The Chinese communist dictatorship called on the United States to ban guns through a recent editorial in a state-run media outlet late last month.
The editorial, titled "China Can Offer Lessons to U.S. in Protecting Human Rights," ran in the Global Times, an organ of the Chinese government, on Feb. 22 after the shooting in Parkland, Fla. It first applauded protests against the government before advocating for disarming civilians.
"Thousands of protesters, led by survivors of last week's shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, congregated at the Florida State Capitol building Wednesday," said the regime, which brutally slaughtered thousands of protesters during a 1989 pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square. "Their message: Never again. Never again will a murderer purchase a gun easily."
The editorial went on to argue that though the United States was "founded on the use of firearms," things in the United States are now "different from that of more than 200 years ago." It said the United States must impose new gun-control laws.
"There is an urgent need for the US to impose harsh restrictions on gun purchases nowadays," it said. "The US has witnessed mad proliferation of guns and rampant gun violence."
The editorial went on to cite an unlinked CNN report on mass shootings as partial justification for its argument.
"The US has no other choice but to adopt gun control," it said. "The right of life is the most fundamental human rights. The right to bear arms cannot overpower the individual's right to live."
The Chinese communist party has a long and well-documented history of flagrant human rights violations. It commonly violates the rights of its people through censorship, forced abortions, outlawing dissent, and even state-sanctioned killing. Former communist dictator Mao Zedong is the worst mass murderer in history with his policies killing upwards of 100 million people.
Xi Jinping, the head of the party, was recently granted sweeping new powers and effectively a lifetime appointment by the China's People's Congress, which serves as merely a symbolic body that has never vetoed a proposal from the communist party. He is now considered the most powerful communist leader in China since Mao Zedong.
Still, the Chinese government rejected criticism of its own record of human rights abuses in the editorial and instead claimed the United States not disarming its civilian population amounts to a human rights abuse.
"Washington has been pointing an accusing finger at other countries over human rights issue," the editorial said. "However, more Americans have been killed by gunfire in the country than American soldiers being killed in all US wars. It's inhumane for the US, which boasts about its human rights record, to turn a blind eye to gun violence, snub increasing calls for gun control and risk more innocent lives."
The Chinese government insisted the United States would have to adopt a civilian gun ban and pointed to its own disarming of civilians as an example of the country protecting human rights.
"The US will have to adopt gun control in the future," the editorial said. "Gun ownership in China is strictly regulated, which helps reduce gun-related crimes and deaths. The US should learn from China and genuinely protect human rights. If the US does not control its guns, problems caused by firearms in the foreseeable future will continue plaguing US society."
However, despite the claims of the Chinese government, China does experience mass shootings. Mass knife attacks are more common in the country, though, including a widely-publicized attack by political dissidents in 2014 that left 29 dead and 130 more injured.