US Vice President Joe Biden has provoked outrage in some quarters in the United States after saying that he ‘fully understands’ China’s one-child policy.
‘Your policy has been one which I fully understand – I’m not second-guessing – of one child per family,’ Biden said at a question and answer session with students at Sichuan University.
Biden went on to add: ‘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.’
Chris Smith, a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who chairs it subcommittee on human rights, said as far back as 1984 Congress took away funding that provided U.S. financial support for the one Child Policy.
“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.”
