China is increasingly resembling the American South before the Civil War. Northerners may not have particularly liked the South's
"peculiar institution" of slavery, but the abolitionists were a decided and derided minority. Southern paranoia about Northern intentions to disrupt the South's legitimate way of life and values led the South to seek salvation in such congressional laws as the Fugitive Slave Act that allowed slave owners to "repossess" their property in the North. This is what eventually changed Northern attitudes on the issue.
China, given her economic position, could effectively shrug off Western criticism. It is diplomatically shooting itself in the foot by its strident reaction to such criticism.
The Chinese government has reacted to recent criticism of Chinese human rights policy by stepping up repressive activity. It sends some human rights activists to reeducation camps (something that the police there can do without having recourse to judicial proceedings); it stepped up to arrests against lawyers and journalists or alternatively dismissed them from their work. Church members were incarcerated for public worship.
China made European Commission Vice President and presumed foreign policy supreme figure, Catherine Ashton, into an entity a step up from her usual nonentity status, by sharply criticizing the European Union's call to release Chinese detained for exercising their right to freedom of expression. Ashton issues at least one pronouncement a day about various issues and it is only the Chinese who have chosen to take her seriously. The Chinese replied that dissident artist Ai Weiwei (who helped design the stadium for the Beijing Olympics) was a criminal and foreign support for him had confused and angered the Chinese people.
The English language Global Times joined the campaign with an article by one Stuart Wiggins, described as a freelance journalist living in Beijing. Wiggins claimed that criticism of China was fueled by Western apprehension over China's rising power and that "in a world dominated by Western media outlets, no amount of diplomacy can prevent China from receiving censure."
The ultimate Chinese reaction was in response to the State Department's Annual Report on Human Rights condemned by China as a "malicious design to pursue hegemony". To accuse someone of seeking hegemony is perhaps the worst charge the Chinese could make.
During the Cold War it was used to refer to the Americans; when the Soviet Union replaced the United States as the most potent threat the Russians were accused of hegemony and later on the term was used again to refer to the Americans.
Secretary of State Clinton has no intention of applying real pressure on China. She was recently called on the carpet by the Senate for refusing to release money to combat Internet censorship in China. China hysterically replied to Clinton and others by issuing its own human rights report that sharply condemns the United States. The report ran in the Chinese news agency Xinhua and in the official People's Daily.
To quote the indictment, the United States is deficient in protecting life, property and personal security as it has the world's highest incidence of violent crimes. The US tramples on civil and political rights by violating civil liberties. The United States unemployment rate makes a mockery of economic social and cultural rights. Racial discrimination "has permeated every aspect of social life" The situation regarding the rights of women and children in the United States is bothering (sic)". Not content with violating the rights of its own citizens "the United States has a notorious record of international human rights violations".
By such hysteria, China has guaranteed that even Americans who express admiration for China's achievements are going to take umbrage.