
China publishes a human rights record of the USA - bad_alloc
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2012-05/26/content_15392452.htm
======
mindstab
Maybe we should think of this more as a supplement to the existing US
published on on hundreds of other countries while omitting themselves.

Of course it's a bit hypocritical but a) that's sort of the point, where does
the US get off writing these reports either all considered and b) so what? Why
are we saying it is hypocritical? It mostly reads as a collection of facts and
statistics. We are annoyed because in this collection they read a bit like a
condemnation from someone we also view guilty of most of these...
transgressions? However the underlying data shouldn't be dismissed just
because we don't like the publisher, that's terribly unscientific. And if we
insist upon this, where is the uproar when the US publishes its reports?

Ignore the hypocrisy, it's a BS smoke screen to try and dismiss the facts and
stats. And yes, they don't paint the greatest picture. But maybe that should
be looked into instead of just being ignored because we don't like it.
Hypocrisy of the publisher has _nothing_ to do with the validity and accuracy
of the message.

The hypocrisy argument can go round and round without accomplishing anything
more than saying no one can talk about anything. It is unproductive so let's
abandon it and actually talk about what some of this article is shedding some
light on. Are we happy about that? If not, what can we take away from it and
what can we do?

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mebassett
Not to defend China on human rights here, but to those accusing China of
hypocrisy: China does this to point out the hypocrisy of the US - who is too
happy to accuse others of human rights abuses while running turning a blind
eye to its own problems (for some modern examples, see the latest NDAA or the
patriot act). The economist actually had blog about this just recently:
[http://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2012/05/americas-
exa...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2012/05/americas-example)

I don't think anyone in Chinese government expects the world to take them
seriously on human rights. They're just trying to deflect criticism.

~~~
guscost
I've heard the meme, but it surely doesn't justify any more of this crap...

~~~
amurmann
Can you explain why you think this is crap? Don't you think it's important
that attnion is brought to every human rights violation everywhere?

------
olalonde
On a related note, there has been a growing anti-foreigner sentiment in China
in the past few weeks following a widely mediatised sexual assault on a
Chinese girl by a British man. Just last week, me and a friend were drinking
calmly at a bar when suddenly, two Chinese men smashed bottles of beer on our
head. We were the only foreigners in the place and we have no idea what could
have motivated this act apart from our presence there. I strongly hope this
was an isolated incident and had little to do with the recent anti-foreigner
propaganda. Some references:

[http://www.dailydot.com/society/anti-foreign-sentiment-
china...](http://www.dailydot.com/society/anti-foreign-sentiment-china-sina-
weibo/)

[http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2012/05/15/beijing-
pledge...](http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2012/05/15/beijing-pledges-to-
clean-out-illegal-foreigners/)

------
modeless
There is a serious lack of comparison to any other countries in this report.
Just spouting statistics like "The violent victimization rate was 15
victimizations per 1,000 residents" is worse than useless.

That said, they raise many good points and we should be ashamed of our
incarceration rate and out-of-control "national security" apparatus in
particular. Of course they are in no position to scold us on most of these
points, but that doesn't make their criticisms necessarily wrong.

~~~
jefe78
I don't think that was their intention. I believe their goal was something
along the lines of, "You can point out our flaws all you want, but you've got
problems too." type of thing. Although, I think it was primarily just a
propaganda piece for local citizens. None of this is to say that fingers
shouldn't be pointed. Everyone has flaws, it's a question of whether those
flaws are being addressed and worked on. I think I know which country of the
two is making a genuine effort...

~~~
antidoh
My impression, from living here all my life, is that very little is being
actively done by our government to improve human rights in the US, and very
much time, effort and money is being spent on reducing human rights. Three
example areas are the War on Drugs, the War on Terrorism, and the War on
Intellectual Property Consumers.

~~~
philwelch
The government can't really do that much to improve human rights, but they can
do a lot to curtail them. The funny thing is that, while there are a lot of
problems I'll get into later, the US is one of the best countries in the world
when it comes to your rights against the local policeman. You have every legal
right to say nothing to them other than maybe presenting your identification,
you have every legal right to deny them a search unless they have a warrant,
and once you're in custody, you have every legal right to shut your mouth and
say nothing, and they aren't even allowed to beat you up. Any evidence that is
gathered in violation of a person's civil rights is thrown out in court. Add
in the freedom to express any political viewpoint whatsoever without worrying
about violating some vague "hate crimes" laws and the constitutional right to
own firearms, and we're at a point that most European countries would say is
outright excessive in terms of personal freedom.

As I mentioned though, I don't want to whitewash the US record. Police abuses
do happen far too often, the TSA is an obnoxious joke, and asset forfeiture is
a very problematic principle. The FBI, CIA, and NSA can in theory do nasty
things to you, but they can do nasty things to you whether or not you're
American. Plus, once you've gone _through_ the due process, the prisons are
pretty fucking awful and you have to stay there for an excessive period of
time. And we have a death penalty. And the drug laws are a joke.

~~~
antidoh
"The government can't really do that much to improve human rights, but they
can do a lot to curtail them."

I agree with this general idea, but there is one very effective thing the govt
can do to improve human rights, and that is to not curtail them.

Rolling back human rights reduction would be an unexpected bonus, but I'd be
happy if they just stopped painting us into a smaller corner.

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jefe78
While I - as a Canadian - am not a HUGE fan of America(nothing personal, just
spoiled in the great North), I find it more than a little hypocritical for
China to be pointing the finger at anyone for these types of things. Which
isn't to say that fingers shouldn't be pointed. But maybe countries should
start pointing them at themselves first? Look inwards and fix your own
problems.

~~~
gcb
And thieves should just turn themselves in.

...Canadians

(but yes, conceptually you're right)

~~~
jefe78
Realistically, they won't. But ideally, they should. Wouldn't that be a lovely
world? Damn Canadians and their happy thoughts... :)

------
philwelch
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes>

------
GlennS
I always find it interesting when the Chinese government does this sort of
thing, because it reveals something of their mindset.

In particular, they include two quite different things in their list:

1\. Human rights abuse by the government

2\. Violence by criminals that the government fails to prevent

So the Chinese government is accusing the US of being neglectful towards law
and order, and claiming that its of equivalent severity to inflicting human
rights abuses upon them.

I wonder how much they believe that, and how much is just maintaining face?

~~~
mjwalshe
and Amnesty International and the UN in general does not include ordinary
criminals as human rights voilations.

------
rickyconnolly
Say what you want about America, but anti-government activists are not kept
under house arrest. China does not have the moral high-ground to use this kind
of ploy.

~~~
antris
Bradley Manning.

~~~
philwelch
Violated laws against espionage and is being given due process. If you're
going to say Bradley Manning you might as well say Julius Rosenberg or
Jonathan Pollard.

~~~
antris
Using laws against espionage to convict Manning assumes that he is a spy
without any evidence. The evidence is actually quite the contrary: spies do
not release information to the public, they give it to the enemy in secret.

His isolation is also overkill. There are more humane ways to make sure that
he does not escape the judicial process. But this isn't about what's right;
this is about finding ways to punish him without due process.

~~~
philwelch
> The evidence is actually quite the contrary: spies do not release
> information to the public, they give it to the enemy in secret.

I trust you've read the charges against Bradley Manning and can cite where the
UCMJ or the US Code sections listed say that releasing classified information
to the public does not constitute espionage or is otherwise not an offense?

Anyway, yes, innocent until proven guilty. Nonetheless, there's little dispute
about the facts of the case. And there's no indication that his treatment in
any way exceeds or violates the regulations around the ordinary treatment of
the accused. Unless you think it's unusual for accused spies to be held in
maximum security?

~~~
antris
>I trust you've read the charges against Bradley Manning and can cite where
the UCMJ or the US Code sections listed say that releasing classified
information to the public does not constitute espionage or is otherwise not an
offense?

Manning was charged under the Espionage Act of 1917. Manning clearly isn't a
spy, so he shouldn't be charged based on those laws. Non-espionage activity
shouldn't be judged based on espionage laws.

The military law is constructed to be purposefully vague (see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_article_(military_law)>). Anyone can be
charged based on anything, so appealing to the technicality that Manning's
case is not explicitly excluded does not matter. Disobeying in general is
already illegal.

------
makhanko
China Daily has lighyears of learning to do to produce better PR (propaganda)
pieces, at least in English. They will never catch up with US. But they should
consider doing what Russians did - hiring bunch of Englishmen to do the spin,
like on Russian Television (rt.com) for example. Everyone knows that English
accent make anything sound more convincing.

------
tokenadult
I'll take China's criticism of human rights in the United States as something
other than the "tu quoque" fallacy

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque>

the day that China has a free and fair national election for the national
leadership, covered by an uncensored independent press. In 1989,

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/03/tiananmen-square-
an...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/03/tiananmen-square-anniversary-
political-dissidents_n_870954.html)

it looked like China was close to achieving that kind of political reform, and
if it had, the world today would be a much better place. Until the reformers
in China finish their difficult task of overcoming a repressive regime, the
press in the United States will continue to report criticisms of the United
States from all comers, and the net flow of immigration with respect to almost
all other countries in the world will continue to be into rather than out of
the United States.

------
rbanffy
44 points?!

I get the US is not perfect, but this propaganda piece would make a lot of my
friends in advertising and marketing pale.

~~~
zxcvb
I would downvote this if I could. I have no idea what your reference to 44
points means. Is that good? Is that bad? Why do I need to know?

~~~
rbanffy
It was the total upvotes the article had when I wrote my comment. I found that
rather surprising.

~~~
zxcvb
I know what the number is ffs.. I just have no context. You were surprised at
the votes... Why? You just showed surprise without any explanation.

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Cieplak
[http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/u8l5f/chinas_year...](http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/u8l5f/chinas_yearly_report_on_us_human_rights_record/)

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m3rv
No difference. USA, China - the same tyranny.

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dublinclontarf
didn't they do this last year, after the US released a report...on itself?

So is this an annual thing now?

------
cfv
Pot, meet kettle?

------
wissler
To everyone shouting "hypocrisy": the primary focus should be on on real
problems in the US that need to be fixed, not on China's hypocrisy. Criticism
should be taken seriously on account of its merit, not on whether the one
giving it is perfect.

Think about what the policy of not taking criticism seriously when the
criticizer is hypocritical would lead to. How many people do you know who are
absolutely perfect and completely unhypocritical? Most would say no one, but
nearly everyone is going to agree that a perfectly unhypocritical person is at
least very rare. So if you won't accept criticism except from perfect people,
then that's tantamount to not accepting criticism at all. And is that a good
policy? No.

------
Karunamon
Something something heal thyself.

