[N]early every political evil can be found on display in China: slavery, discrimination, religious persecution, xenophobia, tyranny, mass-political indoctrination, colonialism, cultural genocide, and so on. And yet, the outcry against these things in America and the West is a tiny fraction of what it was with regard to South Africa in the 1980s or Israel today. Why? Some of the political answers are pretty obvious — and have much merit. A few that come to mind: China is non-Western, and many of these sins are supposed to be unique to white Europeans; China is a victim (or “victim”) of colonialism, and so we shouldn’t judge it harshly; China is very powerful, and realpolitik dictates that we be diplomatic; and so on.

Human rights are shared by all people of the world and if some people still suffer without them, then nobody has them at all. Particularly in China, which is such an influential country and such a world power today. If there's a problem and human rights don't develop in China, there could be serious issues that develop in China that will effect the whole world.

If there were normal relationships between the two partners, there would be no problem. But China is a dysfunctional country. Consequently, I am not happy with the attitude of Western European countries that have moved away from the issue of human rights in exchange for trade, especially in the last 10 years.

We have chosen the path that we shall tread in the future. We are determined that there shall be no more exploitation of China. I have no wish to harp on old grievances, but realism demands that I should mention the ruthless and shameless exploitation of our country by the West in the past and hard-dying illusion that the best way to win our hearts was to kick us in the ribs. Such asinine stupidities must never be repeated, as much for your own sake as for ours. America and Britain have already shown their consciousness of error by voluntarily offering to abrogate the iniquitous system of extraterritoriality that denied China her inherent right to equality with other nations.

Actually the crimes of the Maoists against human rights have gone much too far, and the Chinese people are now in much greater need of help from the world's democratic forces to defend their rights than in need of the unity of the world's Communist forces, in the Maoist sense, for the purpose of combating the so-called imperialist peril somewhere in Africa or in Latin America or in the Middle East.

I think that it is good for the world that China is being more of a Wolf Warrior. There is a greater danger of China remaining quiet, which would lead to its people and its leaders becoming angrier and angrier. My big message for the West is that when China emerges as the number one economy, we want to avoid it becoming an angry dragon. On the other hand, the West is shooting itself in the foot by insulting China, for example when Trump and Pompeo lectured them and launched sanctions. Beijing doesn’t believe that the West is doing all this grandstanding about China from a moral position. Instead, what they think is that when China was weak it was kicked around by the West, but now the country is strong the Western governments have decided to care about human rights there. Thus, many in China think it is a cynical ploy by the West. We must get used to the fact that China is different now, and is actually bigger than the US in terms of its GDP PPP [purchasing power parity]. As such, China cannot be expected to behave as it did in the past.

What is at stake today is not only protecting the West against the terrorists, home-grown and foreign, but — perhaps above all — protecting the West from itself. The reproduction of any one of its most monstrous events would be enough to lose everything that has been attained to date with respect to Human Rights. Beginning with respect for diversity. And it is highly probable that such a thing could occur in the next ten years, if we do not react in time.

We should not blame foreigners for problems afflicting China. There are things in the West that should be considered acceptable to us, and things that are unacceptable. It is up to us to decide.

Well, I don't know if China is any different, but our relationship with China is certainly different. We're in hock to the Chinese up to our eyeballs because of the war in Iraq, for one thing. They're holding hundreds of billions of dollars worth of our paper. We also are running hundred of billions of dollars worth of trade deficits with them, as we continue to import their junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet food and export, you know, jobs to places where you can pay workers a dollar a month to turn out the stuff that we're buying from Wal-Mart. So I think our relationship with China has certainly changed. I think they're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years".

Twenty years ago, the American economic and political establishment was wrong about China. Today, the consensus view has changed, but it is once again wrong. Now, instead of extolling the virtues of free trade and openness toward China, the establishment beats the drums for a new Cold War, casting China as an existential threat to the United States. We are already hearing politicians and representatives of the military-industrial complex using this as the latest pretext for larger and larger defense budgets. I believe it is important to challenge this new consensus—just as it was important to challenge the old one. The Chinese government is surely guilty of many policies and practices that I oppose and that all Americans should oppose: the theft of technology, the suppression of workers’ rights and the press, the repression taking place in Tibet and Hong Kong, Beijing’s threatening behavior toward Taiwan, and the Chinese government’s atrocious policies toward the Uyghur people. The United States should also be concerned about China’s aggressive global ambitions. The United States should continue to press these issues in bilateral talks with the Chinese government and in multilateral institutions such as the UN Human Rights Council. That approach would be far more credible and effective if the United States upholds a consistent position on human rights toward its own allies and partners.

Today, China’s economic power makes U.S. lectures about morality and human rights imprudent. Within a decade, it will make them irrelevant. Within two decades, it will make them laughable. By then the Chinese may threaten to withhold most-favored-nation status from the United States unless we do more to improve living conditions in Detroit, Harlem, and South-Central Los Angeles.

Let’s not be naïve. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and if China’s money is going to fund infrastructure, education, and research, China will receive friendlier treatment. The same is true for any country’s diplomacy. Moreover, Western governments are hardly innocent of funding gruesome programs in faraway places. And countries that feel isolated—say, EU nations under pressure from Brussels—may see China as a useful counterbalance. Nevertheless, it is alarming how quickly, and how unreservedly, Beijing’s new friends abandon their solidarity with China’s oppressed millions and start flattering the regime instead.

While the US and the EU say they will focus on “protecting the centrality of the UN Charter”, it is the US and some European countries that have ignored principles in the UN Charter such as peaceful settlement of international disputes and no interference in countries’ internal affairs, and have interfered in China’s internal affairs and even waged wars against sovereign countries like Iraq and Syria in the name of human rights. If anyone wants to discuss economic coercion, the US has publicly coerced countries to stop using equipment made by Chinese companies and halt cooperation with China.

In our experience, no modern country is more repressive of human rights than the USA. The vaunted First Amendment is nothing but empty words on paper…we will journey to China at our expense, and tell our story of modern American repression of human rights, upon invitation.