Smith noted that shortly after becoming U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton stated clearly that she was not going to allow human rights to ‘interfere’ with economic issues with China, a clear sign the Obama Administration was downgrading human rights as a priority.
“Obama didn’t say a word about any of the human rights crimes of Chinese President Hu Jintao when he visited Washington earlier this year; instead he hosted a state dinner for him.”
“The Vice President said he ‘fully understood’ the one child policy, and therefore he’s not ‘second guessing.’ The one child per couple policy is cruel, inhumane and the most egregious systematic attack on women ever. For the Vice President to publically state that he fully understands the one child policy is unconscionable. He and all of us should be defending the women of China from this state-sponsored cruelty of forced abortion and forced sterilization, not supporting and enabling it. Chinese women need advocates, not enablers. This Administration has long enabled this cruel policy by its silence and financial support for organizations like UNFPA that support the Chinese government’s brutal program. Tragically, it now offers its public support, as well.”
Smith earlier this year asked Clinton at a congressional hearing if she knew if forced abortions were brought up at meetings between Obama and Hu, to which she replied she did not know.
“Now we know,” Smith said. “They sold out. They’re just fine with the coercion.”
Smith recounted the recent congressional testimony of Chai Ling one of the Tiananmen Square democracy activists in 1989. Today she is Founder and President of All Girls Allowed, a group dedicated to ending the slaughter of innocent unborn babies in China that disproportionately impacts far more girls than boys.
“At a congressional press conference in June, Chai Ling pointed out that tens of millions of men will never marry in China due to the effects of gendercide, and that already there are some 37 million more males than females,” Smith said. “She then said sadly that the three most dangerous words—often a death sentence in China today are, ‘It’s a girl.’
“Since 1979, brothers and sisters have been illegal in most of China,” Smith said. “If a woman is caught pregnant without explicit government authorization to give birth, she is forced to abort. Unwed mothers are all compelled to abort. Handicapped unborn children, if discovered, are killed by the state. Ruinous fines—up to ten times the combined salary of both parents—jail, torture, property confiscation, loss of employment, education opportunities, housing and health care are all weapons aggressively used by the family planning cadres to ensure compliance. No wonder over 500 Chinese women commit suicide each day in China.”
In his statement, Biden talked about the other set of concerns about the one-child policy — demographic — in that China will increasingly have similar problems to the United States in terms of paying for entitlements to the growing number of people retiring who will need government support to make ends meet and a smaller population of younger workers able to take care of those obligations.
“But as I was talking to some of your leaders, you share a similar concern here in China. You have no safety net,” Biden said in the prepared remarks. “Your policy has been one which I fully understand — I’m not second-guessing — of one child per family. The result being that you’re in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people. Not sustainable.”
“So hopefully we can act in a way on a problem that’s much less severe than yours, and maybe we can learn together from how we can do that,” he continued.
Although he highlighted the demographic concerns, his statement that the United States is “not second-guessing” the forced-abortion, one-child policy and his essentially ignoring the forced abortions, sterilizations and other human rights abuses that accompany it, will surely upset pro-life advocates who have campaigned extensively against the one-child policy and supported the victims of it.
As Smith noted, the speech represents a second missed opportunity for the Obama administration to present a clear position against the policy that is one of the most egregious global human rights abuses in modern times.
Biden’s comments follow a visit earlier this year from China President Hu Jintao, where President Barack Obama apparently failed to ask the foreign leader about the problem of forced abortions on Chinese women. Ask during a U.S. House hearing, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton couldn’t say whether Obama brought up the massive human rights abuse millions of Chinese women endure if they break the country’s one-child family planning rules.
