Confrontations over Xinjiang between China and mostly Western countries, including the US, have become a regular occurrence at both the UN General Assembly in New York and the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

In a statement — part of which was read by French UN Ambassador Nicolas de Rivière to the General Assembly rights committee — 43 countries voiced concern about increasing “reports of widespread and systematic human rights violations”, accusing China of detaining more than 1 million people in camps.

They said the abuse accusations included “reports documenting torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, forced sterilisation, sexual and gender-based violence, and forced separation of children”.

Beijing denies all allegations of abuse of Uighurs and describes the camps as vocational training facilities to combat religious extremism.

China’s UN ambassador, Zhang Jun, hit back in a statement partly read to the rights committee on Thursday.

“To the US and a few other countries: Your desperate attempts to cover up your own terrible human rights record will not work,” he said.

“No matter how many times repeated, lies are still lies,” he added. “You are using human rights as a pretext for political maneuvering to provoke confrontation.”

UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has been negotiating access to Xinjiang since September 2018. She told the Human Rights Council in June that she hoped to agree on terms for a visit this year to examine reports of serious violations against Muslim Uighurs.

At the Human Rights Council in June, more than 40 countries urged China to give Bachelet immediate access.