The United States has expanded its so-called security interests to almost every corner of the world

Chinese report

The report accuses the US Government of ignoring abuses at home while violating human rights elsewhere by building military bases and stationing hundreds of thousands of troops all over the world.

Our correspondent in Beijing says the report reflects growing concern in China at the expansion of US military operations overseas since 11 September.

Last week the US State Department released its annual report on human rights around the world, in which it described the situation in China as poor.

The report comes after several thousand US troops were stationed in Kyrgyzstan, on China's Central Asian border, and US forces returned to the Philippines.

It says American forces are now stationed in more than 140 countries and the US has "expanded its so-called security interests to almost every corner of the world".

'Blind eye'

But the report, compiled by the State Council Information Office, saves its most scathing words for America's record on human rights.

It points to a high murder rate, racism, sexual discrimination and poverty.

The US sees itself as "world judge of human rights", the report says

While "distorting human rights conditions in many countries and regions in the world including China", it says, the US "turns a blind eye to its own".

The Chinese accusations, which also refer to alleged US human rights abuses in other countries, include:

• police brutality, overcrowded prisons and an inhumane system of keeping prisoners sentenced to capital punishment on "death row";
• widespread sexual abuse of children by members of the clergy in "the greatest scandal in the United States following the Enron case";
• fostering a "culture beautifying violence" through media "inundated with violent content";
• maintaining a "Third World" of poverty at the heart of a superpower.

Our correspondent, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, says China is long used to being the target of American criticism of its human rights record and is now hitting back.