China: U.S. media biased for Hillary Clinton

It may be unanimous: China has officially declared that the U.S. media were in the tank for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

The finding was included in a lengthy report by the Communist government in Beijing listing human rights and civil liberties violations by the United States in 2016 — a direct response to the March 3 release of the State Department’s annual survey of human rights violations in China and around the world.

In the section titled “Political Rights Undermined,” the Chinese government document contends that “U.S. media published a lot of biased reports and commentaries during the 2016 election, fully demonstrating their failure in staying objective or impartial.”

American press outlets “clearly chose their side in covering the election,” the survey continues. “Among the top 100 newspapers based on circulation, 57 endorsed the Democratic nominee while 2 the Republican.”

The section also noted what it said were the growing influence of money in American politics and widespread voter anger and apathy.

“In 2016, money politics and power-for-money deals had controlled the presidential election, which was full of lies and farces,” the Chinese authors write, according to a text published by the official Xinhua news agency. “There were no guarantees of political rights, while the public responded with waves of boycott and protests, giving full exposure of the hypocritical nature of U.S. democracy.”

Other parts of the reports faulted the U.S. for gun violence, worsening race relations, rising income inequality and human rights abuses abroad, including targeted drone strikes. Washington, the report concluded, had no right to “point fingers” at other countries.

“With the gunshots lingering in people’s ears behind the Statue of Liberty, worsening racial discrimination and the election farce dominated by money politics, the self-proclaimed human rights defender has exposed its human rights ’myth’ with its own deeds,” the report said.

The full text of the Chinese report can be found here.

The 2016 State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices can be read here.