CHINA-CANADA: CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTER'S REBUKE TO CANADIAN JOURNALIST

 At the jpint press conference of the Chinese and Canadian Foreign Ministers in Ottawa on June 1, 2016, a Canadian journalist who asked the Canadian Foreign Minister a question about a Canadian couple, Kevin Garratt and Julia Dawn Garratt, who were detained in China in 2014. Ms. Garratt was later released on bail, but last January, Kevin Garratt was charged with espionage and stealing state secrets while he lived near the border with North Korea. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi intervened to answer and said: “I want to make a response to the questions that the journalist has just raised concerning China. Your question was full of prejudice against China and an arrogance that comes from I don’t know where. This is totally unacceptable to me. Do you understand China? Have you been to China? Do you know that China has come from a poor and backward state and lifted more than 600 million people from poverty? Do you know that China is now the world’s second biggest economy with $8,000 per capita? If we weren’t able to properly protect human rights, would China have achieved such great development? Do you know that China has incorporated protecting human rights into its Constitution? I want to tell you that it’s the Chinese people who most understand China’s human rights record — not you, but the Chinese people themselves. You have no right to speak on this. The Chinese people have the right to speak. So please don’t raise such irresponsible questions again. China welcomes all well-meaning suggestions, but we reject all groundless accusations.”

 






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