China's state-run People's Daily Online has strongly denounced the U.S. government’s assessment that human rights conditions in China are deteriorating.

People's Daily Online argued that the U.S. government’s evaluation was based on a lack of China’s human rights initiatives, adding the assessment has hurt China's reputation.

The media outlet said that the U.S. government’s report describing China as an authoritarian state ignores the country’s historical progress made through its human rights initiatives and portrays China’s human rights conditions from a twisted perspective.

It added that the report unduly accuses the Chinese Communist Party of having an obscure internal punishment system, despite the Chinese government’s indictment of corrupt officials.