Beijing blasts US human rights report as 'double standard'

Beijing slammed the US State Department's 2013 report on human rights practices on Friday, describing it as an example of "a typical double standard" and voicing strong opposition to what it said was interference in China's domestic affairs.

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang said the United States likes to point fingers at other countries and carp about human rights but it remains mute on its own human rights problems.

He said the Chinese people alone have the ultimate say on human rights in their own country.

Qin added that China is open to dialogue on human rights, assuming it takes place in a climate of mutual respect and equal standing. But it is firmly opposed to interference in its domestic affairs in the name of human rights.

The comments came after US Secretary of State John Kerry submitted the 2013 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices to Congress on Thursday.

China published its own report on Friday, assessing the human rights situation in the US. It cited numerous problems, ranging from rampant gun violence to the National Security Agency's PRISM espionage program that sparked international outrage when it came to light last year.

China's report on the US - titled The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2013 - which was released by the State Council Information Office, said problems in the US in 2013 remained "severe", and there had even been deterioration in certain areas over time.

"Once again posing as 'the world judge of human rights'", the US government "made arbitrary attacks and irresponsible remarks on the human rights situation in almost 200 countries and regions", while hiding its own human rights abuses from the world, the report said.

It listed six categories of human rights infringements, including rampant violence - especially gun violence, racial and sex discrimination and increased overseas surveillance projects targeting other countries.

The Chinese report calls the extensive US tapping program at home and abroad, code-named PRISM, "a blatant violation of international law" that "seriously infringes on human rights".

The program, first revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, gave "large amounts of citizens' private information to the government", the report said.

The report cited the FBI's 2013 Uniform Crime Reports, which said firearms were used in 69.3 percent of the nation's murders, 41 percent of robberies and 21.8 percent of aggravated assaults.

Meanwhile, gender discrimination is still serious, as the salary gap between men and women continues to be unresolved in the US, the report said. Women made about 81 percent of the median earnings of male full-time wage and salary workers on average in 2012, according to figures released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The average annual income of women was $11,500 less than that of men, while African-American women were paid 69 cents for every dollar paid to men, and Latin American women were paid just 58 cents, according to data from the US Census Bureau's annual survey.

The report also said that the frequent use of drones by the US army during military attacks in Pakistan and Yemen resulted in heavy civilian casualties. More than 926 civilians in Pakistan have died in the drone strikes launched by the US since 2004, the report said.

Yuan Zheng, a researcher of US politics and diplomacy at the Institute of American Studies in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the State Department's report showed that the US is still judging other countries by its own standards.

"It ignored the differences in political and value systems and cultural traditions in its assessment," he said, adding that it is unreasonable to impose the same standard for human rights on developed countries and developing ones.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

xuwei@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/01/2014 page7)