China’s Communist Party wants its citizens to know about the world’s human rights abuses. Just not its own

Under pressure from Western nations over human rights concerns in its far west, China’s government has taken an unlikely turn.

It has become a vocal advocate of progressive causes — as long as they’re not in China. 

In recent weeks, China’s Foreign Ministry spokespeople have been making statements and firing off tweets in English slamming Australia, the EU, Canada and the US for past and present human rights problems.

It is a marked departure from China’s once-touted policy of “non-interference”.

The rhetorical broadsides are in response to increasing criticism and, in some cases, sanctions over China’s treatment of minority Uyghurs in the far western Xinjiang region, which the US government and the Canadian parliament have termed…