Time to pay attention to human rights in USA
Posted on March 13th, 2020
Source:Global Times Published: 2020/3/12
Chen Xu, China’s permanent representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva, speaks during the opening ceremony of the photo exhibition “Home: Glimpse of People from Various Ethnic Groups in Xinjiang” in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 2. More than 100 pictures and videos presenting a beautiful, open, and richly-endowed Xinjiang were on display Monday here inside the Palais Des Nations during the 43rd regular session of the UN Human Rights Council. The exhibition has three divisions with respective themes of peace and stability, cultural prosperity, and religious harmony. Photo: Xinhua
The 2019 Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices, issued by the US Department of State on Wednesday, is like a veil
that conceals the US’ own human rights wrongdoings. The report listed some
so-called human rights violations and lambasted the Xinjiang policy of the
Chinese government.
At the press conference on the report, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
singled out China, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba as among the worst violators. By
using clichés, this senior US official behaved like a political scoundrel and
smeared China by calling China’s treatment of Muslims “stain of the
century.”
Like previous reports, this one ignores China’s progress in its human rights
and the improvement of the level of human rights among all ethnicities in
Xinjiang. Based on a fixated anti-China mentality, US politicians cared nothing
about China’s human rights and were ignorant of China’s development. Anyway,
they don’t have to know what is taking place in China. They have viewed China
as a strategic competitor and an ideological rival. What they need is an
all-around containment of China.
The novel coronavirus outbreak has spread worldwide and has been declared by
the WHO as a pandemic. The outbreak concerns life and survival. The most urgent
task right now is how to enhance the ability to fight the pandemic through
multilateral cooperation, but the US State Department spares no time
criticizing other countries’ human rights. This explains why the US government
has been widely criticized for its slow response to the outbreak.
Today’s US politics is trapped in the fierce political battle between the
Republican and Democratic parties, and is kidnapped by far-right ideology,
conservatism and nationalism. The US’ China policy is being exploited by some
ideological extremists, becoming the victim of the ongoing fights in its
political arena. After the outbreak of the current epidemic, China had once
again been turned into a scapegoat of US domestic problems. Against this
backdrop, the human rights report has lost its significance over human rights
issue, but has become a bullet toward the US’ strategic competitor.
There is no universal path of human rights development, not to mention the
so-called perfect human rights. Every country has the right to find its own way
of improving its human rights. The development of human rights worldwide should
not be dominated by the US.
The US is in no position to judge other countries’ human rights, and only
ordinary people in each country have a say. The most important part about human
rights is whether people are living in a peaceful, stable society and whether
they are entitled to the basic rights of pursuing a happy life. Yet, such human
rights can hardly be found in a country where people resort to guns for
protecting themselves, where people have to check their own bank account to see
if they can afford the treatment if being infected by the novel coronavirus.
One can never wake up a person pretending to be asleep.
The newly issued report is filled with diplomatic and political antagonism. It
violates the concept of human rights advocated by the UN Human Rights Council.
Its only value is to remind people that it is time to pay some attention to the
human rights situation in the US.
Thanks to the joint efforts of the government and the people, China’s economic
development and human rights conditions are embracing their best period in
history. Chinese people have the final say and the international community is
the witness. The best option to improve China’s human rights is to bring the
current governance advantages into full play regardless of the interference
from a conceited and lying Pompeo and his followers.
Courtesy: Global Times