The police shooting of Timothy Thomas last year, which sparked the worst riots in Cincinnati since 1968, is now officially an international incident.

        The government of the People's Republic of China condemned the shooting as evidence of racial discrimination in the U.S. in its recent report on the “Human Rights Record of the United States in 2001.”

        “On April 7, 2001, a white police officer shot to death an unarmed black youth in Cincinnati, Ohio, as he was trying to run away after breaking traffic rules,” the Chinese report said. “The incident once again aroused worldwide attention to the problem of racial discrimination in the United States.”

        The report is an annual ritual of diplomatic one-upmanship between the U.S. and China.

        Each year, the U.S. State Department releases a comprehensive report on human rights abuses across the world. Its 2001 report mentions, for example, the torture and killing of adherents of the banned Falun Gong religious movement by Chinese police.

        Each year, the Chinese government responds in kind.

        “Once again the United States, assuming the role of "world judge of human rights,' has distorted human rights conditions in many countries and regions of the world, including China, and accused them of human rights violations, all the while turning a blind eye to its own human rights-related problems,” the Chinese report begins.

        The report also mentions the oft-quoted Brookings Institution study which found that Cincinnati was the eighth most segregated city in the country and added, “Even though the world is already in the 21st century, racial segregation is practiced by virtually all schools in the city.”

        At a recent State Department press briefing, spokesman Richard Boucher declined to debate the Chinese report point-by-point, saying “it is perhaps not as carefully researched” as other reports.

        “Our journalists write freely about human rights in the United States. Our courts, our legislators, debate and discuss and decide on issues of human rights every day. It's an active issue in the United States, and we do a pretty good job reporting on ourselves,” he said. “And that's about all I think I have to say on it.”

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