Beijing does not take kindly to being criticized. Last week the US state department released an annual report on the human rights situation in China, and similar ones of other countries around the world. Yesterday (March 9) Chinese authorities responded in kind, drawing heavily on media reports—including from several US publications that are behind China’s great firewall—as well as on US government statistics.
“Human Rights Record of the United States in 2016,” from the State Council, China’s cabinet, highlights, among other things, racism, sexism, poverty, torture, homelessness, gun violence, the shrinking middle class, police abuse of power, high incarceration rates, and civilian deaths caused by US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.
“With the gunshots lingering in people’s ears behind the Statue of Liberty, worsening racial discrimination and the election farce dominated by money politics, the self-proclaimed human rights defender has exposed its human rights ‘myth’ with its own deeds,” the report reads.
It also takes aim at the recent presidential election, noting the low voter turnout and the vast sums spent on the campaigns, while also knocking the media coverage of it. (“The media clearly chose their side in covering the election,” it says.)
The reports from the two nations have become a sort of annual tit for tat, with China aiming to reveal what it considers US hypocrisy. This year, China cited president Donald Trump’s own remarks in a section on crime: “The U.S. president also admitted that ‘crime is out of control.'”