Wars in Middle East reveal US double standards on human rights, China FM says

Wars and conflicts currently raging in the Middle East reveal the United States’ double standards in regards to human rights, China’s Foreign Minister has stated.

According to a statement by China’s Foreign Ministry, during a meeting in New York on Wednesday on the sidelines of this week’s UN General Assembly, Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, asked UN Human Rights chief, Volker Turk, “If the United States cares so much about the human rights of Muslims, why does it continue to provoke or support wars in the Middle East and other regions, causing large numbers of innocent Muslim casualties?”

He further asked why the US turns “a blind eye to the historical injustices the Arab people have faced and not support Palestine becoming a full member of the United Nations?”

Arguing that the “political manipulation” of human rights issues by Western nations such as the US was “becoming increasingly unpopular across the world”, Yi questioned why Washington is “not playing its due role in achieving a permanent ceasefire and complete withdrawal of troops from Gaza.”

Read: Could the US-China rivalry save the peace process in the Middle East?

Despite China’s popular rhetoric on the failings of the US and Western states to live up to the international human rights standards they have long propagated, especially in regards to Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and Asia, Beijing has been heavily criticised for its own human rights violations against those, such as the ethnic Uyghurs in north-western China – or East Turkestan – over the past decade.

In response to those accusations of mistreatment and suppression, China has repeatedly pushed back and continues to hold that position, claiming that Western nations only aim to interfere in Chinese internal affairs.

Yi addressed that issue, reiterating that those reports are used “to attack and smear China’s human rights situation”, with the “vast majority of Muslim countries have long seen through the tricks of the United States and understand that it is merely using human rights as a pretext to interfere in the internal affairs of China and other developing countries”.