China has hit out at US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s harsh criticism of its human rights record as “inappropriate.”
In an interview published earlier this week that focused largely on recent turmoil in the Arab world, Clinton denounced China’s clampdown on dissent as a “fool’s errand,” saying Beijing was trying to stop the course of history.
The remarks were some of the strongest by a senior US official since China launched a major crackdown earlier this year and came as Clinton was meeting with senior leaders from Beijing as part of the two nations’ annual dialogue.
“It is inappropriate for anyone to put China on a par with countries in Western Asia and North Africa facing turmoil,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu (姜瑜) said in a statement issued in direct response to Clinton’s comments.
In the interview with The Atlantic magazine, Clinton said of Chinese officials: “They’re worried and they are trying to stop history, which is a fool’s errand.”
“They cannot do it, but they’re going to hold it off as long as possible,” she added.
China, apparently spooked by the wave of pro-democracy protests sweeping the Arab world, has rounded up dozens of lawyers, writers, artists and other perceived critics in recent months.
Clinton and US President Barack Obama separately raised concerns about human rights with Chinese delegates during a two-day wide-ranging annual dialogue between the two sides held in Washington this week.
China’s state-owned Global Times newspaper said in an editorial yesterday that Clinton’s comments were “undignified.”
“As it adopts a different social system, China naturally fails to meet the human rights standards set by the West,” it said.
“The West’s indoctrination of human rights has had some effects on some people, who echo the West’s vilification of the nation’s human rights record, but they are the minority and cannot represent the mainstream,” it added.
“These people’s voices could be heard in recent years due to the openness and diversification of Chinese society, but that does not mean Western ideology can be accepted by the majority of Chinese people,” it said.
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
EXTRADITION FEARS: The legislative changes come five years after a treaty was suspended in response to the territory’s crackdown on democracy advocates Exiled Hong Kong dissidents said they fear UK government plans to restart some extraditions with the territory could put them in greater danger, adding that Hong Kong authorities would use any pretext to pursue them. An amendment to UK extradition laws was passed on Tuesday. It came more than five years after the UK and several other countries suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong in response to a government crackdown on the democracy movement and its imposition of a National Security Law. The British Home Office said that the suspension of the treaty made all extraditions with Hong Kong impossible “even if
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
RSS