New | 'Let Chinese women judge for themselves': China hits back at criticism against its women's rights record

Beijing says criticism of nation's women's rights record groundless, misinformed; Hillary Clinton's tweet slamming Xi aimed at raising her popularity in US presidential polls

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Chinese President Xi Jinping attends the UN General Assembly on Monday. Photo: AP

Published: 11:29pm, 28 Sep 2015

Beijing on Monday hit back at US politicians and rights activists who denounced China's women's rights record, calling some remarks "groundless".

A Chinese newspaper compared the United States' presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton to rival candidate Donald Trump after she sent out a tweet saying it was "shameless" for President Xi Jinping to preside over a UN conference on gender equality because of China's detention of women, including five who were held for 37 days this year over their plans to advocate against sexual harassment on public transport.

Clinton tweeted on Sunday: "Xi hosted a meeting on women's rights at the UN while persecuting feminists? Shameless."

The Communist Party-run said on Monday that Clinton's words were "vulgar, extremely lacking in manners" and called to mind "big mouth" Trump. It suggested she was "alarmed and jealous" at Trump's excellent showing in polls and so had resorted to using his style of language.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Xi Jinping's US state visit

Trump has accused China of stealing US jobs and called for a state dinner for Xi to be cancelled after a drop in China's stock markets and its currency devaluation led to a tumble in US stocks.

Rights advocates highlighted 20 cases of women unjustly detained around the world for their beliefs or defence of others' rights, including Chinese journalist Gao Yu, 71, who was in April jailed for seven years for providing state secrets to foreign contacts. They also pointed to Liu Xia, wife of jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, who has been kept incommunicado since 2010.

Li Junhua, director general of the foreign ministry's international organisations and conferences department, said some criticisms were "groundless" and others, misinformed.

"I believe those in the best position to judge the state of women's issues in China are Chinese people, particularly Chinese women," Li said. "The women were arrested not because they were striking for women's rights but because they violated China's laws."