Can anyone blame
Chinese human rights dissident Chen
Guangcheng for being a tad nervous about his present situation? After all,
being under the aegis of the United States is a fairly dangerous proposition of
late.
This latest American foreign
policy debacle might, at any other time in recent American history, have been
at least remotely considered a risky, but potentially audacious move – if successful,
it would fundamentally change the U.S.-Sino dialogue on human rights, and
signal a concession on China’s part that would be difficult for them to retreat
from.
Under this Administration’s State
Department, however, it more accurately appears to be another in a string of
fiascos that seems to showcase the Department’s apparent standing order to find
new and creative ways to demonstrate American weakness.
Chen Guangcheng is the blind human
rights activist best known for his vociferous opposition to Red China’s
barbaric one-child policy, particularly the practice of forced abortions. For
his efforts, he was arrested and imprisoned for four years. Following his
release in 2010, he was placed under abusive house arrest, from which he
escaped on April 22 and fled to the U.S. Embassy, where he had been until U.S.
officials brokered a deal with the Chicoms to guarantee his safety in China. The
deal, to which Mr. Chen reportedly initially agreed after Chinese authorities
threatened to beat his wife to death (I think in China they actually have an
official form for that), would see Mr. Chen and his family relocated to another
part of the country, and included assurances from the Chinese government – the
government which had him arrested on the first place, and for whom
torture and brutal oppression of dissent is as routine as issuing a parking
ticket is in Denver – that he would be safe from persecution.
Unsurprising to anybody (save
perhaps the State Department), upon arriving at a Beijing hospital, Mr. Chen
was immediately surrounded by plainclothes police, and has since issued
panicked pleas for the Americans to get him the heck out China.
Now, it is only fair to say that
we do not know what was said between Mr. Chen and American Embassy officials –
human rights groups are asserting that Mr. Chen was pressured into the deal,
but we simply do not know that. The officials who negotiated the deal may have
done so in entirely good faith.
The problem is that it is now up
to the United States to show considerable backbone in the follow-up, and remain
faithful to their protectorate – something in which the most recent American
record had been deplorable. From the Middle East, to Russia, to North Korea, to
South America, American diplomatic muscle of the last 3 ½ years has been at
best anemic.
The Obama administration’s
foreign policy, to the extent it has one, is based on the political exigency of
the moment, rather than on strategic foresight or a set of principles.
It is quite understandable, then,
to hear questions concerning Mr. Chen’s disposition; for instance, was a deal
rushed though in order to have the situation neatly wrapped up ahead of
Secretary Clinton’s visit to the People’s Republic?
In any event, at this point, few
are taking bets that the Administration
will assertively stand up to the Chinese
Communists should they go back on their word and arrest or kill Chen Guangcheng,
three things that Chinese Communists are particularly adept at.
As an Editorial in the Washington
Post last Thursday correctly pointed out, Mr. Chen’s safety is now morally the
responsibility of the Obama Administration. God help him.
There is a wider strategic
element at play here; perhaps no one is watching this situation more closely
than Taiwan, who has been protected from Red Chinese aggression for decades by
the United States. If anyone has a reason to be terrified by America’s self -inflicted
feckless timidity, it is the Taiwanese.
If America cannot, or will not,
protect one high profile human rights activist, for fear of offending the
Chinese, can anyone honestly believe that it will protect Taiwan when push
comes to sea-borne invasion?
While the President has all but
presented himself the Medal of Honor for his role in the elimination of Osama
Bin Laden, he has absolved himself of the crucial but less ostentatious
responsibilities of leading the United States in foreign issues – at the cost
of stability and the security of both America and her allies.
If and when something happens to Chen
Guangcheng, America will lose whatever shred of credibility in has retained in
the international arena. This deal was a gamble that the Obama administration
was neither prepared nor competent to take – and one that Taiwan, Mr. Chen, and
his family could ill afford.
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