Update on 'Xinjiang Assessment' Expected Amid Pressure From Rights Groups

Amid growing pressure from rights groups, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, will update the 49th session of the Human Rights Council on March 7 on her efforts to assess the situation in Xinjiang, a spokesperson from her office told VOA.

In recent weeks, rights activists and U.S. politicians have been pressuring Bachelet to release a report on human rights in Xinjiang, a region in northwest China that is home to Uyghurs who are Muslim and a minority group.

Mainly Western countries, including the United States, and rights organizations accuse China of human rights violations, including forced sterilization of Uyghur women, torture, forced labor and the detention of more than 1 million Uyghurs and other Turkic groups in internment camps in Xinjiang. The U.S. government has described the violations as genocide and crimes against humanity.

The push for the release of the report comes after years of unsuccessful efforts by Bachelet’s office to negotiate the terms of a visit to Xinjiang to assess the human rights situation there.

In a video speech to the 49th United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva on Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, “The door of Xinjiang is open, and we welcome people from all countries to visit Xinjiang and have exchanges.”

He went on to refute allegations of abuse and said, “The so-called genocide, forced labor and religious repression, are lies that are completely fabricated.”
China says the facilities in Xinjiang are only vocational training centers – and that Beijing’s Xinjiang policies are aimed at fighting extremism, terrorism and separatism.

While discussions between Bachelet’s office and Beijing are ongoing, “the parameters for a visit will have to be such that the High Commissioner has unfettered, meaningful access, including unsupervised interviews with civil society,” the high commissioner’s spokesperson, Liz Throssell, told VOA in an email.

Doubtful Uyghurs

Uyghurs’ rights groups are doubtful there will be changes to the status quo.
“We don’t expect the visit will take place soon, given that the high commissioner has failed to reach an agreement with the government of China for the past three years,” said Zumretay Arkin, program and advocacy manager at the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress.

A Uyghur government official in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, told VOA that for any Uyghur “to be able to speak [freely] and tell what is happening, they [would] have to be out” of China.

“There’s a tragedy in every [Uyghur] family, at least someone has disappeared without a trace. But I can’t tell you in detail,” the Uyghur official who requested anonymity for his safety said. “No one is calm. Every family is weeping over someone.”

Abdulhakim Idris, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Uyghur Studies, accuses Bachelet of being mostly passive on Uyghur human rights since she assumed her position in September 2018.

“These are not only my words; even her official told us that she had been disregarding the reports and documents detailing Uyghur human rights” in China, Idris told VOA.

Idris said that in late 2018, he and other Uyghur rights activists met a Bachelet office staffer in Geneva who was working on the China human rights issue.
“We were told that when reports and documents got into her office, the reports they had submitted would be ignored,” Idris said.

“Every year Uyghurs hoped that on behalf of the U.N., Bachelet would say something about the Uyghurs’ dire human rights situation,” Idris said. “All these years, Bachelet had been careful not to anger China, that’s why she has been delaying this urgent report.”

In an email, Bachelet’s office told VOA the accusations are false and that since allegations of “human rights violations in Xinjiang emerged, the U.N. Human Rights Office has been consistently gathering, documenting and analyzing the information that has come to our attention.” Bachelet’s office also said she has been working on visiting Xinjiang “based on meaningful access” while continuing to monitor the situation and assess the situation there remotely.

Last September, Bachelet expressed regret at not making any progress on her “efforts to seek meaningful access to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region” to probe human rights.

“In the meantime, my office is finalizing its assessment of the available information on allegations of serious human rights violations in that region, with a view to making it public,” Bachelet said at the opening of the Human Rights Council in September in Geneva.

In December, after an unofficial tribunal in London said that China has “committed genocide and crimes against humanity and torture against Uyghurs, Kazakh and other ethnic minority citizens” in Xinjiang, a spokesperson for the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Rupert Colville, said that Bachelet had hoped to publish the report on Xinjiang in the coming weeks.

Adrian Zenz is director and senior fellow of China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington. Zenz said the only way to make genuine progress on documenting China’s actions would be to take Uyghurs out of Xinjiang for completely unsupervised conversations with U.N. officials.

However, if it is a visit as suggested by Wang, Beijing will “closely control what people see on the ground, and that’s all the more because actually a fairly substantial number of internment camps have been securitized or closed down,” Zenz told VOA. “People have been shifted into forced labor or sentenced to long-term prisons.”

War in Ukraine Expected to Trigger Higher Fuel Prices

Washington — 

As Russia moves troops into the Donbas region of Ukraine, experts warn that the prospect of a shooting war erupting in Europe, combined with heavy sanctions on Russia, is likely to cause instability in the energy market, possibly translating into significantly higher costs for both gasoline and natural gas.

Because Russia is one of the world’s largest producers of oil and natural gas, disruptions in its output, whether as an unintended consequence of military action or as a response to international sanctions, can have a profound effect on energy prices.

Global oil prices are extremely sensitive to supply disruptions, said Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston.

“Russia exports about four and a half million barrels (of oil) a day, in a global market that’s roughly 100 million barrels a day,” Hirs told VOA. “If a million barrels gets pushed aside, either for the war effort or because sanctions cut off delivery, or there’s a catastrophe with the Russian oil fields as the war progresses … we’d expect to see the oil prices increase by 20% to 25%. That would mean the retail price of gasoline would go up 50 cents to 75 cents a gallon.”

Sanctions levied on Russia

As tensions have increased in Ukraine over the past few months, oil prices, in particular, have responded to widespread uncertainty by rising sharply. On Tuesday, the price of Brent Crude, which is commonly used as a benchmark, was above $96 per barrel, up from under $70 in early December.

On Monday and Tuesday, leaders in the United States and Europe began announcing a list of punitive measures being imposed against Russia. Most of the sanctions targeted banks and wealthy individual Russians, and were not a direct move against Russia’s energy sector.

FILE – Pipes at the landfall facilities of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipline are pictured in Lubmin, northern Germany, Feb. 15, 2022.

The one exception was the announcement by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that the German government would not allow the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would transport natural gas directly from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, to open.

As the pipeline has never been operational, that announcement had no effect on current energy supplies. However, a senior administration official Tuesday hailed the decision to suspend the approval of the pipeline as an important step in breaking Europe’s dependence on Russia for natural gas, and said that the U.S. would continue to ramp up shipments of liquefied natural gas to Europe to compensate for any loss of supply from Russia.

Biden addresses fuel prices

In announcing the U.S. sanctions targeting Russia, President Joe Biden on Tuesday warned that they would have consequences for Americans in the form of higher fuel prices. “Defending freedom will have a cost for us, as well, here at home,” he said. “We need to be honest about that.”

He said that his administration would “take robust action to make sure the pain of our sanctions is targeted at the Russian economy, not ours.” He promised to lead a coordinated effort involving major oil producers that would “blunt” the impact of supply disruptions on fuel prices.

“I want to limit the pain the American people are feeling at the gas pump,” he said. “This is critical to me.”

Markets already stressed

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, energy markets were already significantly disordered, even before Russia began massing troops on the border of Ukraine last year.

FILE – A section of an oil platform operated by Lukoil company is seen at the Kravtsovskoye oil field in the Baltic Sea, Russia, Sept. 16, 2021.

In the early phases of the pandemic, global demand for oil and gas plummeted as lockdowns kept people from driving and using public transportation. At one point in April 2020, there was such a supply glut that the price of oil plunged into negative territory, meaning that producers were having to pay buyers to take supply off their hands.

One consequence was a major decrease in production, as many high-cost extraction operations became economically unsustainable and were taken offline.

Demand has largely recovered, according to Gregory Upton, an associate research professor at Louisiana State University’s Center for Energy Studies. However, Upton told VOA, oil production remains slightly below pre-pandemic levels, which has added upward pressure on prices.

Markets will compensate

Upton told VOA that if supplies of Russian oil and gas are significantly curtailed as a result of war in Ukraine, that would encourage oil producers to reactivate some of the production facilities that were shut down during the pandemic.

“If sanctions are put on Russian oil and/or natural gas, and that reduces that supply to the global market, that will put upward pressure on prices,” Upton said. “Markets will respond. Upward pressure on prices will incentivize people to go drill more wells … and it will move that market back into equilibrium.”

That doesn’t mean that there will not be disruptions, some potentially significant, in the near term. But, as of Tuesday, Upton said futures markets continued to predict that, in the medium term, oil prices will fall.

Significant Nonimmigrant Visa Fee Increase Expected by September

The Biden administration has proposed raising the fees on almost all nonimmigrant visas. While U.S. officials say the move is needed to better align visa prices with what it costs to provide them, critics worry that if the administration does not address visa wait times, the cost increase could mean even fewer travelers and students coming to the United States.

According to a Federal Register notice, the State Department expects the new prices to go into effect by September, and it is accepting comments on the proposed increases until February 28.

“All of the fee increases are happening at a time when tourism and travel to the United States is already at an all-time low, and the State Department is imposing waits of six months to a year in many places for a tourist- or business-travel visa,” David Bier, an immigration policy expert at the Cato Institute, told VOA.

State Department figures show the visas with the highest numbers of applications are tourism, business, and study.

A nonimmigrant visa allows the holder to travel as a tourist or live, work or study temporarily in the U.S. under certain conditions. Visa applications for tourism, B1 and B2, and student visas, F, M, J, will increase from $160 to $245, a 54% increase. While employment-based visas, H, L, O, P, Q and R, are going from $190 to $310, a 63% increase.

Proposed Prices for Popular US Visas

“The most important thing is whether visas are issued promptly. If the administration increases costs, but there’s not a vast improvement in service from the State Department, then the result will be far fewer travelers,” Bier added.

U.S. airport traffic has fallen in recent years, counting both domestic and international travelers. According to the Transportation Security Administration, it screened a total of 1.1 million people on January 26. On the same date in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic, that number was more than 2 million.

Promises

Addressing America’s immigration system was one of President Joe Biden’s key campaign promises. On his first day in office, he unveiled the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, sweeping immigration reform legislation that included an eight-year path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., a plan to clear employment-based visa backlogs, and a plan to prevent dependents of employment-based visa holders from “aging out” of the system, among other changes.

But the legislation stalled in Congress and is largely viewed as all but dead.

“Immigrants have done so much for America during the pandemic — as they have throughout our history. The country supports immigration reform. Congress should act,” Biden said.

Immigration experts say that while Biden reversed many of his predecessor’s policies often described as anti-immigration, a Trump administration executive order that limited legal immigration and the issuance of temporary work visas contributed to longer wait times for nonimmigrant visas.

Also, the State Department temporarily suspended routine visa services at all U.S. embassies and consulates in 2020 because of COVID-19 restrictions. They are reopening under a phased resumption of visa services, but about a fourth are partly or fully closed, according to the Cato Institute.

U.S. consulates around the world are a major component of the immigration system, processing visas “that authorize travel to the United States, but many consulates remain closed, and the open ones are reporting record wait times — [more than one year] in dozens of locations,” Bier wrote in a recent analysis.

A State Department official told VOA that U.S. embassies and consulates have online information on operating status and which services are currently offered.

According to Bier, in January most consulates reported waits of 202 days for a visa appointment for business travelers and tourists, up from 95 days in April 2021. For students and exchange visitors, the wait was about 38 days, up from 25 days about a year ago, and 62 days for everyone else, including skilled temporary workers, up from 40 days in April 2021.

FILE – Students make their way through the University of Chicago campus, in Chicago, May 6, 2021.

Effect on students, workers

A State spokesperson explained that the department’s consular operations are largely funded by fees for services and the proposed fee increase is to ensure the agency is fully recovering the costs of providing these services.

“Visa fees charged by the Department are generally based on the cost of providing visa services and are determined after conducting a study of the cost of such service,” the spokesperson told VOA by email. “The assessment of the actual cost of service in combination with demand projections over many years determined the fees published in the proposed fee schedule.”

Increased fees need to translate into better service, especially shorter wait times, which is particularly important for students, said Jill Welch, senior policy adviser to the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.

“We’re still evaluating the potential impact of the proposed rule on international student flows to the United States. … It’s important for [the State Department] to have adequate resources to process visa applications, particularly for those students and scholars who are on tight timelines for obtaining their visas in order to arrive on time for the academic term,” Welch said.

International students at U.S. colleges and universities contributed nearly $41 billion to the U.S. economy and supported 458,290 jobs in the 2018-19 academic year, according to a study by NAFSA: Association of International Educators. In the 2020-21 academic year, international students contributed $28.4 billion to the U.S. economy, a decline of nearly 27%, or $10.3 billion, largely because of the pandemic.

But not everyone believes higher visa costs will have a big impact.

Marcelo Barros, an international student career expert in Washington, told VOA that although the fee increase was “unfortunate,” it wouldn’t stop people from coming to the U.S.

“This is not going to have any meaningful impact on [student] enrollment or on [employment-based visas]. This will not have any meaningful impact on the desire of companies to hire talent outside the U.S.,” he said, adding that if travelers, students or high-skill workers want to come to the United States, they will pay the new fee.

Anticipated US Interest Hikes Expected to Reverberate Globally

WASHINGTON — 

Wednesday’s signal from the U.S. Federal Reserve on impending interest rate increases is expected to have ramifications beyond America’s shores.

The Fed’s Open Market Committee announced it was keeping, for now, the target range for a key interest rate at near zero but cautioned that with inflation well above 2% and a strong labor market, it expected “it will soon be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate.”

The federal funds rate is the interest rate commercial banks charge each other for overnight loans of their excess reserves.

“The committee is of a mind to raise rates at the March meeting,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters Wednesday. “We have our eyes on risks around the world, but the economy should hold up.”

As the dollar serves as the primary international reserve currency, a U.S. interest rate hike would pressure central banks of other countries to also raise their rates for those who want to borrow money.

“The rest of the world has a lot of dollar debt, and even if their debt is in local currencies, their central banks will often have to raise interest rates to offset the U.S. rate increases to try to maintain some currency stability,” said Gerard DiPippo, senior fellow with the economics program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Raising interest rates is aimed at stifling consumer demand to address all of this money that’s sloshing around in our economy, and that’s going to affect consumers here, as well as producers of goods and other countries that rely on the U.S. market,” said Sarah Anderson, global economy project director at the Institute for Policy Studies.

FILE – A trucker waits by a convoy of vehicles set to drive slowly during a protest though Madrid, Spain, Dec. 15, 2021. Governments worldwide are facing protests, work stoppages or other political pressure to take action against soaring inflation.

Inflation ‘transmitted through trade’

Inflation in the United States is at a 40-year high amid surging consumer demand for goods, a strengthening domestic job market and pandemic-caused supply chain disruptions, including for critical semiconductors.

“The price of U.S. exports increased by more than the price of U.S. imports last year, so in a sense, the U.S. is exporting inflation because the cost of producing things in the U.S. has increased faster than the imports going into it from overseas. So, the inflation can be transmitted through trade,” DiPippo told VOA.

Some economists and policy analysts see the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden confusing structural and cyclical economic matters as it struggles to tame inflation.

“The cyclical phenomenon — inflation — over the next year or so, really only the Fed has the tools to deal with that,” DiPippo said. “Even if the Biden administration is able to increase subsidies to produce things in the United States or increase competition through regulation, those things take time. And we’re talking about inflation over the next year or two, not over the next five years. So, there’s a mismatch.”

The White House has repeatedly said that it is prioritizing lowering prices to help American households and that the best way to accomplish it is through increased competition.

“Competition results in lower prices for families. Competition results in fair wages for workers. And as you all know, competition encourages companies to innovate,” Biden said on Monday during a meeting of the White House Competition Council.

FILE – A masked shopper leaves a Walmart store with a TV in Pic Rivera Calif., Nov. 26, 2021. From appliance stores in the United States to food markets in Hungary and gas stations in Poland, rising consumer prices fueled by high energy costs and supply chain disruptions are putting a pinch on households and businesses worldwide.

Prices have been surging in the United States and other countries since last year amid serious shortages of workers and the goods they produce. That has the International Monetary Fund predicting slower growth and faster inflation for the world’s biggest economies.

“People have shifted from spending money on services, like going out to restaurants and theaters, during the pandemic to buying more stuff,” Anderson told VOA. That has put more pressure on manufacturers, especially in countries such as China and Vietnam, which are having difficulty keeping pace with demand because so many workers have been sidelined by the pandemic.

“We can raise interest rates, but I don’t think the problem is going to go away until we end the pandemic,” Anderson added.

China’s “No-COVID policy may cause more lockdowns,” exacerbating the supply chain woes, Powell, the Fed chair, warned on Wednesday. “There’s plenty of risk out there.”