China releases article exposing "U.S.-style human rights" crisis magnified by COVID-19

Photo taken on March 16, 2020 shows the White House Visitor Center in Washington D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

BEIJING, June 11 (Xinhua) -- The China Society for Human Rights Studies on Thursday issued an article titled "The COVID-19 Pandemic Magnifies the Crisis of 'U.S.-Style Human Rights'."

The U.S. government's self-interested, short-sighted, inefficient, and irresponsible response to the pandemic has caused the tragedy in which about 2 million Americans became infected with the virus and more than 110,000 have died from it, the article said.

It has exposed the long-existing and now deteriorating problems in the United States, such as a divisive society, the polarization between the rich and the poor, racial discrimination, and the inadequate protection of the rights and interests of vulnerable groups, according to the article.

"This has led the American people into grave human rights disasters," it read.

The article pointed out that the U.S. government has ignored the pandemic warnings, prioritized capital interests and politicized the anti-pandemic endeavor in its COVID-19 response.

When the virus broke out in the United States, some U.S. politicians used it as a weapon to attack political opponents, viewed it as an opportunity to seize power and partisan interests, and prioritized the response of the capital market, instead of regarding the drive to protect the lives and health of their people as their top priority, it said.

"Due to this, the U.S. government failed to give effective warnings to the public and failed to get prepared for the potential consumption of medical resources caused by the pandemic, bringing the American people to the brink of infection and death," it noted.

A man wearing a face mask walks by a memorial for COVID-19 victims in front of Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn borough of New York, the United States, May 27, 2020. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

The article added that inequality within U.S. society has been fully exposed during the pandemic.

"The pandemic has made the lives of people at the bottom of U.S. society increasingly difficult, and further intensified the social polarization between rich and poor," it said, adding that the high unemployment rate brought about by the pandemic has led the working class into a crisis of survival.

Vulnerable groups in the United States have been struggling to survive during the pandemic, it noted.

The elderly have been the "victims" of the U.S. government's ineffectiveness in fighting the pandemic, which also left the homeless having nowhere to go and poor children and immigrant children in worrisome situation, according to the article.