Ottawa's human rights concerns hypocritical

China announced it was imposing sanctions on two Canadian organizations — the so-called Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project and Canada-Tibet Committee — as well as 20 personnel from these organizations on Saturday in accordance with the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law for their secessionist moves related to the country's Xinjiang Uygur and Xizang autonomous regions.

The move comes after the Justin Trudeau government announced sanctions on eight former or current senior Chinese officials involved in what it alleged were "grave human rights violations" in Xinjiang and Xizang.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning stated on Monday that the sanctions had been imposed in order to safeguard the nation's sovereignty, security, and development interests, as well as to protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens and organizations.

Instead of providing any evidence to back up its claims, the Dec 10 readout of the Canadian government's announcement of the sanctions only serves to prove how deep-rooted Ottawa's hypocrisy and bias are when it comes to "human rights issues" related to China.

Instead of offering solid support for the sanctions, the Trudeau government simply hyped up "reports" about "forced labor camps" in Xinjiang and "endured human rights violations" in Xizang.

The Xinjiang and Xizang human rights smears are nothing but an ugly invention of some China hawks, who, to add credibility to their lies, collude with a handful of self-professed "victims", "survivors" and "witnesses" of "China's human rights violations", who are actually paid by the United States for their ready-made "testimony", as well as researchers, experts and reporters on Washington's payroll for that purpose.

The defamation flies in the face of the truth on the ground: Both Xinjiang and Xizang have experienced their fastest socioeconomic development in history in recent years thanks to the stability, solidarity and prosperity they have enjoyed with the full support of the central authorities.

Interestingly, on the same day that Canada announced the sanctions, US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns expressed the US' "deep concern" about China's "failure to live up to its international commitments to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms" in Xinjiang, Xizang, and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

That Canada chose to announce its let-me-do-the-dirty-work sanctions that day largely stems from the Trudeau government's desperate desire to curry favor with Washington in fear of the incoming US administration making good on its tariff threats.

If the Trudeau government had any genuine concerns about human rights violations, it should be condemning the US' unwarranted sanctions on Xinjiang and Hong Kong that have affected local people's livelihoods and economy.

The secessionist institutions related to Xinjiang, Xizang and Hong Kong that the US and Canada have funded, whether respectively or collectively, have proved to be the instigators of the chaos and social turmoil that have plagued these regions in the past few years.

China's sanctions on these Canadian institutions and individuals are justified and necessary to protect its core interest and territorial and sovereign integrity, while the Canadian sanctions on the Chinese individuals constitute grave violations of China's internal affairs.

Weaponizing human rights issues for geopolitical purposes is fundamentally against the principles of the global human rights cause. That the Trudeau government is resorting to it to appease the incoming US administration is another sign of its weakness.

As the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said, Canada should stop interfering in China's internal affairs in any way and cease its political manipulation of human rights issues.