Michelle Bachelet — courageous non-twosider or Xi Jinping flunky?

Or, per my citing of Idries Shah:

To 'see both sides' of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides.

Is the truth somewhere in between?

Counterpunch takes the former angle, with former UN rapporteurs Alfred de Zayas and Richard Falk weighing in.

Foreign Policy, Benedict Rodgers writing, and sure to be followed on op-ed pages of major US media, takes the second of more than two sides.

And, here's me beyond the two sides.

First, I have no idea if China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs or not. I personally have never claimed that. I HAVE said that it may be committing cultural genocide, as it has been argued that it's been doing in Tibet.

Setting aside the argued slave labor camps, which the US did not do to American Indians, is it arguable that there's some degree of hypocrisy on the behalf of the US foreign policy establishment? Yes. But, no twosiderism means that both that hypocrisy and China's actual actions can be condemned. (This is the same country that has refused to release ANY ANY ANY coronavirus death and infection data from Ground Zero Wuhan since March 31, 2000, after all.)

And, speaking of, I have no idea if Bachelet got a Potemkin tour of Xinjiang or saw bits and pieces, at least, of the real thing.

That said, Rogers notes that Bachelet spent four years negotiating that deal. That meant there were limitations on what she was going to see. Again, I don't know exactly what, but there were limitations.

Is it hypocritical for Rogers to say she was parroting Xi Jinping's language about "counterterrorism," given the US reason for invading Iraq, overthrowing Gadhafi, backing the Saudis in Yemen, etc.? Yes. Was it also hypocritcal for Bachelet to do such parroting? Yes, just as it is from Max Blumenthal, Aaron Maté and others. It was also, if not hypocritical, highly uninformed for her to talk about China's allegedly "almost universal health care," when HALF of its OVER-80 population still haven't been COVID vaccinated. As of January, Forbes, channeling a piece from the Economist that had COVID undercounting rates around the world, said China's real death rate was probably 1.7 million. That was January. It has the vax rate there, too.

A third side, if there's not more than three, and is rather a middle point within two polarities, can come closer to one side than the other, too. Amnesty International does not use the word "genocide" but does condemn Bachelet for not talking about China's major human rights violations.

Given China's stiff-arming of the WHO on COVID, Bachelet would have been better served never going to China rather than on a likely Potemkin tour. She does say in her end of mission statement that she "raised some issues" with China. Those have often been raised before. As for Chinese claims an old "de-radicalization" system has been dismantled? Has it been left that, way, or has it been "remantled" with something else? The OGPU and KGB were both dismantled, after all, as was the OSS. China told her it would admit senior UN human rights officials in the future. Call me back after the Human Rights Committee reviews Hong Kong later this month.

She saluted China for passing International Labour Organization Conventions (29 and 105); congrats indeed as the older of the two was crafted in 1930.