China’s human rights abuses continue, but who cares?

NPR reported this week that the government of China is continuing its human rights abuses.  Who are their victims this time?  Unborn children and their mothers.  Here’s an excerpt–

“During the past week, dozens of women in southwest China have been forced to have abortions even as late as nine months into the pregnancy, according to evidence uncovered by NPR.

China’s strict family planning laws permit urban married couples to have only one child each, but in some of the recent cases — in Guangxi Province — women say they were forced to abort what would have been their first child because they were unmarried. The forced abortions are all the more shocking because family planning laws have generally been relaxed in China, with many families having two children.

Liang Yage and his wife Wei Linrong had one child and believed that — like many other couples — they could pay a fine and keep their second baby. Wei was 7 months pregnant when 10 family planning officials visited her at home on April 16.

Liang describes how they told her that she would have to have an abortion, ‘You don’t have any more room for maneuver,’ he says they told her. ‘If you don’t go [to the hospital], we’ll carry you.’ The couple was then driven to Youjiang district maternity hospital in Baise city.”  Cases of Forced Abortions Surface in China, NPR, April 23, 2007

You can find the rest of the story here.  China had been pressured in previous years by the U.S. and a few other trading partners to improve on its human rights record, but that was only because the U.S. had a stronger economy than China’s and that gave them leverage.  Now, the U.S. is billions of dollars in the hole with China, making their ability to pressure the communist nation weaker.  Since their economy continues to strengthen by leaps and bounds (partly because of their unfair trade practices like selling their goods internationally at below market prices, manipulating their currency, and violating intellectual property rights), they are less willing to listen to anyone.  They probably feel that since they are so strong economically, that means their domestic policies are working and they should continue and strengthen those policies.

For years the United States government has been criticized for doing so much trade with China with all of its human rights abuses, but we were fed the line that as long as we are trading partners with them, we could influence them to treat their citizens better.  Yeah, I can see that policy worked really well (snicker).  It worked so well that China is now strongly enforcing its “family planning” laws by murdering unborn babies in spite of the fact the pregnant women want to keep their babies.  That’s what happens when money, material possessions, and power are considered more important than human lives.  In my opinion, these are the real reasons the U.S. wanted to continue trading with China.  The rights of Chinese citizens was never really a genuine concern.

“Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” (Ecclesiastes 8:11)

“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.” (Proverbs 29:2)