What Does China Think Of The CIA Torture Report?

By Shannon Tiezzi
The Diplomat

2012 Witness Against Torture march in front of the White House.

On December 9, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a 528 page report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) use of torture during the Bush administration. The document, a summary of the original 6,000+ page report, painted a horrifying picture of the use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and forced feedings on over 100 detainees – all carried out with little to no oversight or accountability. The Senate committee also accused the CIA of both downplaying the extremity and frequency of harsh interrogation technique and exaggerating their effectiveness in procuring crucial information. The world – including China – has responded with dismay. China has also seized upon the report as a tool for rebutting U.S. criticisms of China’s own human rights practices.

The Obama administration has both condemned the use of torture and sought to distance itself from the practice. U.S. President Barack Obama ended the controversial CIA interrogation program shortly after taking office in 2009. In a written statement responding to the report, Obama denounced the “harsh methods” as “inconsistent with our values as [a] nation.” “[T]hese techniques did significant damage to America’s standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies and partners,” Obama said, noting the interrogation methods did not serve U.S. national security interests.

In an attempt to place distance between the report and the Obama administration, a senior administration official stressed that the now-defunct interrogation program is “not representative of the way we deal with the threat from terrorism that we still face today… We hope and have confidence that foreign governments and foreign publics will understand that this is a program that was ended years ago.” While acknowledging the mistakes made in the past, however, Obama expressed confidence that “the United States of America will remain the greatest force for freedom and human dignity that the world has ever known.”

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