Former Vice President Biden’s campaign issued a statement on Thursday, saying that over the past weekend, the Chinese government announced further tightening of its control over Tibet, continuing to undermine the human rights, religious freedom and dignity of the Tibetan people, yet President Trump again refused to speak out on the issue in order to focus on his empty trade agreement with Beijing and to protect his agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “A very good friendship.”
In his statement, Biden also accused President Trump of being the first U.S. president in the past three decades not to have met or spoken with the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, or to appoint a special coordinator for Tibet under the law. Biden said his presidency would put American values at the center of U.S. foreign policy, including meeting with the Dalai Lama, appointing a new special coordinator for Tibet, sanctioning Chinese officials for human rights abuses in Tibet, and expanding the Tibetan-language programs of Radio Free Asia and Voice of America.
In December 2018, President Trump signed the Tibet Travel Reciprocity Act, which imposes sanctions on Chinese officials involved in restricting U.S. travel to Tibet, and in November 2019, he signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. In June, Trump signed the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act into law.
Senior Trump administration officials, including Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo, have noted that Democrats said almost nothing about China at their national convention in the middle of last month. Biden himself made the only mention of China in his acceptance speech for the presidential nomination, saying that he would ensure that medical equipment and drugs to deal with the new coronavirus would be made in the U.S. if elected, so that the U.S. would no longer be at the mercy of countries like China.
A week later, the Republicans focused on China every day for four days at their convention, including inviting Chen Guangcheng, a prominent blind human rights lawyer, to speak on “The Chinese Communist Party is the Enemy of Mankind. Trump himself repeatedly accused the previous administrations under Obama and Biden, as well as previous administrations, of doing nothing to address the serious misalignment in U.S.-China relations. He also claimed that he had it on good authority that Biden was China’s choice in the November election.
Since then, the Biden campaign has suddenly become quite aggressive on China, including using the term “genocide” to define the Chinese government’s actions in Xinjiang on August 25. Biden’s hard-line posture went beyond what Trump administration officials had so far portrayed on the issue. Two days later, the U.S. news website Politico reported that the Trump administration was also considering officially classifying the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang as “genocide.
Observers say that as the U.S. presidential election heats up, both President Trump, seeking re-election, and Democratic presidential candidate Biden are trying to show that they are tougher on Beijing than the other, and are hoping to win over more voters.
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