Human Rights Watch: China Is 'Existential Threat' To Global Freedom

Human Rights Watch: China Is "Existential Threat" To Global Freedom

Steve Watson 

Non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch warned Wednesday that if China continues to go unchecked, it threatens to enslave the entire global population and eviscerate freedom for good.

In its annual report, the think tank cautioned that the Communist Chinese government is using technology, censorship and violent repression to such an effective extent that it threatens to fundamentally undermine international human rights forever.

“Beijing has long suppressed domestic critics. Now the Chinese government is trying to extend that censorship to the rest of the world,” the 652-page report concluded.

HRW declared that China is now engaged in the “most intense attack” ever on freedom, and that President Xi Jinping’s government is executing “the most brutal and pervasive oppression that China has seen for decades,” including the implementation of a “nightmarish surveillance system” in Xinjiang province.

The report outlines how China is using its might to systematically silence political dissidents, religious groups, and ethnic minorities.

The report is so damning that Beijing banned HRW executive director, Kenneth Roth, from traveling to Hong Kong to attend an event to release it. Instead, the report was launched at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

The report also criticized the UN, other countries, and global corporations for not doing enough to stand up to China, accusing them of  being “willing accomplices,” of “enabling” the crackdown and turning a blind eye to “a dystopian future in which no one is beyond the reach of Chinese censors.”

“Far from being spurned as a global pariah, the Chinese government is courted the world over, its unelected president receiving red-carpet treatment wherever he goes, and the country hosting prestigious events, such as the 2022 Winter Olympics.” Roth noted.

“The aim is to portray China as open, welcoming, and powerful, even as it descends into ever more ruthless autocratic rule.” he added.

“While other governments commit serious human rights The report also criticized the US, but conceded that “the Trump administration is one government that has been willing to stand up to China, best evidenced by its October 2019 imposition of sanctions on the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau and eight Chinese technology companies for their complicity in human rights violations.”

The warnings come as Trump continues to push for restrictions on Chinese technology, including the exclusion of Huawei Technologies from the trade deal, and the grounding of more than 1,000 civil drones, owing to fears of espionage because they use Chinese technology.

Details also continue to emerge regarding claims by an anonymous former Microsoft contractor that the Chinese government is able to access and listen to Skype conversations and audio from Cortana, Microsoft’s voice assistant equivalent of Apple’s Siri.

“Their foreign bank accounts should be frozen. They should fear prosecution for their crimes.” the HRW report demands.

“Chinese companies that build and help run detention camps in Xinjiang, and any company that exploits the labor of prisoners or provides the surveillance infrastructure and big data processing, should be exposed and pressured to stop.” the report concludes.violations, no other government flexes its political muscles with such vigor and determination to undermine the international human rights standards and institutions that could hold it to account.” Roth further asserted.