The widespread and ongoing protests demanding justice for George Floyd show “the severity of the problems of racism and police violence in the US,” a spokesman for the China’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
“Black people’s lives are also lives. Their human rights must also be guaranteed,” ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing, referring to the death in custody of an unarmed black man in Minneapolis.
Beijing is infuriated by Washington’s double standards in supporting Hong Kong’s protesters.
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RT reports: Racism itself is “a chronic disease of American society,” Zhao stated, as quoted by AFP.
The Chinese foreign ministry’s take on the case seems to mirror that of their Iranian counterparts, who tweeted a photograph of a black demonstrator valiantly facing down a squad of riot police.
The caption invoked a famous speech by the US civil rights leader Martin Luther King and his declaration that “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up & live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,’” it reads.
Pundits in China have also offered their take on the nationwide protests and the way the US government is handling the situation.
Last week, Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of China’s state-run Global Times newspaper, accused US President Donald Trump of being hypocritical towards violent rallies that broke out in Minneapolis, the city where Floyd was torturously suffocated by a police officer named Derek Chauvin.
“Please protect the people of Minnesota, just like you sympathize with Hong Kong thugs,” Hu tweeted, invoking President Trump’s threats to send in the military, warning the “thugs” involved that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
