US criticism reveals Cold War mentality: signed article

Home>>Opinion

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, March 31, 2004

US criticism reveals Cold War mentality: signed article

DISCUSSION

CHINESE

SEND TO FRIEND

It is totally out of a Cold War mentality that the US government has opposed China in the field of human rights in order to distort China's image, undermine its stability and hinder its development, a Chinese human rights expert said Wednesday.

China has made major progress in human rights over the last year, said Dong Yunhu, vice chairman and secretary-general of the China Society for Human Rights Studies, in a signed article Wednesday, following Tuesday's issuance of a government white paper entitled "Progress in China's Human Rights Cause in 2003."

The article says that the white paper lists the efforts and achievements made by the Chinese government in the human rights field over the past year, and it serves as a powerful refutation and counterattack against the US government's accusation of "China's setback in human rights."

Over the past year, one of the major changes in China's human rights situation is that China amended its Constitution by enshrining "the state respects and protects human rights," which the article describes as "a milestone for China in the field of human rights."

China also issued 10 laws and regulations, including the administrative permit law and a regulation for assisting urban vagrants and beggars with no means of livelihood, which reflect the fundamental principles concerning respect for and protection of human rights.

In the meantime, there was a major change in the ideology of the government regarding its ruling and governance of the country, the article says.

The government has developed a scientific concept of development that puts people first and calls for an overall development of society and the people. The measures to carry out the concept have played a big role in improving China's human rights situation as a whole.

The material and cultural life of the Chinese people has also improved over the past year thanks to the government's intensified efforts to promote economic and social development, as well as cultural undertakings, the article says.

The government has also taken major measures to fight against SARS and bird flu.

On March 25, the United Nations published a report entitled "Millennium Development Goals: China's Progress," which admits China has made "enormous progress" in the efforts to achieve its millennium development goals.

In addition, China's efforts in improving the legal system and political civilization in an orderly way also resulted in further protection of the people's civil rights and political rights.

China has also actively participated in UN activities on the human rights issue and strengthened cooperation with the international community in this field.

The facts show that instead of the "setbacks" as the United States claimed, China has made great progress in the key fields of human rights over the past year, which everybody without any political prejudice will recognize, the article says.

It admits that China's human rights situation is by no means a perfect one. China is a developing country that has the biggest population and a relatively weak economic base, with the development level varying from region to region. Although the Chinese government has exerted great efforts to promote and protect human rights, there still exist a lot of problems concerning human rights, due to natural and historic factors as well as the stage of development.

What is important is that the Chinese government has paid great attention to these problems and is constantly improving its human rights situation through legislative, judicial, administrative andpolicy measures.

Noting that no country in the world can say its human rights situation is perfect, the article points out the US accusation of China's "setbacks" in the field of human rights is out of "ulterior motives."

The US government has ignored China's continuous progress in the field of human rights as a whole and is indulged in searching for "specific cases" and even fabricating "facts" in a bid to prove China's "setbacks" and to table an anti-China motion in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

"Obviously, it is irresponsible and unfair," says the articles. "It shows that the United States is not really concerned about human rights in China, but has ulterior motives."

In the China part of the US State Council's 2003 country reports on human rights practices, the United States attacks Chinafor its "poor records" and "setbacks" in human rights, mainly because China is "an authoritarian state in which, as directed by the Constitution, the Chinese Communist Party is the paramount sources of power," and in China "authorities were quick to suppress religious, political, and social groups that they perceived as threatening to government authority or national stability."

The article points out that no country in the world allows criminal activities aiming at subverting a lawful government, undermining national stability, and threatening national security,and these kinds of activities will be punished according to law in any country.

The China part of the US 2003 country report on human rights practices, dozens of pages in length, is focused on whether a small handful of criminals have the "right" to overthrow the lawful Chinese government and the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and to change the current political system in China. This has been taken as the "key fields of human rights" to assess the human rights situation in China.

Under the logic of the US government, as long as China remains a socialist country under the leadership of the CPC, as long as China denies the "right" of a small handful of criminals to threaten state security and undermine national stability, the US administration's assessment will inevitably be that China's human rights situation "remained poor," and sustained "setbacks," regardless of the efforts and progress China has made in promoting and protecting human rights, the article says.

"It is because of its ideological prejudice and political demand for practicing hegemony, the United States is unwilling to see the steady development of a socialist China and the rise of a China that advocates for peace and development," says the article, adding that this is the main reason the United States has tried every means to make unwarranted charges against China's human rights situation.

The article ridicules the United States for its silence over its own human rights records in the its country reports on human rights practices, which find fault with more than 190 countries in the world.

The Untied States simply has no qualifications to act as the "world judge on human rights" as it has a lot of problems to deal with in the field of human rights, says the article.

The human rights record of the United States is far from compliant to its level of economic development and its status as a superpower in the world, and is strongly sarcastic of its status as a self-claimed "human rights power," the article says.

Ironically, it says, the US Declaration of Independence is the world's first declaration on human rights and has profound and far-reaching impacts on the world, but the American revolutionary ideal has been mainly used for exporting, and the American people know little about it.

In the early 1990s, when surveyors spread sentences of the Declaration of Independence to some people in a big US city, 90 percent of the interviewees got angry and accused them of attempting to spread communism.

According to the article, the dispute over human rights between China and the United States was provoked by the US side in the early 1990s, and it has continued for a dozen years.

China's white paper on human rights aims to promote human rights in the country and international exchanges, while the US country reports on human rights practices serve as a tool to promote American hegemony and power politics in the field of human rights, and as a means to defame other countries and interfere in their internal affairs, the article says.

Between 1990 and 2003, the US government tabled an anti-China motion at UN Commission on Human Rights almost every year, except for four years. But all the motions failed because of opposition from the majority of member countries. The United States will face another failure if it does it again at this year's UN Commission on Human Rights.

The article urges the US government to stop creating confrontation with China, using the human rights issue, and return to the right road of dialog and cooperation on an equal footing.

It also calls on the United States to do more to improve its own human rights situation and make contribution to China-US relations and the healthy development of the international human rights cause.

Questions?Comments? Click here

China issues white paper on human rights progress

Human rights progress verifies "people first" principle

China doesn't fear US anti-China motion on human rights

Israel's killing of Yassin fuels conflict: Commentary ( 2 Messages)

How the US could improve its image abroad ( 14 Messages)

US urged not to fingerprint Chinese ( 10 Messages)

China hunts corrupt officials who abscond overseas ( 3 Messages)

Seven Chinese activists land on Diaoyu Islands ( 4 Messages)