Wednesday, September 01, 2004
From 沙祖康 Sha Zu-Kang, head of the Chinese delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, remarking on the failed motion, brought by the US in April this year, criticising China's human rights record.
我公开讲过,中国今天的人权状况就比美国的人权状况要好,中国人口比美国多五倍,如果按照人口比例来讲,我们问题至少应该比美国多五倍,那才说明我们人权状况和美国一样。但现实是,我们目前人权状况比美国的好,说明中国人权至少比美国好五倍。我在大会上讲这话引起会场上哄堂大笑,大家都鼓掌,也可以看出美国不得人心,他们把人权问题高度政治化,为本国政治服务,把人权问题作为工具,做法很不得人心。

As I have said publicly before: the human rights situation in China today is better than that in the US. China has five times the population as the US, on a per capita basis, we should have five times more problems as the US and only then can we say China and the US have similar human rights situations. But in reality, the current human rights situation in China is better than that in the US, meaning human rights in China is at least five times better than in the US. When I made this remark at the meeting [of the UN Human Rights Commission], it was met with great laughter and applause from everyone. From this we can see the US position has no support. The US's stance on human rights is a highly politicized one meant to serve its own interests; the human rights question is only a tool for US policy, and they have no broad support in this.