March 6, 2005

China criticizes U.S. human rights in broken English

Yes, this could be a headline from The Onion, and yes, it's true.

Take a look and have a laugh, though neither the irony nor the validity of China's critique ultimately are funny.

The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2004, as stated by the Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, March 3, 2005, according to the English People's Daily Online.

"In 2004 the atrocity of US troops abusing Iraqi POWs exposed the dark side of human rights performance of the United States. The scandal shocked the humanity and was condemned by the international community."

I would give credit to the notorious Dartmouth publication where I learned of this document but a) I have reason to believe they've been stealing from us and 2) they didn't milk it for all its humor, so screw them.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:18 AM

    Unless my English is broken, I'm fairly sure the only error in that quotation is "the" preceding "humanity".

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  2. OK, you're right, and the whole thing is pretty intelligible. There are just some really funny phrases here and there, and you'd think they could find a copyeditor or two to look over such an important document, which does have a lot of good criticisms in it.

    I find this metaphor particularly striking:

    "A collected works, Zensor USA, revealed that whenever the faults of government dignitaries or big companies were touched, the strong American press censorship system would snap at the journalists who insisted on investigation and made them the last sacrificial lamb."

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