China's government-run publication and propaganda outlet Global Times called out the U.S. response to the recent condo collapse in Florida, which officially took the lives of 18 people and left over a hundred more missing. The Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida collapsed exactly a week ago today, on June 24 at about 1:30 a.m.
Many are still hoping to find loved ones alive, while search and rescue, as well as religious groups, are providing support for those affected by the tragedy. Now, the Chinese media compared infrastructure in the U.S. to that in China and criticized American rescue efforts that have retrieved 18 dead so far. Up to 145 remain missing.
According to Breitbart, the Global Times released another opinion piece that attempted to smear the American democratic governing system and hold it accountable for the Florida condo collapse. In its first attempt at criticizing the U.S., the Chinese media compared the tragedy to infrastructure in China and hailed their own rescue operations and protocols that prevent such events. The article unsurprisingly failed to mention the CCP's involvement in several major disasters such as the 2015 explosion of a Tianjin factory that left 173 dead.
The Chinese media claims that the rescue operations going on following the Florida condo collapse are "a blatant disrespect and disregard for life." The opinion piece further argued, "The US' human rights fairy tale cannot hold water anymore. No matter how Washington brags, the results show the US' attention has not been devoted to the basic protection of people's lives."
The author even went on to call the U.S. a "third-world country," taking the words of Surfside, Florida Mayor Charles Burkett and spinning it. Fox News reported Burkett saying, "Buildings like this do not fall in America. This is a third-world phenomenon and it's shocking."
But Burkett assured the public, "We have heroes, we have all the resources we need. We are not short on resources, we are just short on good luck. We need a lot more good luck."
The Chinese state media took this opportunity however, to lambaste the U.S., saying, "China's human rights view has effectively guaranteed people's well-being and prosperous life, while the US' human rights boast aimed at showing off without substantial measures."
This is an irony as the CCP has created a "human rights emergency" in Hong Kong after it imposed a strict national security in 2020, Amnesty International claims, as reported by Voice Of America. Just this week, the human rights watchdog released a report detailing the effects of the national security law one year after it was implemented by Beijing in 2020 to address the anti-government protests that began in 2019.
The Amnesty International report, which analyzed the national security law's impact on Hong Kong's judicial system based on court documents, hearing notes, judgements, and interviews with activists, concluded that China used the law to "carry out a wide range of human rights violations."
"In one year, the National Security Law has put Hong Kong on a rapid path to becoming a police state and created a human rights emergency for the people living there," Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific regional director Yamini Mishra said.
But China's biggest human rights abuses are happening in their own backyard, as in April, the U.S. released its annual State Department human rights report that declared China is engaged in "genocide and crimes against humanity," USA Today reported.
