On Monday, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a "Democracy Situation" report criticizing the United States, boasting that the Chinese Communist Party has always pursued the values of democracy, freedom and human rights. Some scholars pointed out that this move highlights that the Chinese authorities are trying to wage a propaganda war against the United States with a Cold War mentality.
On March 20, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a report titled "The Situation of American Democracy in 2022," criticizing the "intensifying decline" of American democracy. The release date of the report coincides with the day before the release of the 2022 Human Rights Report by the US State Department. It is no coincidence that public opinion questioned China's actions.
China's latest report criticizes US democracy for propaganda war?
In the report, which is more than 10,000 words long, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs used two chapters to try to emphasize that the United States "continues to fall into a vicious cycle of democratic distortion, political dysfunction, and social disharmony" and criticized the United States for its "money politics, identity politics, Problems such as social disintegration and polarization between rich and poor have become more serious." The report also cited polls, US think tank reports, and expert analysis in many places, accusing the US of growing differences between the two parties out of their own interests and lacking the determination and courage to reform.
Regarding the content of the above-mentioned report released by China, Erin Barclay, Assistant Secretary of State of the U.S. State Department, responded to this reporter’s question: “We always welcome criticism of our country’s human rights situation, as long as it is credible, fact-based and objective. …We will not hide our problems, we are ready to expose them."
Xia Ming, a professor of political science at the City University of New York, said in an interview with this station that the latest report released by China shows that China is trying to use the Cold War mentality to wage a propaganda war against the United States.
Xia Ming said: "All the problems that China criticizes the United States in the report, more or less exist. The problem is that we can see all the problems of the United States in the American media, and the content of the US report on human rights in China can be found in China's Is it published in the media?"
The above-mentioned report of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs also accused the United States of fraud in the 2022 mid-term elections, and even "more than 90% of the candidates for the Senate and House of Representatives won the election by spending money, and the actual total amount of 'black money' with unknown sources of funds is difficult to estimate." Freedom of speech has no name," and claimed that the U.S. government uses social media to manipulate public opinion.
Teng Biao, a human rights lawyer based in the United States, told this station that China's accusations of democracy in the United States are totally untenable. He said: "There is no institution in the United States deliberately hiding these things, and there is no public power to deliberately suppress the disclosure of the truth. China is a one-party system that deprives the people of the right to vote, freedom of speech, and freedom of belief."
Xia Ming also pointed out that the Chinese government wantonly suppresses civil society and deprives the people of their basic rights to speak out and discuss, but it is ridiculous to attack the United States for its "freedom of speech in name only".
The CCP "consistently pursues freedom, democracy, and human rights"?
The report boasted that freedom, democracy, and human rights are the common pursuit of mankind, and they are also the values that the Chinese Communist Party has always pursued. "China upholds and develops people's democracy in the whole process, and embodies the people's mastery of the country concretely and realistically in the governance of the Communist Party of China."
Teng Biao pointed out that the purpose of China's above-mentioned report is obviously to attack the legitimacy of the United States' release of the "Reports on Human Rights in Various Countries", to promote the CCP's values through "comparisons", and to try to redefine the concepts of freedom and democracy.
It is not uncommon for China to use the release of official reports to compete with the United States in propaganda. Last month, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs also released a report titled "U.S. Hegemony, Hegemony, Bullying and Harms." Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China, also pointed out on Twitter that China's release of the U.S.-related report is crude propaganda and loses its demeanor as a major country.