Beijing says Washington should ‘take hard look’ at its own record on gun deaths and media freedom

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

China has hit back in unusually strong terms after the US state department singled out Beijing’s human rights record.

On Thursday China attacked the US for its record on gun deaths, racial discrimination and media freedom.

It came after the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, highlighted abuses in Iran, South Sudan, Nicaragua and China in the department’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, but told reporters that China was “in a league of its own when it comes to human rights violations”.

Michael Kozak, the head of the state department’s human rights and democracy bureau, said mistreatment of China’s Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region was like had not been seen “since the 1930s”, apparently referring to the policies of persecution of Adolf Hitler’s Germany and Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union.

The Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Lu Kang, said the US report was filled with “ideological prejudice” and groundless accusations, and that China had lodged a complaint with Washington about it.

China fully safeguards human rights and it has made many achievements in this regard, he claimed. “We also advise that the United States take a hard look at its own domestic human rights record, and first take care of its own affairs,” he said.

China has rejected concern about its policies in Xinjiang, where rights groups said the government was operating internment camps holding a million or more Muslims. China said they are vocational training centres aimed at de-radicalisation.

China is 'in a league of its own' on human rights violations, Pompeo says Read more

The Chinese government on Thursday issued its annual rebuttal to criticism from Washington about China’s human rights record.

China’s state council, or cabinet, said the US was a self-styled “human rights defender” that has a human rights record which is “flawed and lackluster”.

It said: “The double standards of human rights it pursues are obvious.”

China’s report pointed to the high rate of gun deaths, racial discrimination and also what it said was a lack of media freedom in the US, despite China being ranked 176 last year on the world press freedom index of Reporters Without Borders, ahead of only Syria, Turkmenistan, Eritrea and North Korea.

“Press freedom has come under unprecedented attack,” it said, pointing to cases of reporters in the US being arrested and prevented from doing their jobs.

“The US government continues to publicly and fiercely accuse the media and journalists of creating ‘fake news’ and creating an atmosphere of intimidation and hostility,” the report said.

“Reporters’ legal right to report has been violated,” it added, pointing to cases of the White House stripping some reporters of press credentials.

There is no routine access to China’s presidential office and no presidential spokesperson. China’s president, Xi Jinping, only very rarely takes questions from any reporters, let alone foreign media.

Both foreign and Chinese journalists in China are frequently blocked from reporting freely. At least 48 journalists were jailed in China as of 2018, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The relatives and friends of overseas Uighur journalists reporting on the situation in Xinjiang have been detained, according to reports.

Human rights have long been a source of tension between the world’s two largest economies, especially since 1989, when the US imposed sanctions on China after a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

China routinely rejects criticism of its human rights record and has pointed to its success at lifting millions out of poverty, and that nobody has the right to criticise its model of government.

But the ruling Communist party brooks no political dissent and Xi’s administration has overseen a sweeping crackdown on human rights lawyers and activists.

Additional reporting by Lily Kuo