Hardly a week passes in the United States without some
front-page news story about how horrible the government of China is with
respect to human rights, free speech, labor regulations, the environment,
national minorities or foreign policy. There will of course be no shortage of
contradictions and crimes in a country of 1.3 billion—especially one trying to
overcome centuries of colonialism and underdevelopment. But the U.S. media
makes it appear that every thing that goes wrong there somehow emanates from
the evil Chinese Communist Party. The language used and the arguments expressed
often draw directly from “Yellow Peril” racism, which projects the Chinese as
conniving, immoral and ruthless.
But considering the torrent of articles highlighting each
and every ugly episode that has taken place in China, one human rights report
from early March went virtually unreported: the 8,000-word Chinese report
titled “The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009.” (Read the full text of the report on the China Daily website — opens in new window)
The report was divided into six sections: I. On Life and
Personal Security; II. On Civil and Political Rights; III. On Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights; IV. On Racial Discrimination; V. On the Rights of Women
and Children; and VI. On the violation of Human Rights in other nations.
Police brutality and the prison system
After detailing the high levels of violent crime in U.S.
society, the report noted that U.S. police officers “frequently impose violence
on the people,” brutalizing untold numbers. In the first ten months of 2009,
police killed 45 people due to unrestrained use of taser guns alone. Hundreds
of police officers in the New York Police Department are under supervision for
their history of unrestrained violence while on the job.
Reminding the world of the astronomical and ever-increasing
incarceration rate in the United States—2.3 million, or about one in every 198
persons in the country—China made clear that the basic rights of these
prisoners are “not well-protected.” Over a one-year period, approximately
60,000 rapes have taken place in U.S. prisons, with sexual misconduct by prison
staff members doubling in the past eight years. Inmates with HIV and other
serious conditions are routinely denied adequate access to adequate treatment.
A total of 104 people have died while in custody of the Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agency since October 2003.
Civil rights and civil liberties
In terms of civil rights and liberties, China emphasized
that the “freedom to access and distribute information is under strict
supervision” in the United States. Summarizing the specialized eavesdropping
programs that have been used to wiretap calls, faxes, and emails and collect
domestic communications, China noted that the NSA “announced recently it was
building a huge one million square feet data warehouse at a cost of 1.5 billion
U.S. dollars at Camp Williams in Utah.” Congress has also authorized the
government to wiretap international communications between the United States
and people overseas for anti-terrorism purposes without court approval.
Pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of U.S. propaganda, the
report noted, “The so-called ‘freedom of the press’ of the United States was in
fact completely subordinate to its national interests, and was manipulated by
the U.S. government.” The report recalled the story the New York Times broke
last year revealing that the Pentagon had “recruited a number of former
military officers to become TV and radio news commentators to give ‘positive
comments’ and analysis as ‘military experts’ for the U.S. war in Iraq and
Afghanistan, in order to guide public opinions, glorify the wars, and gain
public support of its anti-terrorism ideology.”
The Chinese report further mentioned the case of Elliot
Madison, 41, who was charged with “hindering apprehension” of G-20 protesters
through his use of Twitter and the Internet. The “same conduct in other
countries would be called human rights violations,” the report stated
accurately, “whereas in the United States it was called necessary crime
control.”
Economic suffering
The report also defined the enormous economic suffering that
U.S. workers are going through—and particularly Black and Latino communities—as
human rights violations. This is the definition of human rights that the U.S.
government can never accept: the idea that social and economic needs should be
considered rights.
As the report mentions, “14.6 percent of all American
families, lacked consistent access to adequate food in 2008, up 31 percent from
the 13 million households, or 11.1 percent of all American families, that
lacked stable and adequate supply of food in 2007, which was the highest since
the government began tracking “food insecurity” in 1995.”
While the U.S. corporate media portrays China as a giant
sweatshop, perhaps they should look in the mirror: “68 percent of the 4,387
low-wage workers in a survey said they had experienced reduction of wages. And
76 percent of those who had worked overtime were not paid accordingly, and 57
percent of those interviewed had not received pay documents to make sure pay
was legal and accurate. Only eight percent of those who suffered serious
injuries on the job filed for compensation. Up to 26 percent of those surveyed
were paid less than the national minimum wage. Among those who complained about
wages or treatment, 43 percent had experienced retaliation or dismissal.”
The report further detailed shocking figures about the
special oppression of young people in U.S. society. There are “16.7 million
children, one fourth of the U.S. total, who did not have enough food in 2008.”
Child labor also continues below the radar, with children accounting for “about
20 percent of all farm fatalities in the United States.”
Institutional racism
In terms of racism, the report covered the persistent
inequalities in wealth and income, as well as incarceration rates, but also
highlighted aspects of racism in the United States that are not frequently
mentioned. For instance, “According to a report issued by the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development, a record 10,552 fair housing discrimination
complaints were filed in fiscal 2008, 35 percent of which were alleged race
discrimination.”
The numbers in education were just as appalling: “from 2003
to 2008, 61 percent of black applicants and 46 percent of Mexican-American
applicants were denied acceptance at all of the law schools to which they
applied, compared with 34 percent of white applicants (The New York Times,
January 7, 2010). African-American children accounted for only 17 percent of
the U.S. public school students, but accounted for 32 percent of the total
number which were expelled from the schools.”
And the list goes on
The report concluded with a summary of the U.S. government’s
extraordinary imperial reach, with its 900 bases worldwide that cause
environmental destruction and frequently become hubs of sexual violence. In
addition, the U.S government has refused to ratify the International Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women even though they signed them
around 30 years ago. Notable, the U.S. government has refused to recognize the
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The U.S. media has mentioned the Chinese report in only a
few places and without any of the details. While they refer to the report’s
“alleged violations,” they fail to mention that the report’s data draws almost
exclusively from articles in the corporate media, U.S. human rights
organizations and academic studies from major U.S. institutions.
While the Chinese report will not stop Washington from using
human rights rhetoric as a political instrument to interfere in other
countries’ internal affairs, it should not go ignored by progressive people
here. Considering the corporate media’s mind-boggling hypocrisy on these
issues, their constant anti-China reports must be exposed for what they are:
racist and imperialist hit pieces, rather than sources of good information.
