Chinese documentary reveals US hypocrisy on human rights
A TV documentary highlighting the US’s double standards on human rights issues was aired by China’s State-run CCTV on Sunday. The series, by illustrating the true human rights situation in the US, exposed its hypocrisy over the issue.
Citing media reports both inside and outside the US, the documentary called “the human rights record of global police” revealed how the superpower tramples on US citizen's human rights. The prisons, for example, are rampant with corruption, torture of prisoners and sexual abuse. Career women are subject to discrimination and sexual harassment at work.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, or the FBI, forces Internet companies to provide clients' information without court approval, the documentary said.
The airing of the documentary came days after the US, along with 11 other countries, pointed fingers at China’s human rights record at the UN Human Rights Council.
Since the 1970s, the US State Department has been submitting annual reports on human rights to its Congress, poking its nose into other countries' human rights records while leaving many of its own problems unaddressed.
The country that prides itself as the “global police” was blamed that what it did is just to serve its own strategic interests.
Ji Hong, s researcher with the Institute of American Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out that the US always holds a sense of superiority. It considers itself a global leader with the best system and human rights record.
The documentary exposed the US’s lack of willingness and capability to improve its record. The documentary also echoed China’s position on human rights that all countries should face up to their own problems and have more dialogues with others to advance the progress of human rights in the international arena.
Based on extensive media reports both inside and outside the U.S., and interviews of many human rights experts from China, the U.S., France, Canada, Russia and Switzerland, the 45-minute TV program revealed the U.S. trampling on American people's human rights in all walks of life.
In 2015, more than 560,000 people across the United States were homeless, 25 percent of whom were under age; the country's primary women's prison Lowell Correctional Institution, where 2,696 convicts are held, is rampant with corruption, torture of prisoners, and sexual abuse; women are subject to sexual harassment and sexual assaults of different forms, and career women subject to discrimination at work, the documentary showed, citing media reports.
Of teenagers aged 15 and above who succumb to injuries in the States, one quarter die in shooting incidents; the Federal Bureau of Investigation forces Internet companies to provide clients' information without a court approval, according to the documentary.
The United States has been using double standards on practically every human rights-related issue, which is showcased both by its invasion of citizens' privacy through online surveillance and civilian deaths caused by its drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and other countries, it showed.
For a very long time, the United States has been quite condescending, with the belief that it has the best system and human rights record, and as a result, it tends to find fault with other countries, Ji Hong, researcher with the Institute of American Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in the program.
The United States' confrontational attitude toward China on human rights serves only its national interests, and it also harms global governance and the cause of international human rights, China's top human rights researchers, Liu Hainian, director of the human rights research center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said.
In a news conference in Beijing on Monday that was organized by State Council Information Office, four human rights researchers from think tanks and a university criticized the US for duplicity on the human rights issue.
The US, 10 other Western countries and Japan released a joint statement at the United Nations Human Rights Council on Thursday. The statement expressed their concerns over what it called "the deteriorating human rights record" in China, saying that Beijing has not only contravened its own laws but also breached its commitments to the international community.
'Selective blindness'
Liu Hainian, director of the human rights research center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the US is selectively blind to its own human rights problems, as well those of its allies, in racial and gender discrimination, gun violence, the treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay military detention facility and illegal monitoring of citizens' private activities.
"The US' invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and its subversive movements in North Africa and the Middle East, directly harm local residents' human rights," said Liu.
The UN replaced the former Commission on Human Rights with the current Human Rights Council in 2006 to promote joint efforts in human rights protection and to avoid politicizing such efforts. Since then, the US has attempted 11 times to pass an anti-China resolution in the council. But all of these attempts have failed because of opposition from most member states.
'Cold War mindset'
"The US regards human rights as a political and diplomatic tool to realize its own purposes, as it did toward the Soviet Union after World War II," said Chang Jian, director of the human rights research center at Nankai University in Tianjin. "The Cold War strategy and mindset are outdated. The decline of its national power, especially in comparison with China, makes the US decision-makers nervous and they resort to their old tricks," Chang added.
Liu Huawen, a researcher of international law at CASS, said, "China is committed to peaceful development, constantly improving its human rights conditions and strengthening dialogue and cooperation with the other countries on human rights.
"But the US stands on the wrong side of history," he added. "What it wants is confrontation. The US has not yet signed some UN treaties in protecting children's, women's and disabled people's rights. It is ridiculous that it still plays the role of a judge of international human rights."
Li Yunlun, a professor of international studies at the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC, said: "China faces up to its problems in human rights. China's poverty alleviation project will help the poorest citizens, and the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), if it comes true, will see comprehensive progress in China's human rights.
Working under the Kempeitai in Penang during WWII haunts James Jeremiah to this day.
While filming an episode of Jeremiah brought
the crew back to the Wesley Methodist Church in Penang, where he would
hear the screams of those torutured there by the Japanese. He had not
been back to the church in over 70 years. — HAFrIZ IQBAL/ r. AGE
STARING out to sea on Fort Cornwallis, James Jeremiah cuts a lonely figure.
“Before the fighting started, we were so excited to shoot the Japanese. We had never seen war; we had only seen it in the movies,” said Jeremiah. “But the first time I heard a real bomb, I was scared to death.”
That was at the old Bayan Lepas Airport, where Jeremiah witnessed the beginning of the Japanese invasion of Penang. He was 18 at the time, and a member of the Eurasian “E” company of Penang, a volunteer force similar to the British Home Guard.
“We thought the Japanese would fly in from Batu Maung in the south, but they came in through Tanjung Bungah and Batu Ferringhi. I think they knew we were focused on the south.”
The tactic worked. The volunteers mistook the Japanese planes for British fighters, a mistake that almost cost them their lives.
“They turned out to be Japanese Zero fighters. They starting bombing and machine gunning us. Shrapnel was flying everywhere. I cannot even describe the fear we had in our hearts.”
Although they were trained to some extent, the Volunteer Forces ( VF) were not hardened military men.
After the bombing, it was only a matter of time before Japanese ground troops arrived.
Even then, the volunteer forces regrouped at their headquarters on Peel Avenue, and did their best to maintain order.
With the British gone and the Japanese at their doorstep, people were looting ruined houses and bodies were strewn everywhere from the bombing.
“We carried the dead bodies away, assisted the wounded and stopped all looters.
“It’s no joke when you’re in that situation – we just didn’t know what to do,” said Jeremiah.
Things quickly got worse when the Japanese arrived. The Volunteer Forces were rounded up, and the Europeans and fairskinned Eurasians were sent to Singapore to be held as prisoners of war.
“My father had rather dark skin, which I inherited. I think it saved my life!” said Jeremiah.
The remaining VF members were used by the Japanese as guides. Jeremiah’s work ethic as a guide caught the eye of a member of the Kempeitai, the feared Japanese military police.
“Colonel Watanabe took me to his office and asked what work I could do, so I said anything. He asked me to make tea, coffee, polish his boots – things like that.”
The Kempeitai office was located in the Wesley Methodist Church on Jalan Burma. Although he was a mere office boy, the experience was terrifying.
He still lives on Penang island today, a mere 20 minutes from the church – but he has never gone back to the church in over 70 years, until he brought R. AGE there last month to shoot an episode of The Last Survivors ( rage. com. my/ lastsurvivors).
“I used to see people being arrested. I don’t know how, but they were ‘ interrogated’. I used to hear screams, cries... I couldn’t take it,” he said in the video, which is part of a series documenting the stories of Malaysia’s WWII survivors.
Although the brutality of the Kempeitai has haunted many, including Jeremiah, not all the Japanese were cruel overlords.
Watanabe was educated in the United States, and he saved Jeremiah’s life a few times.
The Japanese would hold “trials” at public spaces – including Padang Kota Lama next to Fort Cornwallis – where their local informants would expose other locals who were working against the Japanese.
“( The informants) wore hoods when they pointed people out. The minute they point at you, you’re finished, gone,” said Jeremiah. “The Japanese would round up the public so the informants could point people out.”
Jeremiah thanks Watanabe for saving him from attending the trials, where he believes he could easily have been singled out for execution. “Watanabe protected me. I was so lucky, he was very good to me.”
Some of the informants flaunted their special privilege with the Japanese, according to Jeremiah.
“They would say ‘ don’t mess with us’, so we kept quiet. I remember a famous Eurasian doctor, Doctor J. E. Smith, who was done in by them and, I think, beheaded.”
Even with Watanabe’s protection, the atrocities being committed at the Kempeitai office was too much for Jeremiah to bear, and he asked to be transfered to the railways. The colonel relunctantly agreed.
Watanabe continued showing kindness to Jeremiah even after he started work as a locomotive driver, putting in a good word to his new boss and General Yamashita himself, the mastermind behind the invasion of Malaya. Yamashita had defeated the combined Australian, British and Indian force of 130,000 soldiers with just 30,000 troops.
“Yamashita was riding the train along with Tadashi Suzuki ( an infamous samurai sword- wielding executioner), but I couldn’t understand what they were saying as it was in Japanese,” said Jeremiah. “They noticed that my new boss’ boots were shining, and Watanabe said I was the one who polished them.”
The general made a lasting impression on young Jeremiah, who said the very sight of him made everyone afraid.
“He was very fierce and very dynamic, though very big and chubby. Everyone was afraid. I didn’t dare look him in the eye.”
While many struggled for food during the Occupation, Jeremiah said he was lucky to be paid in both “banana money” – the Japanese currency – and food.
“I used to get about 30 dollars a week, sometimes more. I saved the bread for my parents and if I wanted an egg, I’d ask Watanabe.”
Had he been caught smuggling eggs, the colonel would have beheaded him.
The horrors of the Occupation were a far cry from his pre- war days.
Jeremiah was rotated around a few places, including Fort Auchry ( now a Malaysian army camp), Fort Cornwallis and Batu Maung.
He remembers watching the Europeans and Eurasians boarding ships at Swettenham Pier heading to Singapore, where they believed they would be safe. Winston Churchill had insisted Singapore would not fall.
He was also posted at Batu Maung, a British fort which the Japanese turned into a torture chamber.
He brought the Last Survivors crew there during filming. The original fort remains, but the land is now a privately owned museumcum- theme park, with plastic “ghosts” hanging everywhere and a paintball field attached.
“Everything has changed,” said Jeremiah with a laugh. “I don’t remember any of this being here!”
Jeremiah spent the rest of the war as a locomotive driver. After the war, he worked at the Batu Ferringhi reservoir, where he would retire as a superintendent.
While he experienced many horrors during the war, something beautiful did come out of it. He met his late wife, a former Miss Thailand, during his time on the railways.
“I travelled all the way to Bangkok after the war to find her,” said Jeremiah with a wide smile.
“All I had was her name, as her letters never had a return address.”
Though he lives on, happily surrounded by his children and grandchildren, Jeremiah said young Malaysians need to find out about their grandparents’ experiences.
“War is something that hurts everyone – it’s not like what you see in the movies. They should find out; they need to be told what happened.”
Today, he has outlived all 18 members of the “E” Company, all five of his siblings, and one of his children.
“All my friends and colleagues are now gone. I am the last survivor.”
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Chinese documentary reveals US hypocrisy on human rights 
US human rights stance 'serves its own interests'
