You may have heard about China’s policy of forcing abortions and sterilizing women in an effort to force families to only have one child. You know of this policy because of a brave whistleblower named Chen Guangcheng.
Here is a scene inside China’s true war on women:
When she became pregnant again in 2006, Ji said local authorities confronted her and told her she was breaking the law. “We were willing to take the punishment of fines and losing our jobs. It wasn’t as important to us as our child,” she said through a translator. This time, the authorities refused payment in fines and “dragged” her outside and beat her husband. Ji said she was sedated and the abortion was performed while she was unconscious. They had also installed an intrauterine device into her uterus after the abortion and told her she was responsible for its cost. Ji, now 35, had the device removed in the U.S., but her doctor found cervical erosion that will hinder her ability to have children. “After the abortion, I felt empty, as if something was scooped out of me. My husband and I had been so excited for our new baby. Now, suddenly, all that hope and joy and excitement had disappeared, all in an instant,” she said.
Self-taught in the law to fight the injustice of his government, Chen was forced to face trial without representation. After his inevitable prison term, Chen has been a prisoner in his own home without legal recourse or any charges. He had only one hope: America…
Chen… blind… felt his way silently over a wall and slipped past nearly 100 guards that were stationed around his home, around the courtyard walls and at every nearby road and bridge. He walked for hours from his own home in the middle of the night. He was wounded, wet, covered in mud. He swam across a river,” Bob Fu, the founder of ChinaAid, told ABC News. Chen was picked up by supporters and driven to Beijing on April 23. Several friends hid him in different locations until his last host was able to reach out to the U.S. embassy in Beijing on April 27, Fu said.
Unfortunately for this Chen, America is in an election year and he is a resident of a country that holds a tremendous amout of debt. ABC analysts give the quandary:
China has replaced Iraq as the focal point for foreign affairs this season. Republican candidate Mitt Romney is accusing President Obama of being “soft” on China. If the U.S. accepts Chen and his family, it risks further upsetting an already sensitive dynamic with the Chinese government; hand him over to Bejing authorities and the White House gives Romney arsenal for attack that could also be seen as backpedaling on commitment to an issue the Democrats have long championed.
In my estimation, there shouldn’t be a quandary. The man is a political prisoner, and we ought to grant him asylum. Unfortunately, the world’s second largest economy (theirs) is propping up the world’s largest government (ours), and we have very little leverage. The only thing that stands between Russia dumping its U.S. Treasury bonds on the markets is China, which is as dependent on our economy as we are on theirs. This means that our government will compromise on our values, and find some “solution.” Chen will most likely remain in China, and a political prisoner until his death. I hope I’m wrong.
