US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attends a joint press conference in Warsaw, Poland, Feb. 14, 2019. (Photo: Xinhua)

The US is the "stain of the century" for the wars it has started worldwide, which have led to humanitarian disasters, turning thousands into refugees, Chinese experts said, refuting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's criticism of China's policies on the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. 

Pompeo on Thursday called China's treatment of its Uyghur people the "stain of the century" and accused China of pressuring countries not to attend a US-hosted conference on religious freedom, Reuters reported.

"China is home to one of the worst human rights crises of our time; it is truly the stain of the century," Pompeo said.

"The US is the true stain of the 21st century since it started several wars for its geostrategic interests, which has caused great humanitarian disasters and made terrorism spread globally. What the US has done is the biggest damage to the development of the global human rights protection work," Qian Jinyu, executive dean of the Human Rights Institution of Northwest University of Political Science and Law in Shaanxi Province, told the Global Times. 

"Pompeo himself is also the stain of the US. He can never get rid of seeing the world as a CIA official - always thinking others as the bad guy with a sordid mind. In the diplomatic fields globally, almost no one likes him. Diplomats are supposed to make as many friends as they can, but Pompeo has done the opposite to offend as many as he can," said Li Haidong, a professor with the China Foreign Affairs University's Institute of International Relations, told the Global Times.

Losing moral authority 

Xinjiang has taken a series of measures on anti-terrorism and de-radicalization, which have brought stability and peaceful development to the region while protecting local residents' interests. However, Pompeo and other US politicians choose not to see this and insist in distorting the facts, Qian said. 

"The US had long lost its moral authority on criticizing other countries' human rights when it applied double standards in criticizing others but doing the same in disguise of 'national interests,'" Qian said.

A total of 37 countries, including many Muslim majority nations, signed a letter to the UN Human Rights Council supporting China's Xinjiang policies. 

Pompeo congratulated countries which had defied Chinese pressure, while adding "If you have declined to attend for the same region, we take note," Reuters reported.

The remarks are blatant threat to countries which would make fair judgments on China's Xinjiang policies and a show of US hegemony, experts say.

US politicians never see or admit China's development on religion and human rights since they stay in touch with those who have been identified as separatists and members of heresy. One-sided words cannot represent China's current developments and those who buy these words refuse to know China in an objective way, Li said. 

According to Li, US policies toward China in recent years have always relied on groundless guesswork, and that's why the US is tumbling.

Experts have also noted that China and the US are still trying to solve ongoing trade friction while the US side is using different cards like Xinjiang and Hong Kong to pressure China.

Despite China's hope to improve such friction, the US is using methods to cause trouble to the relationship, which won't offer anything positive during negotiations, Li said. 

Not out of concern

Those who continue to overblow China's Xinjiang policies do not care about Xinjiang people. They want to find a foreign backer and seek personal gains by criticizing China, Xu Jianying, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Research Center for Chinese Borderland History and Geography, told the Global Times.

Instead of reflecting on its own problems on treating religious people and ethnic groups, as well as its violations on religious groups under the excuse of national security, the US is trying to interfere in other countries' domestic affairs, Xu said, noting US human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in March 2003. 

Pompeo has long been the Trump administration's spokesperson for slandering China. His remarks reveal the US and Pompeo himself have never given up playing the role of "teacher" to other countries on human rights and religion - using superior minds and bias to judge non-US countries and situations in non-Western countries, Li explained.

A survey from the Pew Research Center released in July 2017 found that 75 percent of Muslim respondents said there was heavy discrimination against Muslims in the US. 

US President Donald Trump met with a group of so-called Chinese religious figures in the White House on Wednesday, including Jewher Ilham, daughter of Ilham Tohti. 

Tohti was given a life sentence in China for splitting the country on September 23, 2014. As a teacher at Minzu University of China, Ilham spread thoughts of separation at classes, instigated isolation and hatred, and colluded with overseas separatists to divide the country, the Xinhua News Agency reported.