The US State Department’s so called 2024 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which severely criticizes Hong Kong for its national security laws and detention of Jimmy Lai is seriously flawed.
In fact, it is hardly worth the paper it’s written on. But it did draw criticism from the Hong Kong SAR Government, and others, noting that “the US is once again overriding the rule of law with politics and politicising human rights issues. Such attempt to interfere in Hong Kong's law-based governance and undermine the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong is doomed to fail."
Specifically, the government responded to criticism of the Correctional Services Department and its treatment of Jimmy Lai currently facing treason-associated charges. The rights of [prisoners] are safeguarded through a system of regular visits by independent visitors, namely Justices of the Peace (JPs), who are vested with the statutory duties to inspect the prisons once or twice every month..."
The Chinese foreign ministry office in Hong Kong also expressed its “firm opposition” to the US report.
It said that the US was “rehashing” cases involving “anti-China, destabilising forces in Hong Kong” and openly supporting them. It urged the US to stop interfering in Hong Kong’s affairs and to respect China’s sovereignty and the city’s rule of law.
“This fully exposes the US’s politicisation and instrumentalisation of human rights issues, as well as its sinister attempt to use Hong Kong to contain China’s development — an act that is despicable,” the statement read.
The report is very different from last year’s document, issued under the Democratic administration of Joe Biden. Compared to previous editions, sections in respect for gay rights and analyses of gender-based violence have disappeared.
Under the current President Trump administration, for example, the report on Israel is much shorter than its 2023 Biden version, which ran for 103 pages. The new Trump report is just nine pages long.
There is no reference to the thousands of Palestinian deaths in Gaza, which the Hamas-run Ministry of Health estimates at over 61,000. There is also no mention of the desperate humanitarian situation or Israel’s restrictions on food supplies. The section on war crimes and genocide concludes with two lines: “Terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah continue to engage in the indiscriminate targeting of Israeli civilians in violation of the law of armed conflict.” That’s it!
The reports started in the late ‘70s as a legal requirement of the US Congress which passed laws in 1961 requiring the State Department to report on human rights abroad as part of the Foreign Assistant Act. So, effectively the US is compelled to issue the report each year.
China, fed up with the US’s acrimonious ‘holier than thou attitude’ towards the world, hit back at the State Department’s country reports and produced its own Human Rights Record of the United States in 1998. Its latest report on 2023, published last year, targets gun violence in the US when 43,000 were killed, an average of 117 deaths per day. And police brutally persist with 1247 deaths attributed to police violence. It also noted that the US accounts for 25 per cent of the world’s prison population even though it has less than 5 per cent of the global population, earning the title of a “carceral state.”
Even some US politicians draw on the hypocrisy of the report. A new report by Democrat senator Jon Ossoff has catalogued hundreds of alleged human rights abuses in US immigration detention centres, including physical and sexual abuse, mistreatment of pregnant women, and inadequate medical care. The report said that it had received or identified 510 “credible reports” of human rights abuse against individuals held in immigration detention centres since 20 January 2025. These included reports of overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions, inadequate food and water, exposure to extreme temperatures, denial of access to attorneys, and family separations.
Another government that is a close ally of the Trump administration, El Salvador, has seen its ratings greatly improved, and the report’s dedicated space has been significantly reduced: comments take up 75 per cent less than in previous editions. Mentions of the country’s prison conditions, which Amnesty International had described as “inhumane,” and allegations of arbitrary arrests have disappeared.
Brazil, on the other hand, whose relationship with Washington has plummeted and on which the Trump administration has imposed new tariffs due to the house arrest of former president Jair Bolsonaro — a former international ally of Trump — is vilified in the report. The State Department attacks the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, arguing that the restrictions it imposes on access to internet content disproportionately harm the far-right leader’s supporters.
Mark Pinkstone
** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **
As Hong Kong has been developing in leaps and bounds, so has its medical services increased to meet local demands.
And with planned new hospitals in the Northern Metropolis along with current expansion and construction development, expertise is expected to increase and the dreaded waiting times for patients will be considerably reduced.
Hong Kong is poised to be the medical centre of Asia.
Currently, Hong Kong has about 36,000 beds in 43 public hospitals and 14 private hospitals. And already they are overcrowded, aided undoubtedly by an increasing aging population. Patients have to wait up to two hours for a consultation in public hospitals and up to a year or more for onward specialised bookings for appointment.
But that is about to change. Opening on December 11 in Tseung Kwan O will be the 400-bed Chinese Medicine Hospital of Hong Kong run by the Baptist University under the umbrella of the Health Bureau of the government and not to be confused with the Hospital Authority which runs all public hospitals and clinics in Hong Kong.
This is a major breakthrough for Chinese medicine (CM) to be fully integrated with research into western-Chinese medicines while serving the community. It will be the flagship for the 18 Chinese medicine clinics already operating in all districts in Hong Kong.
In its first year of operation, it will provide only outpatient 25 beds and day-patient services and six specialised CM services – internal medicine, external medicine, gynaecology, paediatrics, orthopaedics and traumatology, and acupuncture and moxibustion. It will also provide 12 special disease programs including those for elderly degenerative diseases and stroke rehabilitation.
Inpatient services will start from late next year, with other services expanding year by year, including the remaining 11 special disease programs. It is expected that by the end of 2030, the hospital will provide full inpatient services with its 400 patient beds, as well as outpatient services of 400 000 annual attendances.
Construction is also well underway and above the foundations for the North District Hospital (NDH) extension in Sheung Shui. The expansion of NDH mainly covers the construction of a new hospital block, refurbishment, alteration and addition to existing hospital building, and the provision of associated internal roadworks as well as external and landscaping works. Upon completion of the expansion project in about 2028, the hospital will provide about 1,500 additional beds, atop of its 680 existing beds.
And then comes the mother of all hospitals: The Northern Metropolis Hospital in Ngau Tam Mei, south of Yuen Long, is developing a new integrated medical teaching and research hospital which will become the flagship hospital of the Northern Metropolis with about 3 000 beds, providing comprehensive healthcare services for the new population in the area.
Last year in his policy address, the Chief Executive John Lee announced plans for developing a new integrated medical teaching and research hospital which will become the flagship hospital of the Northern Metropolis, providing comprehensive healthcare services.
The area is a goldmine for development. Representing about one third of Hong Kong’s total land area, existing agricultural land and fishponds will be turned into a massive hub for international scientific and technical research and development.
In the First Hospital Development Plan, there are three projects in two clusters, including the expansion of North District Hospital, the redevelopment of Prince of Wales Hospital, and the extension of Operating Theatre Block for Tuen Mun Hospital. It is anticipated that a total of 1 950 additional beds and other hospital facilities will be provided by 2031 in the New Territories after the completion of the three projects, bringing the physical bed capacity in the east and west clusters in the New Territories to about 12 000 beds.
Most importantly on the backburner is a decision by the Chief Executive in Council (ExCo) last year that a site of about two hectares be reserved in the San Tin Technopole (between Yuen Long and Sheung Shui) for healthcare facilities “which may include private hospital use.”
A private hospital in the New Territories opens up many possibilities, including medical tourism.
The Chinese medical hospital will draw in many tourists from the mainland and Asia seeking medical help through traditional Chinese and western medicine methods. A tourism hospital situated along the Chinese boundary will boost tourism figures ten-fold.
A case in point is the Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand. It is a classic example of how the private sector can benefit in healthcare. Founded in 1980, Bumrungrad International Hospital has been a global pioneer in providing world-class healthcare services and international patient support for nearly four decades. The hospital is an internationally accredited, multi-specialty hospital listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand since 1989. It is, perhaps the largest private hospital in Southeast Asia, caring for more than 1.1 million patients annually from more than 190 countries.
