Japan Parliament Challenges China on Human Rights Before Games

(Bloomberg) -- Japan's lower house passed a resolution Tuesday expressing concern about Uyghur human rights, in a move that may anger China three days ahead of the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing.

The motion, which says the situation is “a legitimate matter of concern for the international community, not just an internal issue for one country,” is unlikely to please Japan's powerful neighbor and largest trading partner.

Japan treads a narrow path between maintaining ties with the U.S., its only formal military ally, and China. Long reluctant to criticize other nations publicly over human rights, Japan shifted its stance following Beijing's 2020 clampdown on Hong Kong, further chilling an already difficult relationship.

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The parliamentary resolution, spearheaded by ruling and opposition party lawmakers belonging to human rights groups, was watered down over the course of months of wrangling in a bid to gain approval across the political spectrum. It follows a similar, though more strongly worded, resolution passed by the French parliament, which referred to Beijing's treatment of the Uyghurs as “genocide.”

China regularly hits back at the genocide accusations leveled by the U.S. government and others, calling them “the lie of the century.”

A final version seen by Bloomberg last week expressed concern about the human rights situation in Xinjiang, as well as Hong Kong, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia, but did not directly mention China. The word “condemnation” had also been deleted from an earlier version of the document.

Some lawmakers hope the resolution would prod Japan's government to pass a law requiring companies to conduct due diligence on human rights in their supply chains. Japanese firms were among those named in a report published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute two years ago, as being linked to Uyghur forced labor.

The resolution calls on the government to investigate the human rights situation and form a plan to work with the global community to help those affected.