm offensive has had a limited effect.

“A lot of governments issued friendly recommendations to China during last week’s Universal Periodic Review [UPR] in Geneva, which demonstrated China’s influence, but despite the enormous pressure that many developing countries feel [from Beijing,] there were some bold statements from Latin American countries,” Raphael Viana David, China and Latin America Program Manager at the International Service for Human Rights [ISHR] told VOA by phone.

During the UPR, China’s fourth since the inception of the mechanism in 2008, a total of 161 UN member states commented on Beijing’s human rights record.

Several Western democracies urged China to ratify international treaties and cease human rights persecutions against ethnic minorities while countries from the Global South were split between those that praised the human rights conditions in China and others that expressed concerns about Beijing’s crackdown on civil society.

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