When the US and a few other countries made groundless accusations against China on human rights issues during the general debate of the Third Committee of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly, its ulterior motive to interfere in China’s internal affairs and attempt to create instability to disrupt China’s development was self-evident. 

For many years, the US has touted itself as a human rights defender worldwide, but turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to the persistent, systematic and large-scale human rights violations within itself.

By wantonly distorting and belittling the human rights situation in countries and regions that did not conform with its strategic interests, the US has mastered the art of weaponizing the rights issue as a means to maintain its global hegemony.

However, this attempt failed, as people can tell right from wrong. Not only have nearly 70 countries voiced their support for China on human rights issues at the UN, but China was elected as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Tuesday. 

The world today is at a critical juncture. World leaders have called for solidarity and cooperation in fighting COVID-19 and addressing global challenges. The US, having failed to learn from the failure of its anti-China campaign and paying no attention to the calls of member states for unity and cooperation, abused the UN platform to spread rumors and provoke political confrontation to serve its domestic politics, which completely goes against the trend of the times.

Before accusing others, perhaps the US needs to take a good look at itself in the mirror. As of Tuesday, the confirmed cases of COVID-19 and death toll have topped 7.8 million and 210,000, respectively. For a country which boasts the strongest economic and technological strength and the most abundant medical resources in the world, these striking numbers exposed the Trump administration’s ineffective response to the pandemic, and its failure to protect the most fundamental part of human rights for its people - the right to life. No wonder Time magazine said such a huge loss of life was essentially a failure of US democracy.

The inequality within US society has also been fully exposed and exacerbated during the pandemic. In March, many US celebrities, politicians and professional athletes were tested for the coronavirus, even when they didn’t have symptoms, while physicians in hospitals had to ration out testing to patients with turnaround times of five or seven days, reflecting inequalities in its own healthcare system.

In fact, the US has the most serious polarization between the rich and poor among developed countries. The Gini Index grew to 0.485 in 2018, the highest level in 50 years. The wealthiest 10 percent of US households control nearly 75 percent of household net worth. The bottom 50 percent saw essentially zero net gain in wealth from 1989 to 2018.

Not only to low-income communities, the situation also applies to women in the US. Until now, the US has yet to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. According to a joint survey by institutions, including US nonprofit organization Stop Street Harassment and the University of California San Diego, 81 percent of women had experienced some form of sexual harassment. In 2015, an astounding 92 percent of all women killed with guns in these countries were from the US. 

The long-existing racial discrimination was also highlighted in the "Black lives matter"  movement that had spread across America. Beyond its own soil, the US notorious human rights record was also written in the book of history as it has dropped bombs and fired bullets at civilians of other countries, resulting in massive casualties, refugees and displacements.   

By withdrawing from the Human Rights Council, refusing to ratify human rights treaties, sanctioning the ICC prosecutor and imposing unilateral sanctions on other countries, the US has seriously disrupted international cooperation on human rights. These stained records have completely exposed their adoption of double standards on human rights issues, and using them to maintain its hegemony.