Nation urges end to prejudice on human rights
China Tuesday urged the US to seriously and objectively treat China’s approach to developing and promoting human rights, slamming the latter for using the human rights issue for political ends.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang made the remarks at a press briefing after the US Ambassador to China Terry Branstad released a statement Monday, the 70th International Human Rights Day, saying that “China’s approach to human rights directly impacts our overall bilateral relationship.”
Branstad said that he was “deeply troubled by the Chinese government’s worsening crackdown in Xinjiang, including the detention of as many as 1 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslims in internment camps since April 2017.”
The “internment camps” in the statement refer to the vocational training centers built by the Xinjiang government for local people coerced or lured into extremist or terrorist activities.
“With prejudice we cannot accurately understand or promote mutual trust with other countries, and it has already proven to be a failure to use one’s own standard to treat others,” Lu noted.
Such prejudice is not only unfair to China but also irresponsible to Americans as it deepens misunderstanding between peoples from both sides, Zhang Shengjun, an international politics professor at Beijing Normal University, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
On human rights, Lu reiterated that China is open to communication on the issue based on mutual respect, when asked if German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier had discussed the topic during his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday.
The response also came following the Chinese Embassy in Germany issued a statement on Saturday on its website expressing strong dissatisfaction as the German Bundestag criticized the human rights situation in Xinjiang, calling it interference in China’s internal affairs.
China adheres to a people-centered vision of human rights, considers the right to subsistence and development as the primary and basic human rights, President Xi said in a congratulatory letter to a symposium marking the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Beijing Monday.