CHINESE Uighur politician Xu Guixiang took the United States to task on Thursday over its “notorious human rights violations,” pointing out that it fails to reflect on its own shortcomings.

“The US has boasted of so-called universal values and portrayed itself as a fighter for democracy and a beacon of freedom and model for human rights. And it is always ready to lecture others,” the Xinjiang regional government spokesman told a video conference.

But Mr Xu accused Washington of committing “race genocide” and reminded participants that the US has started more wars than any other country. 

It is also the country where forced labour began, he added as a counter to frequent US claims that the Uighur population in the semi-autonomous province is being exploited, which have caused a number of companies to cease trading in the region.

US President Joe Biden has shown increasing hostility towards China as part of a new cold war strategy that began under his predecessor Donald Trump.

As well as mobilising battleships and other military hardware to the South China Sea and Taiwan, Washington has engaged in a propaganda war against Beijing.

This has included the rejuvenation of the so-called lab-leak theory that seeks to blame China for the global coronavirus pandemic, along with fabricated allegations that a genocide of Uighur people is taking place in Xinjiang province.

Washington’s claims, including that as many as three million Uighurs have been confined in concentration camps, emanate from a small number of sources with limited credibility and have largely been debunked.

The sources include Adrian Zenz, a far-right evangelical Christian who believes he is on a mission from God to save the world from the Chinese Communist Party, and the World Uighur Congress, a US-government funded organisation with alleged links to terrorist groups.

Professor Peng Wuqing of Xinjiang Normal University told the press conference that the US has only approved 14 international labour conventions, and just two of the eight core one, and accused it of ignoring its history of subjecting black people and immigrants to forced labour.

“No matter how some anti-China forces have smeared China’s Xinjiang for so-called forced labour and no matter how the US portrays itself as the fighter for human rights, it can never deny the solid evidence of its own violations of labour rights,” he said.