In another idiotic editorial, China's newspaper the Global Times claimed on Thursday that the U.S. has no moral authority to criticize its human rights record. Seeing as the Global Times is a mouthpiece for President Xi Jinping, its opinions are always interesting, even when absurd.

And absurdity is certainly the right word here. Consider the Global Times' assertion on why the U.S. shouldn't criticize its rights record: "Washington's indifference to lives is evident from its long-awaited ban on the Boeing 737 MAX. Only a few hours before the ban, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation flew on a Boeing 737 MAX 8 in an attempt to trick the public into relaxing their vigilance."

China is imprisoning thousands of political activists, and it has put more than a million Muslims into concentration camps in Xinjiang. It is trying to conquer the Indo-Pacific. And the U.S. ... took a bit too long for some people's tastes to make a regulatory decision that required weighing evidence.

Seems about equal, right?

Added to this joke is the editorial's take on why China's horrific detention of Uighur Muslims in Xijiang is just fine: "Xinjiang has been exploring methods of achieving peace and stability across the entire region. The establishment of vocational education and training centers aims to protect the peaceful lives of most people at the minimum cost."

This stale, deceptive rhetoric would make Orwell proud. It hides a most grotesque human rights atrocity that is hidden in a remote and inaccessible region. China claims that its "vocational education" centers are all about empowering its citizens in happier lives, but those camps are actually reeducation prisons designed to purge personal beliefs and subordinate individuals. To what end? Simple. Moribund service to a corrupt state.

The Global Times says "China's human rights have defects." That's the understatement of the millennium.