Joe Biden once traveled to China as vice president of the United States and said he fully understands and does not second-guess the country’s one-child policy (since modified to more like a two-child policy). That was horrific, and the White House scrambled to insist Biden didn’t really mean it.
There’s no greater contrast to Biden’s performance than Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese dissident and refugee who earned the wrath of the Chinese Communist government by exposing its brutal practices of forced abortion and sterilization and coerced birth control. Chen will speak tonight at the Republican National Convention.
Chen could be a compelling speaker because of the moral authority he carries and because of Biden’s reputation on China. But, as with Nick Sandmann’s speech last night, it will be a very awkward story for the media. For some reason, many outlets really have trouble talking about China’s forced and coerced abortions, sterilizations, and contraception.
For instance, check out the Washington Post article announcing that Chen is speaking. This is what it says about his life’s work:
“Chen, a self-trained lawyer who has been blind since childhood, was living under house arrest in China until 2012, when he made a dramatic escape to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and, eventually, to the United States. He went on to join the conservative Witherspoon Institute and is also on the faculty of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America. Last year, he wrote a Washington Post op-ed praising Trump’s strategy toward Beijing, writing that the president is ‘trying to break down the systems, and the concessions, that have allowed the [Chinese Communist Party] to operate unchecked for too long.’”
There’s zero mention of abortion, sterilization, contraception, or the one-child policy.
This appears to be house style at the Washington Post. Back when Guangcheng was escaping China, the publication ran a 1,200-word story that also omitted mention of abortion, sterilization, contraception, and the one-child policy. (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was helpful in the escape, according to a CBS story that also omits these subjects.)
How do you write about a dissident without mentioning the evil against which he is dissenting? Maybe it’s too hard for a liberal mainstream outlet to use the words abortion and contraception in a negative light.
Credit where it’s due, of course: The Associated Press recently had a deep and disturbing expose of these Chinese attacks on fertility.
As of 3:00 p.m., three hours after the Washington Examiner’s Joel Gehrke first reported his speaking, only Breitbart and the Washington Post have even mentioned it, according to a Google News search. We’ll see how the press covers this uncomfortable topic tonight.
