As Reuters reported on 8 March 2022, the UN Human Rights High Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, plans to visit China in May 2022. She announced that the visit would include travelling to the western province of Xinjiang. World Watch Research analyst Thomas Muller comments: "This is potentially big news. The very fact that the last such high-ranking UN visit to China took place in 2005 speaks of its significance. Although it remains to be seen whether a visit to Xinjiang really can take place, it is clear that all meetings will be highly scripted. The timing is also surprising, since analysts expected the Communist Party to want to keep everything calm in the run-up to the 20^th Party Congress in October 2022. One litmus test for the potential impact this visit might have is if the UN published its long-awaited report on Human Rights in Xinjiang (which has already been in preparation for the last three years) ahead of the visit (The Independent, 3 February 2022). Another litmus test would be to observe how frankly Mrs Bachelet can speak of other rights limitations in China, e.g. on freedom of religion, which is seriously curtailed for Christians and other groups. The fact that the Chinese ambassador to the UN in Geneva reportedly said that freedom of expression was fully protected in China, but can never be used as a pretext to put anyone above the law, illustrates the challenges this visit faces."