Dear Colleague:

Yet more congressional testimony about China's human rights abuses failed
to dampen Chinese dictator Hu Jintao's American reception, but Congressman
Chris Smith made his point for those willing to listen.

Steven W. Mosher
President

PRI Weekly Briefing
21 April 2006
Vol. 8 / No. 16


Hu Gets the Red Carpet, the Rest Gets Ignored
By Joseph A. D'Agostino


Hu Jintao, dictator of Communist China, received all the trappings of a
state visit this week from President Bush, who ignored China's systematic
human rights abuses beyond making some vague statements about "respecting
human rights and the freedoms of the Chinese people."  As expected, Bush
got nothing from China, which continues to receive all the privileges she
desires-whether it be crushing people of faith at home or flooding the
American market with cheap exports made even cheaper by deliberately
undervaluing her currency in violation of free market principles.

As always, our President and most of our media left out the massive
ongoing human rights abuses that legally take place every day under
China's population control program.  Most Chinese women are allowed a
quota of one or two children, and women are rounded up and forcibly
sterilized or aborted by the thousands to enforce those quotas.  Rep.
Chris Smith (R.-N.J.) held a hearing on this issue the day before Hu met
with Bush, a hearing most media ignored.  More on the hearing below.

When it comes to China, Bush suspends all his policies about promoting
democracy, human rights, and the free market.  Perhaps he thinks China too
small a country for him to worry about such things there, since only 25%
of the world's population lives under the Communist tyranny's yoke.  Or
perhaps, while saying the opposite, he recognizes that America cannot be
consistent in promoting Western-style freedom and democracy in this
dangerous world.

What especially puzzles many onlookers is the lack of concessions that
America receives in return not for looking the other way as China
persecutes everyone from Christians to Tibetans to parents of two or more
children, but for exporting to China our technology and, now, over $200
billion in hard currency annually.  As of this writing, Hu announced no
revaluation of the yuan to bring it into line with free market reality and
no major initiative to open up the Chinese market to American exports.
Nor has Hu publicly shifted strategy to help keep nuclear weapons out of
the hands of Iran's mullahs or otherwise assist us in our foreign policy
goals.  Indeed, most experts continue to identify China and Russia as the
two chief obstacles to effective United Nations action against Iranian
nukes-an issue the importance of which can hardly be exaggerated.

The rest of the world pays no attention to China's misdeeds, either.
After all, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded Beijing the
2008 Olympics-a gratuitous and highly prestigious gift from the
international bureaucratic establishment.  As Smith understated it, "The
Olympic Committee and the world community missed an opportunity to send a
message to China."

While Bush exchanged pleasantries with Hu and apologized for a woman who
heckled the Chinese autocrat at the White House, the practices described
at Smith's April 19 hearing continued unhindered.  Population Research
Institute President Steven Mosher testified that China's coercive
population control policy continued and was expected to continue for the
foreseeable future.  The Chinese government prefers to stick to fines, job
loss, and other such penalties to force couples to have fewer children
than they would like, yet, Mosher said, "Force is frowned upon but never
punished."

Just as China has 30,000 officers censoring the Internet for her
population, China has legions of population control police.  "They keep
detailed records of every woman in their jurisdiction," said Mosher.
Women's menstrual cycles are often monitored at factories or other places
where they work, to detect an unauthorized pregnancy as early as possible.

Mosher traced the origin of China's population control mania to Western
environmentalist hysteria imported into the Middle Kingdom during the
1970s.  "This attitude has disposed the PRC to view its own citizens as
pollution," he said.

He noted, too, that some of China's rising social problems, such as
trafficking in women and child labor, have been caused by population
control, which has led to an imbalance between men and women as girls are
aborted en masse, as well as a labor shortage in Guangdong.

Rebiya Kadeer, President of the International Uyghur Human Rights and
Democracy Foundation, gave chilling testimony about the ongoing genocide
that is currently being committed against the Uyghur people of East
Turkistan.  Those with the amusing Whig theory of history, who believe
things keep getting better inexorably, should note that this is just one
of the racial genocides currently being committed around the globe.

"The first issue I wish to bring to your attention is the Chinese
government's family planning policies," she testified.  "In mid-February
this year, a senior official-the Mayor of Urumchi, capital of the XUAR
[Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region]-declared that East Turkistan's rural
area would be the 'focus' of future 'family planning work.'  Generally
speaking, Xinjiang's rural population is almost exclusively Uyghur, while
the urban population is predominantly Chinese."

As the "family planning"-that is, population control-noose has been
tightened on Uyghurs, the government has been moving ethnic Chinese into
Uyghur areas.  "Early last week, the Chinese government announced that
East Turkistan's population had exceeded 20 million people, having grown
9% over the past five years-which is one of the highest rates in the whole
of the PRC," said Kadeer.  "However, this rapid growth in population is
not because of the high number of births, but because of the high number
of people encouraged to move to East Turkistan from China."  Kadeer said
that the Chinese government spares no effort in ensuring that the Uyghur
do not multiply.  "I will spare you from hearing the horrific accounts of
forced late-term abortions, of forced sterilizations, and the extreme
physical and psychological traumas inflicted on women as a result of these
procedures," she said.

Ethan Gutmann, author of Losing the New China: A Story of American
Commerce, Desire and Betrayal, discussed the increasing cooperation
between American technology companies and the Communist Chinese government
to censor the Internet and round up Chinese dissidents.  Yes, American
companies from Yahoo and Google to Cisco and Microsoft cooperate in
Chinese oppression.  Joseph Kung, President of the Cardinal Kung
Foundation, testified that 8 Catholic bishops are in jail in China, where
Catholics who remain loyal to Rome are persecuted.  Harry Wu of the Laogai
Research Foundation described the Chinese practice of selling prisoners'
organs.  Thea Lee of the AFL-CIO testified to the lack of workers' rights
in China, which gives Chinese manufacturers an unfair competitive
advantage against American business.  And 1989 Tiananmen Square protestor
Lu Decheng described his egg-throwing at that big poster of Mao in
Beijing, and the 16-year prison sentence it got him.

The theme of the hearing was "Human Rights in China: Improving or
Deteriorating Conditions?"  No one seemed to think things are improving.
Perhaps Bush could mention that to Hu the next time they get together for
a purely symbolic chat.


Joseph A. D'Agostino is Vice President for Communications at the
Population Research Institute.


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