Beijing slams Washington as having double standards

China slammed the United States on Tuesday over the latter's poor human rights conditions for Muslims, and said Washington is telling lies about China's policies in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

The denunciation came after Commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command Navy Adm. Philip Davidson attacked China for "the suffering" of the Uygur ethnic group in Xinjiang, and US Ambassador to China Terry Branstad discussed ethnic groups in Xinjiang in a statement.

"Some people in the US have shown unusual care for the Uygur ethnic group in China's Xinjiang, but they seem to forget that the US is the only country in the world that has issued a 'Muslim ban' that targeted Muslim groups," said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

The US has stirred up wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan, all Muslim countries, "causing the casualties of millions of innocent people", Hua said.

Citing a survey by the Pew Research Center issued in July 2017, the spokeswoman said that 75 percent of US Muslim adults said there is a lot of discrimination against Muslims in the US, and that 69 percent of people in the US in general share the view.

Also, 50 percent said it has become more difficult to be Muslim in the US in recent years, the survey shows.

The spokeswoman also cited a report issued in April 2018 by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a US-based organization, saying, "More than a third of anti-Muslim incidents in 2017 were instigated by federal government agencies".

More than a third of candidates in the 2018 midterm elections in the US claimed that Muslims are inherently violent or represent an immediate threat, while nearly a third of them called for depriving Muslims of basic rights or declared that Islam is not a religion, Hua added.

These figures conform to those in a Muslim Advocates report issued in 2018.

"As a result, the international community has enough reasons to be strongly concerned by the US policies toward Muslims and the human rights conditions of Muslims in the US," she said.

The Uygur ethnic group is part of China's 56 ethnic groups, and is in solid unity with the other 55 ethnic groups, Hua said.

People of the Uygur ethnic group are living increasingly better lives, and fully enjoy freedoms and rights endowed by China's Constitution, Hua said, adding that China has friendly and close ties with many Muslim countries, and Washington's "slandering" of Xinjiang is not acceptable.