Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

At a time when the European coronavirus death toll exceeded 500,000, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on Xinjiang, demanding EU countries impose sanctions on Xinjiang officials and ban imports, including cotton, which are allegedly linked to so-called "forced labor."

Raphaël Glucksmann, a French member of the EU Parliament, emotionally imitated renowned French novelist Émile Zola, saying, "I accuse" multiple times during his speech in parliament. Anyone familiar with the situation in Xinjiang would feel funny and even a bit gross when seeing the performance. 

China has not launched a war for decades. It has made brilliant achievements in poverty alleviation and improvement in people's livelihood in the 21st century. It has spared no effort to save lives during the COVID-19 pandemic and has taken the lead in putting the virus under control. It emphasizes national unity, offering preferential treatment to ethnic minorities in terms of access to educational opportunities. How can such a country possibly persecute one of its ethnic groups? 

How can Glucksmann be so arrogant to portray this advancing oriental power so dark only based on hearsay? Sir, you are spellbound. Wake up. 

Despite all the controversies, China's human rights situation is significantly better than that of many Western countries in the second half of 2020. During the period, the number of Chinese fatalities from the novel coronavirus is small, Chinese people enjoy a life as that before the epidemic outbreak, while almost 37,000 people have died in Europe just in the past week. At least for now, the European Parliament is not qualified to clamor for human rights toward China. They should focus on themselves, making contributions to avoid falling into a winter of humanitarian disaster. 

Most resolutions of the European Parliament cannot be legally enforced, and many European countries will not blindly follow its anti-China bills. This latest resolution over Xinjiang received very little attention in Europe and people there are mostly talking about President Emmanuel Macron's positive diagnosis of COVID-19. But Global Times decided to respond to it because we have seen a trend - Western public opinion has lost its basic objectivity on China-related issues, and labels have crushed their rationality and judgment. Ignorance and arrogance prevail. 

Setting aside Western countries' morality, slandering China, a vigorous and peaceful country that underlines cooperation with the outside world, is anti-intellectual. Some Westerners believe they are more concerned about the well-being of the people in Xinjiang, and they shoulder greater moral responsibilities in this regard. They have obviously not woken up. 

They haggle over every ounce on foreign trade. Their anti-immigration sentiment in society is on the rise. Amid the first wave of the epidemic in Europe, there were countries intercepting others' shipments of masks. And now they seem inconsolable over the human rights in Xinjiang. Don't they find their logic messy? 

The goal of governance in Xinjiang is to restore peace and stability, eradicate terrorism and extremism, stop the tragedy like the beheading of the French teacher, which occurred not long ago. Similar misfortunes had happened too many times in Xinjiang. In the worst cases, terrorists' indiscriminate killings claimed hundreds of lives in one attack. Xinjiang is determined to change the situation, and it has. 

Westerners may have different views on how Xinjiang realizes stability. But the object of their condemnation is not the violent terrorist activities in the region, but the measures and process China controlled terrorism and extremism there. They have stood on the wrong position, on the opposite side of justice, which is centered on peace and tranquility.

Their bias over China's political system, and the sense of crisis over China's rise have led to the above-mentioned confusion. Chinese people are friendly to Europe, and we can't understand why cursing China has become the political correctness in European public opinion. It is hoped European political elites will not be misled by the US, which badmouths China out of the pursuit of safeguarding its hegemony. It is time for them to return to common sense and reshape their perceptions about China.