Report details human rights violations in US
Expert points out huge bias among American media in coverage of China
By releasing the report, China is not interfering in the internal affairs of the US, but presenting the real human rights situation in the US to the public.”
Chang Jian, professor of human rights studies at Nankai University
China’s State Council Information Office issued a report on human rights violations in the United States in 2020 on Wednesday that condemned the double standards and hypocrisy of the US on human rights.
“The US government, instead of introspecting on its own terrible human rights record, kept making irresponsible remarks on the human rights situation in other countries,” the report said.
It said that incompetent pandemic containment in the US has led to tragic outcomes, citing data that by the end of February, the US, home to less than 5 percent of the world’s population, accounted for more than a quarter of the world’s confirmed COVID-19 cases.
The US also accounted for nearly one-fifth of the global deaths from the disease. More than 500,000 US residents lost their lives due to the virus, data showed.
The report said that disorder in the US democratic system led to political chaos, further tearing US society apart, with people’s confidence in the US democratic system dropping to the lowest level in 20 years.
Ethnic minority groups suffered systemic racial discrimination. African Americans were three times as likely as white people to be infected with the virus, twice as likely to die from it, and three times as likely to be killed by police, it said.
The 15,000-Chinese-character document also mentioned continuous social unrest threatening public security in the US, growing polarization between rich and poor aggravating social inequality, and the US’ trampling of international rules, resulting in humanitarian disasters.
The report urged the US to show humility and compassion for the suffering of its own people, drop hypocrisy, bullying, “Big Stick” and double standards, and work with the international community to build a community with a shared future for humanity.
Chang Jian, a professor of human rights studies at Nankai University in Tianjin, said, “By releasing the report, China is not interfering in the internal affairs of the US, but presenting the real human rights situation in the US to the public.”
Chang said, “Although China has made progress in the development of human rights, including poverty reduction and rights protection, some countries constantly smear China’s human rights situation for political gains, regardless of their own deteriorating human rights situation.”
Though media are independent in the US, there is a huge bias among them in reporting on China, he said, adding that they are full of criticism while reporting on epidemic prevention measures in China.
Zhang Wei, a professor of human rights studies at China University of Political Science and Law, said the US withdrew from international organizations when the organizations refused US manipulation. Zhang cited the example of the US announcing its withdrawal from the World Health Organization in July amid the worst time of the global fight against COVID-19.
He said this also shows that the US is not adopting democratic methods to solve the problems of the international community and is not fighting for human rights and freedoms as it says it is.
The sanctions the European Union imposed on Chinese individuals and an entity on Monday, over so-called human rights issues in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, on which the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada followed suit, was clearly a coordinated action.
It has led to some speculation that US President Biden is succeeding in his stated desire to create a coalition “of like-minded partners” to make common cause against China in defense of shared interests and shared values.
Yet given the rhetoric of those involved over the past few years, it is not surprising that they are acting in concert on an issue on which they feel they can safely share a soapbox without treading on one another’s toes.
Their act of political arrogance is based on lies and driven by politics. It is exactly what the China sponsored resolution the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted on Tuesday opposes.
Advocating dialogue and cooperation on human rights based on impartiality and non-politicization, the resolution is a clarion call for an end to the Western countries’ clamor on so-called human rights issues.
What China and other members of the international community who uphold the United Nations-centered international system endorse is international relations based on equality and mutual respect, not servility to the West’s neo-imperialist diktats.
For the West, human rights are nothing but a pretense for acts that trample on the basic norms of international relations to serve their narrow ends. The rest of the world has learned that whenever the West starts preaching on human rights it is a case of beware Greeks bearing gifts.
It is under the banner of human rights that the United States and its allies have left a trail of destruction and endless humanitarian crises across the world with their meddling in the internal affairs of other countries under the guise of upholding human rights. And their internal situations, as outlined in a report released Wednesday on human rights violations in the US, do not bear close scrutiny.
And that is only in the postwar period. If one looks further back, there are the stains of the genocide of native peoples, slavery and the abuses of their colonialism on the human rights banners they are so eager to hold aloft.
Collecting chicken feathers to make a duster does not alter the lightness of each of the feathers, or make the duster a judge’s gavel either. Repeating lies does not change the fact they are lies. China has made steady progress on human rights and it will do better. Development and the realization of human rights are mutually reinforcing.
More than 1,200 diplomats, reporters and religious figures from over 100 countries and regions have visited Xinjiang in recent years, amid the West’s allegations of “industrial-scale” “genocide” and “sterilization”. Yet what they have found is a peaceful place where people of dozens of ethnic groups and different religions live together harmoniously.
The Western countries like to talk of shared values and imply these are universal values, but while claiming to speak for everyone, the only value they share is maintaining the interests and privileges of a few.