After the United States released a report on human rights in China on Thursday, the communist country hit back with its own report on the "terrible human rights record" in the US.
In a scathing report, titled 'Human Rights Record of the United States in 2014', China rebuked the US over its problems of "rampant use of guns, frequent violent crimes and the excessive use of force by police".
"Plenty of facts show that, in 2014, the US, a self-proclaimed human rights defender, saw no improvements in its existent human rights issues, but reported numerous new problems," the report said.
The Chinese report cited the Ferguson shooting of 18-year-old black youth Michael Brown that had led to national and international outrage and protests.
The report also came down heavily on the US' Central Investigation Agency (CIA) for its torture techniques, which were revealed through recently declassified reports and mentioned methods such as sleep deprivation, water-boarding and rectal feeding.
China also accused the US of not fully protecting the rights of women and children.
"Each year, 2.1 million American women on average were assaulted by men. Three females were murdered by their partner each day, and four females died each day as a result of abuse," the Chinese report said.
The issue of American surveillance of other countries, even friendly ones, has often become a matter of political embarrassment for the nation, and China was quick to jump on this point in its report.
"National Security Agency and other intelligence-gathering apparatus of the U.S. for a long time have spied on world leaders and civilians," China said.
"The U.S. is a country with grim problems of racial discrimination, and institutional discrimination against ethnic minorities continued," the report added.
The Chinese report came in retaliation to the US State Department's "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2014", in which it accused China of repression of independent opinion and use of force on Tibetan activists.
China "enforced disappearance and strict house arrest, including house arrest of family members, to prevent public expression of independent opinions," the US report had said.
While the US had not singled out China in its report and had also heavily criticised other nations such as Russia and Iran, China retaliated in full measure, mostly relying on news reports, largely from American news portals, to remind the US of its own human rights issues.
