Washington's arrogant double standards on human rights

Despite China's repeated and strong objection, the US House of Representatives passed on Tuesday a Xinjiang-related bill accusing Beijing of violating human rights in the region.

By interfering in China's internal affairs and ignoring the remarkable anti-terror and de-radicalization progress in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Washington has revealed once again its double standards on human rights and the fight against terrorism.

It is widely acknowledged that the most basic human rights are the rights to subsistence and development. Without a stable and secure society, the talk of protecting human rights will only ring hollow.

The most acute problem facing Xinjiang is to eliminate violent terrorist and extremist acts, which killed numerous innocent civilians and hundreds of police officers and caused tremendous property damage between the 1990s and 2016.

In response to such a dire situation, the local government in Xinjiang has taken a series of measures, including setting up vocational education and training centers, to crack down on violent crimes and address such root causes as poverty, unemployment and religious extremism. As a result, Xinjiang has not seen a single terror attack for three consecutive years.

China's preventive practices in Xinjiang borrow from the experience of many other countries around the world, and are in accordance with the UN Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism.

Around the world, France has established the National Center for Assistance and Prevention of Radicalization, and many US local communities are offering correction programs to help youngsters influenced by various types of extremist teachings.

Meanwhile, those Washington politicians trying to defame China's Xinjiang policy had better check the human rights record of their own country first.

Those politicians should not forget the blood-stained history of the Native Americans, who were slaughtered and whose land seized by US forces in the name of "civilization" over many decades in the 19th century.

Today, many of the Native Americans are still struggling with a range of immediate challenges such as poor housing, inadequate health care and high unemployment rates.

The United States also has an ignominious track record in violating human rights of the Muslims.

Over the past two decades, Washington, by launching wars, has committed countless human rights crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, resulting in a huge loss of innocent lives.

Inside the United States, about 82 percent of American adults say that Muslims are subject to at least some discrimination in the country today, said a May report by Pew Research Center, a US think tank.

In addition, the United Nations has voiced serious concern about the United States' "disturbing" treatment of migrants and refugees, as several UN human rights bodies have found that the detention of migrant children separated from their parents may constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment that is prohibited by international law.

Those Washington politicians seem to believe that the ultimate authority to tell who violates human rights rests in their hands. However, their arrogance and self-righteousness on the so-called human rights issue in Xinjiang only further expose their malevolent intention to disrupt China's development.

It is advised that those politicians should stop wasting time manufacturing imaginary issues for themselves to meddle in, and focus on addressing the real, massive human rights deficits their country has accumulated.