Lynn C. Woolsey: “China is facing growing criticism for its record on human rights. It has been condemned for its recent crackdown on…”

“China is facing growing criticism for its record on human rights. It has been condemned for its recent crackdown on Tibet, its oppression of dissidents at home, and its support for the regime in Sudan that is responsible for the genocide in Darfur. Russia is another country that has received justifiable criticism for cracking down on freedom. President Putin has rolled back many of the democratic gains Russia made after the Cold War. And the recent elections in Russia were a sham, clearly rigged to favor Putin's candidate. Because of all of this, you would think that the people of the world would have a much higher opinion of the United States, the world's greatest democracy, than they would have of anti-democratic China and Russia. But that just isn't the case. Incredibly, according to the most recent annual survey of international attitudes, America is viewed more negatively around the world than China and Russia. The Study of World Opinion was conducted by the BBC World Survey. According to the BBC, America's image abroad plummeted after our invasion of Iraq in the year 2003, and continued to decline in the following years. The latest survey, which was released on April 1, however, has shown some good news. America's image is a little better than it was last year. But it is not because the world has suddenly changed its opinion about the Bush administration and its policies in Iraq.”