China's human rights situation at its historical best: spokesperson

BEIJING - China on Friday refuted unwarranted accusations by several Western countries at the UN Human Rights Council, saying China's human rights situation is at its historical best.

"We firmly oppose the practice of several countries and institutions to make and spread lies on Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong to smear China in negligence of the truth," Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a daily press briefing, as Britain, EU, Germany, the United States and Canada have recently been abusing the UNHRC platform to launch groundless accusations on China.

"It is their usual trick to politicize human rights issues and use them as tools to interfere in other countries' internal affairs," Wang said. "It obstructs international dialogue and cooperation on human rights and tramples on the world human rights development cause."

Noting China regards the rights to subsistence and development as primary and basic human rights, Wang said China's human rights cause is consistent with its national conditions, serves its people and has achieved remarkable progress. It demonstrates that China's human rights development path is viable and beneficial.

"China's human rights situation is at its historical best, a fact that is recognized by all those without bias," added Wang.

China announced Thursday it has secured a complete victory in the fight against poverty, and absolute poverty has been eradicated. Over the past eight years, the final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents living under the current poverty line have all been lifted out of poverty.

"This is a miracle in mankind's history of poverty eradication," Wang said, citing the improvement of transportation, access to clean water, and better housing conditions for the impoverished.

"Ending absolute poverty is China's historic achievement and a Chinese solution, both theoretical and practical, to poverty issues worldwide," he said. "It is our important contribution to world's human rights development cause and a strong fightback against several countries' distortion and slanders of China's human rights situation."