U.N. Move To Condemn China’s Abuses Fails

After a vigorous lobbying campaign that divided European nations, China on Tuesday defeated an effort by a United Nations group to condemn its human rights record, preventing even debate on the issue. The vote was 27-17.

It was the seventh consecutive year that resolutions assailing China have failed before the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Beijing’s victory came this year by its widest margin ever.

China’s ambassador, Wu Kianmin, labeled the resolution “an outrageous distortion of China’s reality,” and said China had followed its own course for 5,000 years and would continue to do so.