The UN human rights envoy claimed on Saturday that her controversial visit to China was “not an investigation,” and that she had unfettered access to discussions in Xinjiang, where Beijing is accused of extensive human rights violations.

Michelle Bachelet’s long-planned tour this week has taken her to the far-western region, where Beijing is accused of detaining over a million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, forcing women to sterilize, and coercing work.

The US has labeled China’s activities in Xinjiang as “genocide” and “crimes against humanity,” claims Beijing has categorically refuted, claiming that its security crackdown was a necessary response to extremism.

Bachelet has come under fire from rights groups and Uyghurs around the world, who claim she fell into a six-day Communist Party propaganda trip, which included a meeting with President Xi Jinping during which state media implied she supported China’s vision of human rights.

Her administration then emphasized that her words were not an endorsement of China’s human rights record.

While still within China at the end of her journey, Bachelet presented her visit as an opportunity to talk with “candour” to Chinese officials as well as civil society groups and academics.

“This was not an inquiry,” she told reporters, later asserting she had “unsupervised” access to UN sources in Xinjiang.

It is the first trip to China by the UN’s top rights envoy in 17 years and comes after painstaking negotiations over the conditions of her visit, which the UN says is neither a fact-finding mission nor a probe.

Bachelet this week visited the Xinjiang cities of Urumqi and Kashgar, according to her office, but no photos or further details of her itinerary have dribbled out.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said earlier this week that Bachelet’s activities were “arranged according to her will and on the basis of thorough consultations of the two sides.”

She planned to meet “civil society organizations, business representatives, academics,” her office said, but state media has only covered meetings with Xi and foreign minister Wang Yi, during which he gave her a book of Xi quotes on human rights.

Her trip has taken place under a “closed loop,” ostensibly due to Covid-19 risks.

The United States has reiterated its view that Bachelet’s visit was a mistake after the release of thousands of leaked documents and photographs from inside the system of mass incarceration this week, while the UK and Germany have voiced their concerns at the visit.

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