Dutch Embassy pokes China for human rights abuses

Jeremy Goldkorn

Quartz reports (porous paywall):

It was supposed to be a good wish to ring in the new year but for many web surfers in China there were bad vibes about the message posted on a popular Chinese social network by the embassy of the Netherlands in Beijing.

The message, which emphasized the importance of human rights, contained a screenshot of the Chinese court document (link in Mandarin) that sentenced a Chinese Christian pastor to nine years in prison.

The message was posted by the embassy on its official Weibo account [in Chinese] on New Year’s Day. “One of the wishes for 2020 that the Netherlands has is for all countries globally to implement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights unconditionally,” it said.

Naturally, the mouth-frothing Global Times responded: Observers, netizens slam Netherlands interfering in China’s judiciary after pastor conviction (also in Chinese here).

—Jeremy Goldkorn

Jeremy Goldkorn worked in China for 20 years as an editor and entrepreneur. He is editor-in-chief of The China Project, and co-founder of the Sinica Podcast. Read more

Twitter

Suggested for you

Society & Culture

This Land Is Not Your Land

Yangyang Cheng

China accuses India of ‘vile’ acts on border

Lucas Niewenhuis

‘The Chinese leadership has miscalculated’: Deepa Ollapally on the India-China border conflict

Lucas Niewenhuis

Chinese basketball returns after five-month absence

Gerry Harker

The youth are angry, but it’s business as usual for Hong Kong’s corporate elite as they embrace national security law

Ryan Tang

China launches final satellite for BeiDou, its GPS competitor

Lucas Niewenhuis