China condemns US human rights reports

The United States' annual human rights reports and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's accusations made against the Chinese government are "full of political lies and ideological bias", Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Wednesday.

The US attacked China's political system and human rights situation in the "2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices" issued on Tuesday. At a news conference on the same day, Blinken attacked the Chinese government over issues related to the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Tibet autonomous region.

China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to the reports and Blinken's claims, which "disregard facts and confuse right with wrong", Zhao said.

The Chinese people have their own conclusion about China's human rights situation, and the Chinese government's ability to govern is there for all members of the international community to see, Zhao told a daily news briefing.

"None of this can be slandered by a few words or a report issued by some people in the US," the spokesman said.

The US has shown its "hypocrisy and double standards" by issuing the reports year after year to defame China and trying to label itself as the "human rights judge", Zhao said, adding that the US "owes human rights debts both at home and abroad".

The US has the most advanced medical equipment and technology in the world, but has the largest number of COVID-19 infections and deaths, Zhao said.

"Instead of seeking ways to tackle the pandemic, the US government resorted to political manipulation, claimed that the COVID virus had leaked from laboratories, and allowed the 'virus'of racism to spread, resulting in the frequent occurrence of hate crimes against Asian American people," Zhao said.

He also criticized the US' "discriminatory migration policies "which "seriously squeezed the living space of Hispanic, Asian and African immigrants", as well as the separation of children from their parents, and issues related to torture and forced labor.

The US government has exercised hegemony overseas under the pretext of human rights, Zhao said, adding that it has created waves of refugees and migrants through waging subversive activities and war.

Extending his sympathies to people hurt in a shooting in Brooklyn, New York City, on Tuesday, Zhao said he hopes such tragedies will never happen again.

Gun violence has become a serious human rights issue in the US, and its government should make more concrete efforts to improve the country's human rights situation, instead of "pointing fingers" at other countries, Zhao said.