When Eritrea President Isaias Afwerki visited Beijing mid-May, the statement made following talks with China President Xi Jinping spoke against interference with domestic politics.
President Xi called out unilateral sanctions and external interference in Eritrea’s internal affairs, and applauded Asmara's firm adherence to an independent foreign policy.
President Afwerki said the world is embarking on a new international order whose hallmarks are prevalence of justice and mutual respect between peoples and nations. The two sides said they would firmly oppose hegemony and bullying and defend the common interests of China, Eritrea and other developing countries.
This was certainly directed at the US and the West, who accuse Eritrea of human rights abuses, dictatorship and its alleged destabilising role in Somalia and Ethiopia. Resultantly, Eritrea is heavily sanctioned.
It is accused of detaining political dissidents, the closure of independent press, limits on civil liberties, violations of religious freedom and reports of human rights abuses, which has strained their diplomatic relations.
President Afwerki, who has been in power since 1993, often denies the allegations. In his February 2023 visit to Nairobi, for instance, he termed as fabrications allegations his troops were involved in the Tigray conflict.
The UN in March this year, however, reported that the human rights situation in Eritrea remains "dire and shows no sign of improvement", citing cases of torture and enforced disappearances.
Despite this, President Xi promised to enhance China's bilateral cooperation in infrastructure, telecommunications, agriculture, mining and fisheries, among others, as well as investment.
This is consistent with his pledge to African leaders at the China-Africa Summit in 2018, where he said China's investments on the continent have "no political strings attached," and promised $60 billion in development financing.
In his statement ahead of the Forum on Global Human Rights Governance in Beijing on June 14-15, 2023, Xi said, "China stands for safeguarding human rights with security, respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, calling on all countries to follow the path of peaceful development, and putting into action the Global Security Initiative."
However, using Eritrea as an example, it is close ties with such regimes that has seen China accused of the "see no evil, hear no evil” approach in supporting rogue regimes in Africa.
China has on various occasions voted to block resolutions at the UNSC aimed at holding governments in, among other countries, Burundi, Cameroon, Libya, South Sudan and Sudan based on its non-interference policy.
In June 2019, it blocked the UNSC from adopting a resolution condemning the killing of more than 100 protesters by security forces in Khartoum. Beijing also opposed an ICC arrest warrant against deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir.
More recently, China opposed a resolution imposing sanctions on Khartoum, arguing the move would violate Sudan’s sovereignty.
Beijing and Khartoum have enjoyed close ties, with the former supporting at least 65 infrastructure projects in Sudan. They include construction of the presidential palace, the laying of railway lines between Khartoum and Port Said, building of power stations, and the upgrading of the local electricity grid, as highlighted by the Institute for the Study of Human Rights.
In its global charm offensive, China has embraced various allies in Africa, Asia and Middle East, particularly through the Belt and Road Initiative, often without consideration of the status of their human rights record, drawing criticism from various countries and rights groups.
African countries have reciprocated, keeping off accusations of human rights violations in China.
Carine Kaneza Nantulya, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a 2021 statement that African governments’ willingness to remain silent on Beijing’s suppression of rights has real-world consequences.
At the March 2021 "Xinjiang in the Eyes of African Ambassadors to China" event, the ambassadors to China from Burkina Faso, the Republic of Congo and Sudan praised China’s success in raising the standard of living in the region and dismissed Western criticism as driven by ulterior motives.
The context here is accusations of covering up human rights violations against Turkic Muslims in detention camps in the northwest region. China said the centres were vocational "re-education centres" for anti-terrorism measures in the region.
Zimbabwe, which faces sanctions over rights abuses, has found a close ally in China.
Foreign Affairs Minister Qin Gang in his meeting with his Zimbabwean counterpart Fredrick Shava in Beijing on May 29, 2023, said, "China will, as always, firmly support Zimbabwe in opposing external interference and sanctions".
HRW says in its 2022 World Report there has been no accountability for abuses by security forces, including the August 2018 post-election violence, and killings and rape during the January 2019 protests. "Abductions, torture, arbitrary arrests, and other abuses against opposition politicians and activists have not been meaningfully investigated, " it said.
This mutual non-interference foreign policy stance can be traced to 1954, when China, with a communist government, was trying to reach out to the non-communist countries of Asia to assure them it would not interfere in their internal affairs.
Non-interference is among the long-standing Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence that guide China's foreign policy.
Anthony Luongo opined in his paper How Chinese non-interference enables African authoritarianism for Democracy in Africa, that although China is not directly promoting authoritarianism, its policy of non-interference enables African leaders to commit abuses.
"Although Western governments do not consistently enforce rights conditions on trade and aid, countries connected to democratic countries face a higher likelihood of international condemnation for abuses.
"By providing an alternative source of funding that fails to punish repression, China undermines international pressure for democratisation and loosens constraints on African executives,” Luongo wrote, adding that unconstrained and unaccountable leaders pose obvious risks for human rights in Africa.
But Dr Cavince Adhere, an international relations analyst with a focus on China-Africa development cooperation, opines that it is not up to China to decide for African countries what kind of governments to have.
Cavince adds that every African country, regardless of type of government, doesn’t welcome any form of internal interference.
"In many cases, China’s partnerships with the African countries are based on mutually agreed frameworks with sitting government administrations, "he says.
Other scholars and observers also defend China's stance, saying its position is simply respect for the rule of international law, and that it acknowledges that every country has the right to self-determination.
Stephen Ndegwa, the executive director of South-South Dialogues, China's position means "the basic rules of diplomacy and self-determination should prevail, even within countries in conflict".
"We have seen the kind of damage that the West has brought in countries where it has intervened,” Ndegwa says.
Asked what he thinks of the Eritrea-China ties despite the former's involvement in Tigray conflict, Ndegwa argues there was external interference in the Ethiopia-Tigray conflict, a similar case to the Taiwan issue.
Ndegwa's comments echo those of China’s first special envoy to the Horn of Africa, Ambassador Xue Bing, who in March 2022 said countries in the region were fed up with West's interference.
“Some countries in this area are fed up with the foreign intervention, the preaching from Western countries,” Xue said in Nairobi.
Nasongo Muliro, a university don and resident Fellow at the Global Centre for Policy and Strategy, poses, "What's the difference between the US intervening to entrench own leadership, whether rogue or not, with China letting the people of the country decide themselves?"
Muliro argues Africa no longer wants to be told how to rule themselves, and that it is not so foolish and misguided as to violate human rights simply because no one is interfering.
"All external interventions by the US or West have ended up with rogue regimes because the leaders are answerable to the outside powers and not the citizens. Afghanistan, Libya, Ivory Coast, Georgia, Haiti, Egypt all were outcomes of interference,” he says.
Shen Shiwei China, CGTN journalist and on-resident research fellow of the Institute of African Studies at Zhejiang Normal University, says African countries have been suffering from unilateral sanctions and illegal sanctions imposed outside the UNSC.
Shen says for China, any unilateral sanction unauthorised by the UNSC is illegal as it is opposed to unilateral sanctions against countries based on one's own laws.
"Non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs is enshrined in the UN charter and is a basic norm in international relations. China has suffered a lot from foreign intervention in its internal affairs in history, that’s why it understands and supports African countries’ desire to stand up against foreign interference," he says.
In reality, these unilateral sanctions haven’t addressed the problems and instead, have even complicated the situation.
"That’s why on Anti-Sanctions Day, countries in Southern Africa and the regional bloc SADC reiterates its call for the unconditional and immediate lifting of sanctions imposed on Zimbabwean individuals and institutions," he says.
With China’s growing global power capabilities and influence in Africa, Beijing must carry the responsibilities of a great power, including to populations outside its territory.
So, instead of interference, Cavince says, China is increasing intervening in the affairs of other country through two main approaches; multilateral platforms such as the UN Peacekeeping missions and mediation.
"Today, China is the largest contributor of UN peacekeeping forces and second largest contributor to the UN peacekeeping budget. Nearly two-thirds of all UN peacekeeping missions have been deployed in Africa," he says.
"Mediation implies approval of African governments for China to be involved-erasing the idea of interference. China’s proposal on the peace and development outlook for the Horn of Africa speaks to its desire to engage in creative interventions in line with its non-interference policy but aligned to stability and development, which are safeguards of human rights.”
The historical patterns of state formation, colonisation and decolonisation, civil society outreach, legal and judicial traditions, democracy, economic development and current geopolitics shape and influence the scope and interpretation of human rights regimes for political interests and convenience, it would seem.
This has led to the conflict in the different understanding and interpretation of what respect for human rights is among different states or regions.
The West see themselves at the frontline of observing and protecting human rights compared to countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, to which the latter disagree.
