China rejects US rights report as interference

BEIJING – China on Thursday blasted a U.S. State Department report criticizing its human rights record, calling the claims groundless and accusing Washington of interfering in its internal affairs.

The report issued in Washington on Wednesday accuses China of stepping up cultural and religious repression of minorities in Tibet and elsewhere and increasing the detention and harassment of dissidents.

It said authorities continued to limit citizens' right to privacy, freedom of speech, assembly, movement and association. Authorities also committed extrajudicial killings and torture, coerced confessions from prisoners and used forced labor, the U.S. report said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said China favored a rights dialogue but opposed "any countries interfering in China's internal affairs under the pretext of human rights.
"We urge the U.S. side to reflect on its own human rights problems, stop acting as a human rights guardian, stop interfering in others' internal affairs by issuing such human rights reports," Ma told reporters at a regularly scheduled news conference.

Both Ma and the official Xinhua News Agency said the report ignored China's achievements in human rights, which Beijing defines mainly as improvements to living standards.

"It willfully ignored and distorted basic facts, groundlessly assailing China's human rights conditions and making random and irresponsible remarks on China's ethnic, religious and legal systems," Xinhua said in a report issued early Thursday.

The exchange comes just three days after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton charted a moderate path for relations in her first visit to Beijing in office.

Clinton drew criticism from rights groups and Republican members of Congress by saying on her Asia trip that human rights was just one of several issues that China and the U.S. needed to discuss.

The State Department report covers 2008 and was largely drafted during President George W. Bush's administration, although Clinton signed off on the findings.

After criticizing Clinton's comments last week, rights group Amnesty International praised the report for what it called its "candid review of the worsening human rights situation in China."
It called on the new administration of President Barack Obama to integrate the findings into a "foreign policy that not only acknowledges and denounces, but also takes concrete steps to effectively address the unacceptable state of human rights in its bilateral and multilateral forums with China."

China and the U.S. have carried out a sporadic dialogue on human rights, with the most recent meetings — the first in six years — held in Beijing last year. However, the new administration has yet to appoint a replacement to Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor David Kramer, and it isn't clear when the next round will be held.

Beijing last year carried out a massive crackdown on sometimes violent anti-government protesters in Tibetan areas and reported a nearly doubling of arrests for state security crimes in the volatile Muslim western region of Xinjiang. Authorities rejected requests to stage peaceful protests during the August Beijing Olympics and have harassed and detained intellectuals who signed a call for greater political freedoms titled "Charter '08."

One of the country's best-known human rights activists, Hu Jia, was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison last April.

Activists also tell of a massive security presence in areas of Tibet ahead of the upcoming anniversary of last year's riots and protests, as well as the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. China has sealed the area off to foreigners and journalists.