China's crimes against humanity

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s strong statement on Tiananmen underscores Trump’s situational approach to human rights
By James Hohmann

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to reporters on Monday after a meeting with Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok at The Hague in the Netherlands. 

THE BIG IDEA: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s clarion call for democracy and human rights in China on the 30th anniversary of the bloody massacre at Tiananmen Square, however futile it might be, illustrates the power and possibility of American moral leadership.
Mr. Pompeo released a 444-word statement at 12:01 a.m. Beijing time to mark the events of June 4, 1989, when tanks violently repressed student-led protests. 

It was one of the darkest days of a century that had a lot of dark days.
“We salute the heroes of the Chinese people who bravely stood up … to demand their rights,” Pompeo said. 

“Today, Chinese citizens have been subjected to a new wave of abuses, especially in East Turkestan, where the Communist Party leadership is methodically attempting to strangle Uighur culture and stamp out the Islamic faith, including through the detention of more than one million members of Muslim minority groups. Even as the party builds a powerful surveillance state, ordinary Chinese citizens continue to seek to exercise their human rights, organize independent unions, pursue justice through the legal system, and simply express their views, for which many are punished, jailed, and even tortured.”
-- Highlighting the value of using the pulpit, the statement clearly got under the skin of the Chinese government. The embassy in Washington issued a rare, and angry, response to Pompeo overnight.
-- It's possible the protracted and escalating trade war emboldened Pompeo to issue such a stinging rebuke of the world’s biggest criminal country. The secretary, traveling in Europe, said that the United States hoped after Tiananmen that China’s integration into the international system would lead to a more open, tolerant society. 

“Those hopes have been dashed,” he said.
-- As a point of contrast, the tenor of Pompeo’s statement serves to highlight the Trump administration’s uneven approach to other ongoing human rights atrocities around the globe. He has spoken poignantly and directly about the need for human rights and democracy.

But he and other administration officials have largely looked the other way or excused abuses by the regimes in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Russia. 

Previous administrations struggled to call out allies for human rights abuses while protecting the national interest, especially during the Cold War, but historians and veteran diplomats say that the Trump administration has been more sporadic and situational in its approach.
-- Trump himself has spoken favorably about autocrats, from Vladimir Putin to Kim Jong Un and Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. 

He’s joked about Xi Jinping being president for life and said maybe the U.S. should try it. 

He praised Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte for doing an “unbelievable job” fighting illegal drug use, even though that meant condoning thousands of extrajudicial killings. 

At a news conference in February after the failure of the Hanoi summit, Trump said he did not believe Kim knew about Otto Warmbier’s death because the leader would not have allowed it to happen.
-- Trump faced criticism as a presidential candidate for tone-deaf comments he made in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre. 

Speaking to Playboy in 1990, for example, he said that Chinese leaders showed “the power of strength” by using military force to squash the protests. 

“When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it,” Trump told the adult magazine. 

“Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak ... as being spit on by the rest of the world.”

This Chinese dissident has never been identified. History remembers him as tank man. He stood alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijing's Changan Boulevard in Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989. 

-- Asked about this quote during a Republican debate in March 2016, Trump referred to the protest as a “riot,” a word typically used in Chinese propaganda. 

“I was not endorsing it,” Trump told moderator Jake Tapper. 

“I said that is a strong, powerful government that put it down with strength. And then they kept down the riot. It was a horrible thing. It doesn’t mean at all I was endorsing it.”
John Kasich fired back at Trump. 

“The Chinese government butchered those kids,” he said, his words dripping with disgust. 

The then-governor of Ohio called for a monument to honor the courage of the man who stood in front of the approaching tanks. 

The conservative crowd in Miami applauded.
-- The death toll at Tiananmen Square, estimated in the thousands, remains unknown because of coverups and censorship. 

The military put down protests in the countryside, as well, but there weren’t Western reporters to bear witness. 

In his statement, Pompeo said these events of 30 years ago “still stir our conscience, and the conscience of freedom-loving people around the world.”
“We urge the Chinese government to make a full, public accounting of those killed or missing to give comfort to the many victims of this dark chapter of history,” said the nation’s chief diplomat. 

“Such a step would begin to demonstrate the Communist Party’s willingness to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms. We call on China to release all those held for seeking to exercise these rights and freedoms, halt the use of arbitrary detention, and reverse counterproductive policies that conflate terrorism with religious and political expression. China’s own constitution stipulates that all power belongs to the people. History has shown that nations are stronger when governments are responsive to their citizens, respect the rule of law, and uphold human rights and fundamental freedoms.”