Biden Backs Off of ‘Not Second-Guessing One-Child’ Comment Made in China, No Thanks to Establishment Press
Earlier this evening, Vice President Joe Biden, through a spokesperson, backed away from his Sunday comment at a Chinese university about that nation’s “one-child” policy, wherein the state allows couples, with relatively rare exceptions, to have only one child. This of course has led to a horrible abortion death toll. A Laura Ingraham email I received this evening, corroborated by a China’s population minister cited by CNN in 2008, carries an estimate of 400 million deaths (CNN said it “prevented 400 million children from being born”). It has also led to what is probably an historically unprecedented male-female gender imbalance in the neighborhood of 43-60 million.
Biden’s comment (transcript; video) was:
You have no safety net. 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.
Biden’s backoff in the wake of intense Republican, conservative, prolife and Chinese dissident criticism is in an AFP report carried at ChannelNewsAsia.com, is far from satisfactory, and contains (in bold) what can only be considered a spectacular fib in the circumstances. To its credit, AFP also found a prominent Chinese activist for a mainland perspective on the impact of Biden’s Sunday remark:
Under fire, Biden blasts ‘repugnant’ China policies
Under fire from angry Republicans, US Vice President Joe Biden’s office said Tuesday that he firmly opposes “repugnant” Chinese population control practices like “forced abortion and sterilization.”
“The Obama administration strongly opposes all aspects of China’s coercive birth limitation policies, including forced abortion and sterilization,” Biden spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff told AFP by email.
“The vice president believes such practices are repugnant,” she said after Republican White House candidates blasted Biden for recent comments he made about Beijing’s “one-child” population control policy during a visit to China.
Biden told an audience at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, Sunday that “your policy has been one which I fully understand — I’m not second-guessing — of one child per family.”
… Barkoff pointed out that Biden, who was discussing the ratio of active workers to retirees, had also called the policy “unsustainable” and said “he was arguing against the One Child Policy to a Chinese audience.”
… The vice president’s statement also drew fire from a leader of the repressed Tiananmen Square protests, Chai Ling, who has become a born-again Christian and activist against the “one-child” policy.
“At best, it is a statement of ambiguity that gives permission to China to continue its brutal and coercive birth planning policy,” said a statement from her advocacy group, All Girls Allowed.
“At worst, it is an endorsement of the exorbitant fines, severe beatings, and forced abortions and sterilizations that are performed on thousands of Chinese families every day — an ongoing Tiananmen massacre every hour,” she said.
While it’s nice that AFP is reporting Biden’s (pathetic) attempt to backtrack, it’s likely that what he said would never have been news in the pre-New Media World:
- The Associated Press’s original coverage of Biden’s university appearance (saved here at host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) made no reference to his “one-child” comment. As of 10:30 this evening, based on the results of its main site on “Biden China” (not in quotes) the AP still has nothing on what Biden said, or even the groundswell of reaction to it.
- A New York Times search on “Biden China” (again not in quotes), as well as a reading of the paper’s reports (here, here, and here) on Biden’s trip, surfaced nothing relating to his original one-child remarks. The first identified item is from Reuters, indicating that it is very likely that it also ignored Biden’s comment in its other reporting.
- One of the Times’s items just noted has an inadvertently humorous title: “China and U.S. Choose Safe Site for Biden Visit.” Guys, there is no safe place to let Joe Biden speak.
As I see it, thirty years ago, and probably even twenty, a remark similar to Biden’s would have gone virtually unnoticed. Folks like Bill Buckley, Cal Thomas, and James Kilpatrick might have detected it and written a column or two about and might have even brought it up on CNN, but no one at the White House would have felt it necessary for the Vice President attempt to backtrack.
At least on a remark as outrageous as Biden’s latest, that can’t happen any more, even though it’s clear that the AP, New York Times, and others tried to keep it bottled up. Oh, how they must despise the entire situation. Too bad, so sad.
Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.
Here is what Biden coulda shoulda really said to his minders in Beijing: channeling Reagan 1987 Berlin wall speech, of course: this has now been published in the Taipei Times as an oped today: not one USA newswpaper will publish it, even the Washington Times refused. why?
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2011/08/23/2003511418
Longtime observers of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have said: “The ‘China question’ is open as long as the CCP rules China.”
And as long as the gates of freedom in China remain closed, as long as these ungainly scars of gates are permitted to stand, it is not the China question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all humankind.
Yet, today there is a quiet yet growing message of hope inside China, a message of triumph, where slowly people are trying to take matters into their own hands and set up a democratic movement inside the country that can finally replace the CCP.
Can this revolution happen, and will it happen?
Time will tell and history will be the judge.
Leaders of democratic countries around the world have long understood the practical importance of liberty — that just as truth can flourish only when journalists are given freedom of speech, so prosperity can come about only when the farmer and businessman enjoy economic freedom. China will learn that in time.
In fact, even now, in a limited way, China’s current leaders may be coming to understand the importance of freedom. We hear much from Beijing about a new policy of reform and openness. Some political prisoners have been released, here and there. Certain foreign news broadcasts and Internet sites are no longer being jammed. Some economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom from state control.
Are these the beginnings of profound changes in the CCP? Or are they token gestures, intended to raise false hopes in the West or to strengthen the Chinese system without changing it?
One must welcome change and openness; for democratic nations believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the CCP can make that would be unmistakable that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.
Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, if you seek liberalization: Go soon to those gates of tyranny and replace them with the gates of freedom.
Former US president Ronald Reagan, who understood the old Soviet Union so well, would surely understand the fear of war and the pain of division that afflict the leaders of China today — and he would know that the West could use all its efforts to help China overcome those burdens. When freedom finally comes to the Chinese people, they and their leaders will be surprised how wonderful it feels.
Today represents a moment of hope.
We in the democratic nations stand ready to cooperate with China to promote true openness, to break down barriers that separate people, to create a safer, freer world.
The authoritarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship.
The authoritarian world finds even symbols of love and of worship an affront.
As one looks at China today, from across the seas, one can perhaps catch a glimpse of some words crudely spray-painted upon a city gate, perhaps by a young Beijinger: “This gate will fall. Beliefs will become reality.”
Yes, across China, those unsightly gates will fall someday.
For China, as Reagan knew so well, cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The gates of China will not be able to withstand freedom.
Dan Bloom is a freelance writer based in Taiwan.
Comment by dan bloom — August 24, 2011 @ 12:11 am
Gates of Freedom are closed here too. Open your eyes!
The Death of High-Tech Manufacturing in the US
http://dad29.blogspot.com/2011/08/death-of-high-tech-manufacturing-in-us.html
Gee, this article is really…..ugh. Forbes cites a Harvard Review item by Pisano and Shih.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/08/17/why-amazon-cant-make-a-kindle-in-the-usa/
Amazon’s Kindle 2 couldn’t be made in the U.S., even if Amazon wanted to
–The flex circuit connectors are made in China
–The electrophoretic display is made in Taiwan
–The wireless card is made in South Korea…
(There’s more.)
Apple, by the way, is an exception.
Further down:
…Once manufacturing is outsourced, process-engineering expertise can’t be maintained, since it depends on daily interactions with manufacturing. Without process-engineering capabilities, companies find it increasingly difficult to conduct advanced research on next-generation process technologies. Without the ability to develop such new processes, they find they can no longer develop new products. In the long term, then, an economy that lacks an infrastructure for advanced process engineering and manufacturing will lose its ability to innovate.”
That conclusion applies to goods which are relatively unaffected by shipping costs or J-I-T considerations.
HT: Monty/AOSHQ
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/320458.php
Obama Admits He Is A Muslim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCAffMSWSzY
Comment by Greg — August 24, 2011 @ 8:49 am
[...] it’s “High time for China to tear down those gates.” He also included his column in a BizzyBlog comment overnight, which means readers will be able to find it here for future reference. Read the whole thing, in [...]
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