Protests show US ‘hypocrisy, human rights failure’

The head of a research institute of a Chinese university said that the deeply-rooted racial inequality problems that triggered the ongoing nationwide protest in the US uncovered its hypocrisy and failure on human rights, and that this will help the Chinese public realize that the US is not that advanced and developed.

Chang Jian, the director of Nankai University’s Center for the Study of Human Rights in Tianjin, told the Global Times on Tuesday, following the release of the report by the center, “I can’t breathe”: The Death of George Floyd and the Survival Dilemma Facing African Americans.

The report covered data and case studies about the conflict between African Americans and white Americans, the wealth gap among races, and the tough situation AfricanAmericans face from the COVID-19 outbreak in the US.

Chang noted that “the report about racial problems in the US asks the following questions: Why can the death of an African American cause massive riots and protests across the US? What can China learn from the mess in the US? How should we treat US criticism against our human rights situation? And how will the riots in the US develop?”

The report said the UN has repeatedly expressed grave concerns about racial discrimination in law enforcement and judicial practices in the US. In its 2016 work report on investigations of the United States, the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent heavily criticized the police violence and racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. A large number of cases have confirmed the problem of law enforcement officials’ use of violence and excessive use of lethal force, which are largely exempt from criminal liability, the report said.

Chinese analysts said although the US also faced criticism and accusations on the human rights issue, not many Western mainstream media reported about these, and are more interested in showing the problems of others, including China. They make the US look like a “champion of human rights” by lecturing others and even creating excuses to intervene other countries’ domestic issues.

By using human rights as an excuse, the US has destroyed many sovereign countries and made them failed states, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, they noted.