A Chinese company named Hikvision, which is on a United States trade blacklist due to its support for the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) brutal oppression of China's Uyghur minority, has been rewarded with a chair on the United Nations Global Compact. The purpose of the Global Compact is to "support U.N. goals" and implement "universal sustainability principles" related to "human rights, labor, the environment, and anti-corruption."

Hikvision has promised, on the human rights front, to do better. It is unclear whether the Chinese company was willing to go to the extent of a pinkie-swear.

Hikvision's work in its native China, however, tells a different story.

The company's cameras are a crucial part of the Chinese Communist Party's surveillance system used to track and detain Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Hikvision—which reports to the Chinese government through its largest shareholder, the state-owned China Electronics Technology Group—entered into government contracts in Xinjiang that contained language referring to the surveillance of "Uyghurs" and "mosques." Its technology has been used to help detain Uyghurs flagged for traveling abroad, and its cameras are included in the CCP's mass detention facilities located in Xinjiang. In 2019, Hikvision marketed a camera that can automatically identify Uyghurs.

The Uyghurs are a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority in western China that has suffered greatly under Chinese rule. At present, there may be hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in Chinese "re-education camps." China has reportedly been mass sterilizing Uyghur women, breaking up Uyghur families, destroying mosques, and imprisoning Uyghurs without trial.

Hikvision, despite their aiding the CCP in the oppression of the Uyghurs, has still found favor at the United Nations.

The revelation reflects China's growing grip on the United Nations, with the communist nation working in recent years to put its officials in leadership positions and gain a seat on the organization's influential human rights council panel. Hikvision's inclusion in the U.N. Global Compact could also create problems for the Biden administration, which has proposed to collaborate with the compact to vet federal contractors.

Bear in mind that the UN is an organization that has, in recent years:

• Chosen Iran to chair a human rights conference
• Been the subject of several sexual abuse investigations
• Funded UN workers in Gaza who took part in the Oct 7th mass murders in Israel
• Appointed to the UN Human Rights Council nations that are such bastions of human rights as Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Uganda, and Pakistan.

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The United States, as of 2023, contributes about 28 percent of the United Nations' budget. China, while in second place, contributes a little over half that at 15 percent. It's a safe bet that, without the United States, the UN would be seriously diminished, if not defunct.

The UN is an organization that has passed its sell-by date. It's a drag on the US taxpayer, and the UN has rarely favored the US in any disagreement between member nations, which brings up the question from the American taxpayer, "What the hell are we paying for?" If the rest of the world sees an advantage in keeping the UN going, fine; let them build a new HQ in The Hague, or Gabon, or Beijing, or someplace else. It's time the US removed itself from the UN and removed that burden on the US taxpayers.