The United Nations Association of China (UNA-China) hosted an online side-event ‘Racism against Asian American: Scapegoating and Double Standards’ on June 28, 2021, on the sideline of the 47th session of the Human Rights Council. Mr. Huang Huikang, member of the International Law Commission of the UN and former Ambassador of China to Malaysia, Prof. Tang Yanlin, School of International Economics and International Relations, Liaoning University, Mr. Fermin Gabriel Quinones Sanchez, President of the United Nations Association of Cuba, Mr. Liang Yabin, Associate Professor, Institute for International Strategic Studies, Party School of the Central Committee of C.P.C, Ms. Li Xin, Associate Research Fellow, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies are invited to speak at the meeting. Officials, experts and scholars coming from China, Vietnam, Laos, Pakistan, Cuba, and Venezuela joined the side-event virtually. Ms. Zhang Dan, Vice-President and Director-General of UNA-China, presided over the side-event and remarked in the opening and closing sessions.

 

The participants shared the view that the situation of Asian Americans in the US has recently become increasingly difficult. Discrimination against Asian Americans dramatically increased after the COVID-19 outbreak. The roots lie in the country’s flawed political and judicial system and history of racism. It is also a direct result of the long-term inappropriate policies and measures taken by the US Government on racial issues and pandemic response.

 

The participants urged the US to shoulder responsibilities on promoting genuine equality among all races and ethnicities, reject all expressions of racist hate speech and discriminatory rhetoric, in particular by officials and public figures, and reform its legal system to respond to the serious human rights violation of minorities. The participants requested the US to stop using the pandemic as a political tool to stigmatize other countries for the purposes of dominating the world and maintaining its hegemony, earnestly fulfill its commitment under CERD and respond in action to the recommendations made by other countries during UPR regarding the gross violation of human rights of racial minorities in the US, and guarantee people's right to life as well as their economic, social and cultural rights and the right to development so as to address the sources of inequalities and racial confrontations, and promote dialogue and understanding among different civilizations.

 

The participants called for the UN human rights bodies, such as Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, UPR, HRC, CERD, to pay more attention to the rights of Asian Americans, set up an independent international commission of inquiry to monitor and report on racism in the US, condemn and hold accountable the individuals and institutions that violate the rights of minorities in the US. The participants suggested the US, Canada, Australia and other countries which have a history of genocide and racism against indigenous people and other minorities put laws and policies in practice to oppose all forms of racism, ban hate speech, racial slurs, and other racist narrative and propaganda, cultivate culture of tolerance, racial equality and genuine respect of all human rights of all peoples, prosecute all kinds of racial violence, and support a science-based research of origin of the virus, support the WHO to play a leading role in an objective matter in pandemic response.