Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday rejected the annual human rights report released by the US Department of State, saying that the document reveals the "hypocrisy and double standards" of the Americans.
"The content related to China in the so-called Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and relevant remarks by Secretary Antony Blinken misrepresent facts, confuse wrong with right, and are rife with political lies and ideological bias. China deplores and firmly opposes it," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said during a press briefing, Xinhua reported.
Zhao said the Chinese people can judge China's human rights situation better than others, and the international community has long come to a conclusion about China's governance. Such facts cannot possibly be denied by a report or the remarks of certain people.
"The U.S. government slanders and denigrates China and attacks other places in the world by releasing this report every year, attempting to style itself as a human rights judge and role model. This only serves to reveal its hypocrisy and double standards," Zhao further said.
The US annual report on human rights practices in China had alleged that "genocide and crimes against humanity occurred during the year against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang," while also saying that, "government officials and the security services often committed human rights abuses with impunity."
Xinjiang is the largest province in China with a population of 25 million people from various ethnic groups, but about 43 per cent of them are Uyghurs.
UN experts report states that up to 1 million ethnic Uyghurs could be in so-called "re-education camps" in Xinjiang whose existence is denied by the Chinese authorities.
"Externally, human rights protection is a pretence the U.S. government uses to cover up its agenda of seeking hegemony," Zhao said, noting that in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria alone, more than 20 million people have become refugees and migrants as a result of subversion and wars launched by the U.S.
"The U.S. should immediately cease making irresponsible remarks, attacking and slandering other countries' human rights situations. Instead, it needs to reflect on itself, mend its ways, and work earnestly to improve its own human rights situation and promote the international human rights cause," Zhao said.
