China has voted against a UN Human Rights Council investigation into possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine amid concern that the probe is politically motivated, shifting from its previous stance of abstaining on the conflict.
💬 “We have noted that in recent years the politicization and confrontation at the [council] has been on the rise, which has severely impacted the credibility, impartiality and the solidarity,” said Chen Xu, the top Chinese diplomat at the UN office in Geneva.
Chen made his comments before the Human Rights Council voted on Thursday – by a 33-2 margin with 12 abstentions – to approve a resolution calling for the war-crimes probe. Eritrea was the only other nation to vote no. Members that abstained included Armenia, Bolivia, Cameroon, Cuba, India, Kazakhstan, Namibia, Pakistan, Senegal, Sudan, Uzbekistan and Venezuela.