US Human Rights Report Distorts Truth

The United States recently published its 2013 “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.” Among the many countries and regions in the report, China and Hong Kong were criticized on human rights and leveled with unwarranted charges based on willfully misrepresented facts. The State Council of the People’s Republic of China promptly released its “Human Rights Record of the United States in 2013” in order to set the record straight and strike back against these accusations.

The truth is that America’s own human rights problems are dreadful. First, dozens of shootings occurred last year, killing 137 people. Second, the U.S. government has implemented the PRISM program for many years, conducting illegal domestic and international surveillance that violates human rights. Third, domestic racial discrimination has led to the arbitrary arrests and shootings of African-Americans, and currently 38 percent of the prison population is black. Fourth, youth unemployment has reached 21 percent while the homeless rate has increased to 16 percent. Fifth, the U.S. has violated the human rights of other countries. Ten years in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in millions of deaths and tens of millions of displaced peoples, while drones have killed 926 people in Pakistan. Sixth, the U.S. has still not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights or the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women and other international agreements. What qualifications does the U.S. have to regard itself as an instructor on human rights and make thoughtless remarks on China’s human rights situation? To put it bluntly, the U.S. uses “human rights” and “democracy” as an excuse to export American-style human rights, infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations, and interfere with their internal affairs.

What is even more intolerable is that the U.S. has used its human rights report to level false charges against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, one of the freest regions in the world, including the following:

– The Hong Kong police* [government] “took a more restrictive view of protests when protests occurred at the Central Government Liaison Office,” questioning if police “acted under instructions from the mainland government.”

– Politically, there is only a “limited ability of citizens to participate in and change their government.”

– Freedom of speech is threatened, and so on.

What the U.S. has quoted is [actually] all the babbling nonsense of the protesters among Hong Kong’s “human rights organizations,” and blatantly interferes with Hong Kong’s affairs. These fallacies bear refuting.

Most people know that the Hong Kong SAR is an inseparable part of the People’s Republic of China; the elections of the chief executive and Legislative Council of the Hong Kong SAR, authorized by the Chinese National People’s Congress and its standing committee, and stipulated by the Basic Law on how elections are conducted, are completely China’s internal affair. When the Hong Kong SAR enjoyed over 150 years of British colonial governance, it never had a democratic election – this is an unshakable fact. But Stephen Young, a member of the opposition in the United States, with Clifford Hart’s encouragement and using “international standards” as a pretense, concocted plans for illegal and unconstitutional civil and party nominations, which would replace the Basic Law provision of a broad representative nominating committee, in accordance with democratic procedures to nominate candidates for the chief executive in 2017. Its motive is for Alliance of True Democracy representatives to seize governing authority of Hong Kong, for the purpose of acting as Anglo-American agents to transform Hong Kong into an independent political entity and a bastion of anti-China sentiment.

The Double Standards of the US Human Rights Report

Second, America’s slander on the “self-censorship” of Hong Kong media is completely false. Everyone knows that Radio Television Hong Kong has long been under the control of certain anti-China individuals. Using “editorial independence” as a pretense, it has continuously accused the Chinese government and the Hong Kong SAR government during the 16 years since re-unification with China, and it is even more unrestrained than Voice of America. One newspaper guides Hong Kong’s anti-China party daily, inciting popular uprisings and the Jasmine Revolution. Is this “self-censorship?” The “2009 U.S. Human Rights Record,” the State Council Information Office’s response to the U.S. human rights report [of that year], reveals every year 1 million pedestrians in New York City are stopped, questioned and frisked by the police. The National Security Agency can intercept and monitor citizens’ telecommunications, emails, phone calls, personal blogs, official documents, and personal contact information. The Pentagon even plants retired military officers in every major American media outlet as commentators in order to provide “positive evaluations” of the Iraq war.

Third, U.S. embassies are heavily guarded. The Central Government Liaison Office serves as the mainland government’s agency in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong police are duty-bound to guard it. The statement by the U.S. that they “acted under instructions from the mainland government” makes clear it’s schadenfreude, and its hidden intentions are known by everyone.

The U.S. human rights record has always had a double standard. Using “human rights” to interfere with elections and freedom of the press in the Hong Kong SAR further exemplifies the cruelty and lack of reason of the United States. On the other hand, it uncovers the shameful veil of the opposition faction in Hong Kong that collaborated to sell out its own country.

*Editor’s note: In this instance, the original U.S. government report states that activist groups operating on Hong Kong expressed concern that the Hong Kong government, rather than the police, took a “more restrictive view.”