China Responds To U.S. Report On Human Rights Abuses With Counter Accusations

February 27, 2009 8:49 a.m. EST

Beijing, China (AHN) - Despite U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's decision not to make an issue of China's human right abuses on her recent trip there, the agency's annual report saying China's record had worsened has drawn ire from China and it fired back with its own report alleging U.S. human right's abuses.

It is an annual exchange of accusations and this year began with China saying the U.S. should mind its own business.

China also issued a 9,000-word report saying that violent crime in the U.S. is a threat to people's lives, property and personal security. It also says that America fails to properly protect the economic, social and cultural rights of its people and that many young people have "have personality disorders."

The U.S. has alleged that dissidents in China are not free to criticize their government and that China harasses dissidents and has increased its repression of ethnic minorities.

China's state media, Xinhua, ran an editorial saying the U.S. had interfered in Chinese affairs by criticizing China in its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices presented to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday. And that the U.S. had turned a blind eye to the progress China had made.

The editorial concluded by saying that the U.S. had published a report on human rights conditions in countries around the world since 1977 "using it as an excuse to interfere with others' internal affairs."

And the words in that editorial were pretty much in step with the tone of the report.

"The U.S. practice of throwing stones at others while living in a glass house is testimony to the double standards and hypocrisy of the United States in dealing with human rights issues," says the report.