US human rights reports full of lies, ideological bias: Chinese FM

Look, Uncle Sam is busy cleaning up its own mess on human rights problems. Does the US still think it's the beacon of human rights? Illustration: GT

The US' 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices are "full of lies and ideological bias, and the clichés are repeated year after year and are not even worth refuting," said Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday.

What the world can see from this year's reports are not human rights practices in various countries, but the hegemonic and bullying practices and double standards of the US itself, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Tuesday at a regular press conference, when asked for comments on the reports.

Released on Monday, the reports cover 198 countries and regions. The report on China has 87 pages and contains groundless accusations of so-called genocide and crimes against humanity in China's Xinjiang region, as highlighted in the preface, which encountered strong dissatisfaction from Chinese authorities and experts.

The US has long taken itself as a beacon of human rights and often wantonly criticizes the human rights situation in other countries. But in fact, human rights are just a tool the US uses to unite its allies and partners together to suppress its dissents, Jia Chunyang, an expert at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

The report also listed some so-called human rights violations of Chinese governments in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).

In response, the office of the Commissioner of China's Foreign Ministry in the HKSAR also expressed strong opposition on Tuesday.

The report wantonly smears the situation of human rights and the rule of law in Hong Kong, viciously slander the national security law for Hong Kong and the new electoral system for the city, as well as slander the HKSAR government's law-based governance, the spokesperson of the office said in a statement released on Tuesday.

It is naked intervention in Hong Kong-related affairs and China's domestic issues, the spokesperson said, noting that related contents in the reports are just a patchwork of disinformation.

So-called human rights suppression is just US-style discrimination and an unwarranted charge. The human rights standards that the US forcibly put on others are just its political tools to suppress dissent and seek hegemony, the spokesperson noted.

Washington's so-called human rights reports have been published for nearly 50 years, according to the US Department of State. Countries listed by the US as "unfriendly countries" and competitors are often on the list, while the "friends" of the US have almost never been on it, experts pointed out.

This demonstrates that, for Washington, whether a country has "human rights" and whether it is "democratic" depends on whether it is obedient to the US, and whether it cooperates with the US in geopolitics.

Human rights have become a bargaining chip in trade, aid and diplomatic relations, and the so-called yearly reports have become the US' price list to coerce and extort other countries, and they are also a brochure to demonize and suppress competitors, experts noted.

On the same day the US released the human rights reports, which ironically marked the 20th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, China also released a reportfurther unveiling the decline of American democracy and the chaos it has brought to the world under its disguise.

"It is impolite not to reciprocate. While the US is keen on finding problems for other countries, China's report helps the world recognize the US' real face," Wang said at the Tuesday press conference.

Wang noted that China's report presents a complete and real picture of American democracy over the year - not only revealing American democracy in chaos at home but also presenting the havoc and disaster the US has brought by meddling and imposing its democracy around the world.

The US is going to hold the second Summit for Democracy on March 29 and 30. But these moves cannot hide the fact that the US has weaponized democracy and promoted group politics in order to serve its own hegemony, Wang said.