Incoming 51-year-old Director of National Intelligence [DNI] Avril Haines hinted that the Biden administration will take a tough stance toward China for its human rights violations, especially in Xinjiang Province where the Muslim Uyghur minority, descendants of the Turks along the Silk Road, has been persecuted since Mao Zedong’s 1949 Communist Revolution. Considered second-class citizens by the Chinese, Uyghurs are used in the cotton fields and sweat shops by Chinese manufacturers, making multinational corporations like Nike Inc. rich. Uyghurs are herded into reeducation camps, subjected to Chinese brainwashing, using the million plus-Uyghur population as slaves in the Communist Party machine, denying the Muslim population of any human or civil rights. Uyghur persecution by the Chinese has been known for years but the U.S. conducts business as usual with China.
Reports of forced sterilization of Uyghur women by the Chinese government have gotten the attention of U.N. Human Rights Council, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other groups but they have no enforcement mechanism to stop atrocities going in China or any other place. U.S. trade officials have put economic ties with China over any human’s rights abuses going back to the early 70s when former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President Richard Nixon opened up trade with China. Trump was the first U.S. president to challenge China’s trade polices, especially the over $500 billion-plus trade imbalance, leaving the U.S. with far less manufacturing jobs than it once had. Trump’s trade polices will most likely change with 78-year-old President-elect Joe Biden, returning to past laissez faire polices, leaving China alone to preserve business relations.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, 57, called China’s treatment of Uyghurs “genocide,” something bound to antagonize Beijing. China’s network of internment camps for Uyghurs in Xinjiang Province are closely held secrets, officially denied by the Communist government. Whether reports of forced sterilization are factual or not, they’re consisted with Chinese Communist Party policy, limiting population growth. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), 48, agreed with Pompeo about labeling China for “genocide” with its Uyghur population. “This decision is good and right, but it’s too late. The United States isn’t taking the Uyghur genocide seriously,” Sasse said. Sasse thinks the Trump administration largely overlooked human rights abuses while they pursued tough economic policies, including tariffs on Chinese goods. Sasse doesn’t admit that no U.S. administration was willing to do anything.
When it comes to human rights abuses, China’s 67 –year-old President Xi Jinping tells everyone, it’s none of your business. China has denied any mistreatment of any population, certainly not the Uyghurs in the Western most tip of China. “A lot of folks in the Trump administration wanted to talk about China primarily in terms of a trade deficit, and a lot of folks in the Biden administration want to talk about China as a competitor,” Sasse said. Sasse doesn’t mention that every U.S. administration has overlooked human rights abuse because China is not a democratic country. From forced sterilizations to organ harvesting in Chinese prisons, there’s no limit to human rights abuses in China, something no administration has tackled because it interferes with business. President-elect Biden’s family has ties to Chinese energy companies, making any change of U.S. policy toward China unlikely.
Trump’s approach to China was the toughest of any U.S. president, getting along with Xi but forcing China to be more accountable to global trade deals. China’s violations of international treaties on the high seas violated the territorial integrity and shipping lanes of many Pacific Rim nations. Illegal building of military installations on shallow shoals in the South China Sea has been a source of conflict for years. In all areas, China admonishes the U.N. or any other international body to stay out of its internal affairs. “The Chinese Communist Party is a genocidal dictatorship and Chairman Xi [Jinping] is evil. The United States has an obligation to meet this challenge head on and take the side of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang who are raped and tortured,” Sasse said, serving notice to the incoming Biden administration to do more. Whether that happens or not is anyone’s guess.
Challenging China is going to be low on the priority list for the Biden administration, still battling the nation’s Covid-19 crisis that topped 400,000 deaths in the United States. Expecting the Biden administration to take on Beijing over its treatment of Uyghurs is unrealistic when the U.S. economy already faces serious a national health care and economic crisis. Calling Xi Jinping “evil” or saying the Communist government is involved in “genocide” will only push China into enemy status, hurting U.S.-China relations. “Our approach to China has to evolve and essentially meet the reality of the particularly assertive and aggressive China that we see today,” said DNI Avril Haines. “To support and aggressive stance, in a sense, to deal with the challenge that were are facing,” referring to China’s human rights abuses. Biden’s family business ties with China make it difficult to take a stand.
