China hit back at the US over its human rights record yesterday, bringing out government-backed academics to accuse Washington of everything from promoting the Islamic State group to being a racist plutocracy.
China was infuriated last week when the US and 11 other countries at the UN criticized China’s crackdown on human rights and its detentions of lawyers and activists.
At a news conference arranged by the State Council Information Office for mostly Chinese reporters, four academics at government-run bodies lambasted the US for what they said was hypocritical criticism of China and others.
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences human rights institution director Liu Hainian (劉海年) blamed Europe’s “refugee wave” on the US’ military involvement in the Middle East which was forcing people to leave their “beautiful homes.”
“Think about it. Certain extremist groups that now exist, including Islamic State, wasn’t it the Americans who first off promoted them from behind?” Liu said.
Closer to home, the US has a terrible problem with racism, with police last year killing about 1,000 people, he added.
“Most of those were people of colour,” Liu said.
Tianjin-based Nankai University human rights research center vice director Chang Jian (常健) said the US electoral system was being increasingly controlled by Super PACs — committees well-funded by corporate interests.
“There are fewer and fewer opportunities for ordinary people to participate in elections,” he said.
Chang made no mention of China’s own tightly controlled political system, which has been run by the Chinese Communist Party without interruption since the 1949 revolution.
Asked about China’s own problems, Chang said he was not there to talk about China but to talk about the US, although he said China did not shy away from admitting its faults.
However, he and Liu avoided answering a question about televised broadcasts of confessions by suspects, often those involved in sensitive human rights cases, which have angered the US and Europe.
HEALTHY CENSORSHIP
Liu admitted some Web sites were “probably” blocked or deleted in China, although he said this was being done for the sake of protecting the country’s young people from pornography, gambling and drugs.
“I’m really worried about my grandchildren. I hope they can growth up healthily. This kind of information needs to be removed,” he said.
When asked why Chinese media were not allowed to rigorously criticize China’s rights record in the same way the US media were able to do in their home country, Liu instead criticized US journalists’ reporting on China.
“Their reports on China are very few and very negative,” he said.
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