Dueling human rights reports

Every year, the U.S. and China release reports on the human rights situations in each other's country.

What's happening: Per Xinhua, some of the highlighted issues in China's report include: The severe infringement on citizens' civil rights; the prevalence of money politics, the rising income inequality; worsening racial discrimination, and growing threats against children, women and immigrants; human rights violations caused by the unilateral America First policies and gun violence.

The report also noted that:

[T]he environment for the press in the United States has further deteriorated ... the U.S. government has often publicly and vehemently accused the media and journalists of making "fake news", creating an intimidating and hostile environment.

Some of the highlighted issues in the U.S. State Department's report on China include:

• A significant intensification of the campaign of mass detention of members of Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang.
• Arbitrary or unlawful killings by the government.
• Forced disappearances by the government.
• Torture by the government.
• Arbitrary detention by the government.
• Political prisoners.
• Physical attacks on and criminal prosecution of journalists, lawyers, writers, bloggers, dissidents, petitioners, and others as well as their family members;
• Severe restrictions of religious freedom.

Why it matters: Pointing out America's shortcomings while denying its own serves China's broader strategy of slowly chipping away at America's credibility globally.

Go deeper:

• 1.5 million Muslims could be detained in China's Xinjiang: academic(Reuters)
• U.S. Steps Up Criticism of China for Detentions in Xinjiang (The New York Times)
• China's assault on human rights is the one thing bringing Washington together (The Washington Post)