Beijing's propaganda machine has outwitted the UN human rights chief on her visit to China, campaigners say, leaving the envoy accused of playing a role in whitewashing abuses against minorities in Xinjiang.

Michelle Bachelet's long-planned trip this week has taken her to the far-western region where Beijing is accused of imprisoning over one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, forcibly sterlising women and running labour camps that fuel global supply chains.

The United States and multiple western lawmakers have labelled the actions a "genocide", allegations vehemently denied by China which says it has only conducted necessary security operations to squash extremism and beef up development.

Bachelet has come under fire from rights groups and Uyghurs overseas, who say she has been suckered into a slickly choreographed Communist Party tour including a conversation with President Xi Jinping later portrayed in state media as a mutual endorsement of China's high ideals on rights.

The UN envoy is due to give press briefing late Saturday as her trip ends.

She is expected to be quizzed on her access to Uyghur residents and detention facilities in Xinjiang, giving her a final chance while inside China to address the allegations of abuse.

It is "as clear as day" that China has so far used the visit "to promote its own narrative and defend its poor human rights record", said Alkan Akad, a China researcher at Amnesty.

The goal is "to show the world that it can bend a top UN human rights official -- and thus the very concept of human rights -- to its will," said Maya Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch.

London-based Uyghur activist Rahima Mahmut slammed the visit as "window dressing".

"This is not the neutral, independent, unfettered investigation that we were promised," she told AFP.

Instead, Beijing was seeking "a free pass to continue carrying out repression, surveillance, torture and genocide against communities like mine", she added.

- Speak out, or stay away -

Bachelet has been in Xinjiang since Tuesday with her office saying she planned to visit the regional capital Urumqi and the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar.

Yet the hard details of what she saw and who she met have been largely withheld on a trip carried out in a "closed loop" by order of Beijing, ostensibly due to Covid risks.

China has filled the information vacuum, with state media running gleeful readouts of meetings between her and Xi as well as foreign minster Wang Yi.

They reported that Bachelet said she "admired China's efforts and achievements in ... protecting human rights" during the virtual call with Xi.

A spokesperson for Bachelet did not confirm whether the reports were accurate when contacted by AFP, instead saying the UN would not publish readouts of bilateral meetings.

A later, hurried "clarification" by the UN stopped short of denying that she had praised China's rights record. But neither side mentioned Xinjiang in their readouts.

Norway-based Uyghur activist Abduweli Ayup said he was "disappointed" that Bachelet had appeared to allow Beijing to "misinterpret" her words.

"They have already used (her) for propaganda," he told AFP.

While it is unclear what she was able to see in Xinjiang, Bachelet was presented with a book of Xi's quotations on human rights -- images that were circulated widely across Chinese media.

A steady drip-feed of state media articles timed with her visit have also lauded Xinjiang's economic development and rising incomes.

China rejects all criticism of its policies in Xinjiang and frequently slams those it deems to have waded into its internal affairs.

Beijing has denied that Bachelet's trip is an investigation, saying it is a chance to "clarify misinformation".

It is the first trip to China by the UN's top rights envoy in 17 years and comes after painstaking negotiations over the parameters of her visit, which the UN says is neither a fact-finding mission nor a probe.

The notion that Beijing would not use the visit to "put forth its own narrative" on human rights is "for the birds", said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute.

"She must have the political courage and integrity to speak out when her words and her visit are being distorted," he said. "If she is not prepared and able to do so, she should not visit."

UN rights envoy defends controversial China visit
Beijing (AFP) May 28, 2022 - The UN rights envoy on Saturday defended her contentious visit to China, but urged authorities to avoid "arbitrary and indiscriminate" measures in Xinjiang, a region where Beijing is accused of widespread human rights abuses.

Michelle Bachelet's remarks were swiftly criticised by activists and NGOs, who accused her of providing Beijing with a major propaganda win.

Bachelet's long-planned trip this week has taken her to the far-western Xinjiang region, where China is alleged to have detained over a million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, as well as carried out forced sterilisation of women and coerced labour.

But she insisted on Saturday that her visit was "not an investigation", while China's vice foreign minister boasted that it had achieved "positive concrete results".

The United States has labelled China's actions in Xinjiang a "genocide" and "crimes against humanity", allegations vehemently denied by Beijing which says its security crackdown was a necessary response to extremism.

"Certain Western countries... went to great lengths to disrupt and undercut the High Commissioner's visit, their plot didn't succeed," Chinese vice foreign minister Ma Zhaoxu said in an online statement after Bachelet's briefing ended.

Speaking at the end of her trip while still inside China, Bachelet framed her visit as a chance for her to speak with "candour" to Chinese authorities as well as civil society groups and academics.

The trip was the first to China by the UN's top rights envoy in 17 years and comes after painstaking negotiations over the conditions of her visit.

- 'Pretty transparent' -

In her strongest comments aimed at Beijing, Bachelet urged China to avoid "arbitrary and indiscriminate measures" in its crackdown in Xinjiang -- but also said she recognised the damage caused by "violent acts of extremism".

"This visit was not an investigation," she told reporters, later insisting she had "unsupervised" access to sources the UN had arranged to meet in Xinjiang.

She said she had met the provincial Communist Party boss as well as security chiefs in one of the most tightly surveilled places on earth.

Rights groups accuse Beijing of mass detentions of entire communities of mainly Uyghurs, many of whom have had no chance to communicate with their families outside for several years.

"We are aware of the number of people seeking news on the fate of loved ones... This and other issues were raised with authorities," Bachelet said, declining to add detail given the sensitivity of the issue to China's security apparatus.

Bachelet stopped in the Xinjiang cities of Urumqi and Kashgar, where she visited a prison and a former re-education camp, as well as the touristic Kashgar Old Town, a counter-terrorism exhibition and cotton fields.

Ma said these visits allowed her to "experience progress ... in preserving and promoting ethnic minority traditions", adding that "Xinjiang is not at all a human rights issue".

Bachelet said she saw prisoners and an internal court of appeal in Kashgar Prison, describing her access as "pretty open, pretty transparent".

The Xinjiang government had assured her that a network of "vocational training centres" -- which rights groups say are forced re-education camps -- have "been dismantled", she said, adding she was "unable to assess the full scale".

Beijing announced in 2019 that all "trainees" had graduated from "vocational training centres", but rights groups allege that many detainees were transferred to factories as forced labour, or instead moved to Xinjiang's ballooning network of prisons.

Bachelet did not address the long-stalled release of her report into alleged Xinjiang abuses, and pledged to maintain further contact with Chinese authorities on human rights issues.

- 'Total betrayal' -

Bachelet had already come under fire from rights groups and Uyghurs overseas, but her press conference sparked a new round of criticism.

"Resignation is the only meaningful thing she can do for the Human Rights Council," said Dilxat Raxit, spokesperson for the World Uyghur Congress advocacy group, while US-based Uyghur activist Rayhan Asat called it a "total betrayal" on Twitter.

Human Rights Watch's Executive Director Kenneth Roth dismissed Bachelet's argument that the trip had been valuable in allowing her to speak frankly to Chinese officials.

"Such quiet backroom conversation is just what Beijing wants -- no public reporting, no pressure to end its intense repression of Uyghurs and others," Roth tweeted.

"The High Commissioner's visit has been characterized by photo opportunities with senior government officials and manipulation of her statements by Chinese state media, leaving an impression that she has walked straight into a highly predictable propaganda exercise for the Chinese government," Amnesty International's Secretary General Agnes Callamard said in a statement.

Bachelet's trip included a virtual meeting with President Xi Jinping in which state media suggested she supported China's vision of human rights.

Her office later clarified that her remarks did not contain a direct endorsement of China's rights record.

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