China’s report reveals hypocrisy, double standards of human rights situation in US: experts

The Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2020 was released on Wednesday by China’s State Council Information Office. (photo/scio.gov.cn)

As the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc around the world in 2020, the United States, the so-called “city upon a hill” and “beacon of democracy”, saw its own epidemic situation spiral out of control. This was accompanied by political disorder, inter-ethnic conflicts and social division, further adding to the human rights violations in the country, according to a recent report published by China.

The Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2020, released on Wednesday by China’s State Council Information Office, contains six chapters that lay bare the US’ double standards and hypocrisy on human rights.

At a briefing on the report on Wednesday, experts noted that the human rights situation in the US has entered a “vicious cycle”, and called upon the country to move in the same direction as the international human rights cause to truly improve the domestic situation.

Tragic pandemic

An elderly woman walks past a closed movie theater in San Mateo, California, US, Feb. 24, 2021. (Photo/Xinhua)

The report said the COVID-19 pandemic had gone out of control and turned into a human tragedy due to the US government’s reckless response, which led to more than 28 million confirmed cases and over 500,000 related deaths.

“It astonished us that the US claimed to have the most abundant medical resources and largest healthcare capacity, yet its response to the COVID-19 pandemic was chaotic, causing it to lead the world in numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases and related deaths,” said Chang Jian, director of the human rights study center at Nankai University.

With a population of less than 5 percent of the world’s total, the US accounted for more than 25 percent of all the confirmed cases and nearly 20 percent of the deaths, read the report.

According to the timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US released by media, the then US leaders had repeatedly ignored warnings regarding the risks of the pandemic, while controlling the message and releasing misleading signals to the public. This led to the country losing crucial weeks in preventing and controlling the pandemic, it said.

Amid the pandemic, senior citizens fell victim to the government’s incompetent response to COVID-19. Residents in long-term care facilities account for less than 1 percent of the US population, but more than 40 percent of COVID-19 deaths. The U.S. pandemic control efforts were tantamount to “state-sanctioned killing,” where “the old, factory workers, and black and Hispanic Americans” were deliberately sacrificed, said The Washington Post, according to the report.

“A huge number of nursing home deaths have also been withheld in the US,” said Li Yunlong, a professor at the Institute for International Strategic Studies, Party School of the Central Committee of CPC, citing an example of more than 15,000 New Yorkers in care homes having died since the start of the pandemic, while the state’s health department had logged just over 8,500 fatalities.

Racial discrimination

People take part in a protest against Asian hate in New York, the United States, on March 21, 2021. Eight people, six Asians and two Whites, were killed in shooting incidents in the Atlanta area by a suspect this week. The attacks came amid a troubling spike in violence against the Asian American community during the coronavirus pandemic. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

The report paid special attention to the systematic racial discrimination suffered by ethnic minority groups.

People of color made up about one-third of all minors under the age of 18 in the United States, but two-thirds of all of the country’s imprisoned minors. African Americans are three times as likely as whites to be infected with the coronavirus, twice as likely to die from COVID-19, and three times as likely to be killed by the police, it read.

The protests triggered by the death of George Floyd, an African American, highlighted not only the issue of police brutality against people of color, but also inequality and racial discrimination in health, education, and employment in the United States, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet was quoted by the report as saying.

The report noted that since the pandemic began, incidents of Asian Americans being humiliated and even assaulted in public have been found everywhere, and some American politicians have purposely misled the public over the issue.

Chang added that there have been nearly 4,000 incidents of anti-Asian racism in the last year, and nearly a third of Asian Americans say they’ve been subject to racial discrimination since the pandemic began.

“In the US, racism exists in a comprehensive, systematic and continuous manner, covering a wide variety of areas such as employment, education and law enforcement,” said Chang, noting that some US politicians associated the COVID-19 with a specific country or country with ulterior motives, which was tantamount to humiliating modern human rights concepts.

Social unrest

People take part in a rally held in downtown San Francisco urging the federal government and lawmakers in Congress to take action to control gun-related crimes. (Photo by Li Jianguo/Xinhua)

The report also touched upon shooting incidents and the gun industry, saying more than 41,500 people were killed in shooting incidents across the United States over the year, an average of more than 110 a day, and there were 592 mass shootings nationwide, an average of more than 1.6 a day.

With regard to gun homicides, the United States has historically reported a rate about 25 times higher than other wealthy nations, it said.

Americans bought 23 million guns in 2020 against the background of an out-of-control epidemic, accompanied by racial justice protests and election-related conflicts, a surge of 64 percent compared with 2019.

“It’s puzzling that the US government kept making irresponsible remarks on the human rights situation in other countries, while turning a blind eye to the fact that tens of thousands of its own citizens are killed by gunfire every year,” said Li Yunlong.

“Freedom from want and fear, a vision that former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt articulated 80 years ago, has been challenged like never before. It’s fair to say that Americans are living in a state of panic and fear,” said Li Xiaojun, an official with the State Council Information Office.

On June 17, 2020, the 43rd session of the UN Human Rights Council held an urgent debate on racism. This was the first time in the history of the Human Rights Council that an urgent meeting on the human rights issues of the United States was held, the report read.

The report from China “is not meant to interfere in another country's internal affairs, but to faithfully reveal the true human rights situation in the US,” said Chang.

Echoing Chang, Li Xiaojun noted that China welcomes fact-based constructive criticism from others, rather than attacks on its human rights situation using trumped up accusations based on lies, distortions and ideological bias, as the United States has done in its annual report.