Would you believe it! President G.W.Bush has been castigating the Chinese government for their human rights record. Look whose talking, Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary Renditions, torture (as defined by the U.N.) the Patriot Act, suspension of habeus corpus, putting juvenile murderers on death row once they reach the age of majority, giving mentally ill defendants crap lawyers with little or no serious crime experience in homicide cases - I could go on. Okay, there is democracy and free speech in the U.S., but that is the point, the United States is starting from a higher base, from the 4th July 1776 to be precise, so we expect more from the world's superpower. China on the other hand is emerging from a much lower base, from Mao, and the Cultural Revolution. Bad things still happen in China, but there have been great improvements, and I just think that even if very few countries are squeeky clean, it sticks in the gullet to hear George W lecturing the chinese about human rights.
9th August 2008
Saturday, 9 August 2008
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