Guest slams BBC’s focus on human rights in China

During an interview with the BBC, a leading environmental expert criticized the broadcaster for framing the debate on China’s alleged “human rights abuse” while totally ignoring the human rights violations in the United States.

Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, said on the news program on Wednesday that he had expected to talk about climate change and instead was asked to discuss China’s human rights record.

The opening question from BBC Newsnight host Emma Barnett was whether the Biden administration’s approach to China — being critical of its human rights while engaging it on climate change — “can actually work”.

“I’m not sure why the BBC started with listing only China’s human rights abuses. What about America’s human rights abuses? The Iraq War, together with the UK, completely illegal and under false pretenses. The war in Syria, the war in Libya, the continued sanctions against civilian populations in Venezuela and Iran, walking away from the Paris Climate Agreement for the last four years, unilateral trade actions that have been deemed illegal by WTO,” Sachs responded.

“I think that the idea that there is one party that is so guilty, how can we talk to them, is just a strange way to address this issue,” he said. “So I think that the whole premise of this story is a little bit odd.”

Sachs said the US has “serious” human rights issues to deal with, not only the human rights violations committed by the US government abroad, but also the “continued massive racism”, white supremacism and “abuse of incarceration of hundreds of thousands of people in the US, African Americans, people of color”, he said.

“The US always attacks other countries; it holds itself sacrosanct. It’s really outrageous, because I know what goes on in American foreign policy. And I know how abusive it is. And I know what it’s like to live in a racist society, which I happen to do, where a significant part of this country is racist (and) followed a racist president who led an insurrection on the Capitol,” Sachs said after Barnett interrupted him several times.

The “insurrection on the Capitol” he referred to was a riot and violent attack on the US Congress on Jan 6 by a mob of supporters of former president Donald Trump who were attempting to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. The riot was condemned by many countries and international organizations, some of which specifically denounced Trump as inciting the attack.

“So the framing of this issue is strange. That’s what I’m saying,” said Sachs, who was again interrupted by Barnett. “(It’s framed) by your own country as well as the rest of the world,” she said. “By the government, not by my own country, by the government of my country,” Sachs corrected her.

Then Sachs went on to comment on the urgency for the US and China, “the two leading polluters”, to “clean up their act”. “This is crucial for the sake of the world. And so of course, we need to clean up our act, because the United States is emitting 15 tons of CO2 (carbon dioxide) per person in this country — twice what China’s emitting per capita, and the two countries together are about 40 percent of the CO2 emissions in the world, and we are wrecking the climate …” He was cut off again before finishing his sentence.

Sachs’ remarks were largely acclaimed by the viewers of the interview clip on YouTube. One comment said, “Brilliant ... about time we got someone telling the truth.” An independent UK news website, Dorset Eye, praised Sachs, saying, “Well done.”