Tell it like it is! :yeah:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jMo_0ynD0iZfofvq_HzZGJsD-BSQ?docId=CNG.69ea4bb79280a30dbb831673325c5a3c.2e1
QuoteUS VP Biden blasts 'repugnant' China child policy
By Olivier Knox (AFP) – 9 hours ago
WASHINGTON — Under fire from angry Republicans, US Vice President Joe Biden's office has said that he firmly opposes "repugnant" Chinese population control practices like "forced abortion and sterilization."
"The Obama administration strongly opposes all aspects of China's coercive birth limitation policies, including forced abortion and sterilization," Biden spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff told AFP by email.
"The vice president believes such practices are repugnant," she said after Republican White House candidates blasted Biden for recent comments he made about Beijing's "one-child" population control policy during a visit to China.
Biden told an audience at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, Sunday that "your policy has been one which I fully understand -- I'm not second-guessing -- of one child per family."
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a leading candidate for the Republican nod to take on President Barack Obama in November 2012 elections, on Tuesday accused Biden of "condoning" a "gruesome and barbaric" policy.
"There can be no defense of a government that engages in compulsory sterilization and forced abortions in the name of population control," he said, charging that Biden's comments "should shock the conscience of every American."
Barkoff pointed out that Biden, who was discussing the ratio of active workers to retirees, had also called the policy "unsustainable" and said "he was arguing against the One Child Policy to a Chinese audience."
But Texas governor and Romney rival Rick Perry charged that Biden's "refusal to 'second-guess' this horrendous policy demonstrates great moral indifference on the part of the Obama administration."
"Americans value life, and we deserve leaders who will stand up against such inhumanity, not cast a blind eye," said Perry.
Former US China envoy Jon Huntsman said through an aide that the policy "runs counter to the fundamental value of human life" and that he was "heartbroken" that Beijing's approach "has cost millions of lives."
"As an adoptive father, whose daughter was abandoned by her parents in China, Governor Huntsman is intimately familiar with the impact of China's 'one-child' policy," said the aide, Tim Miller.
The comments came one day after Republican House Speaker John Boehner, the number-three US elected official, said he was "deeply troubled" by Biden's words and that the policy "should not be condoned by any American official."
Obama's "administration should be focusing on jobs for the American people, not encouraging foreign governments to utilize abortion as a means of population and deficit control," said Boehner.
The speaker urged the White House to provide "a correction or clarification" to Biden's comments.
Representative Chris Smith, a senior Republican who has long campaigned against the one-child policy, said that Biden's remarks laid bare how the administration has put a low priority on human rights.
"The only thing he is worried about is sustainability on the economic front. That's perverse and he really owes every Chinese woman and child who has been mistreated by this policy an apology," Smith told AFP.
Smith said he planned a hearing in late September marking the 31st anniversary of the one-child policy and that "the vice president is more than welcome to come and testify."
Senator Jim Inhofe, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, charged that Biden's remarks amounted to "trampling on the memory of the millions of children who have lost their lives at the hands of a Communist regime."
The vice president's statement also drew fire from a leader of the repressed Tiananmen Square protests, Chai Ling, who has become a born-again Christian and activist against the "one-child" policy.
"At best, it is a statement of ambiguity that gives permission to China to continue its brutal and coercive birth planning policy," said a statement from her advocacy group, All Girls Allowed.
"At worst, it is an endorsement of the exorbitant fines, severe beatings, and forced abortions and sterilizations that are performed on thousands of Chinese families every day -- an ongoing Tiananmen massacre every hour," she said.
Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
China's reaction:
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Yeah, they should have solved the problem in the US way: Ignore it and hope Jesus sorts it out in the rapture.
You're such a clod, Tim.
That China has a policy that encourage people to limit themselves to one child is a good thing.
The draconian manner in which the policy works isn't .
Wait Biden is responding to Republican sillyness by instantly caving to them? He should be asking these idiots what they plan to do about the China Child Policy if they get elected. An aggressive policy of silently judging them?
Quote from: dps on August 24, 2011, 07:59:17 AM
That China has a policy that encourage people to limit themselves to one child is a good thing.
The draconian manner in which the policy works isn't .
What's the point of having a policy in an absolutist dictatorship if it isn't a draconian one?
I have no problem with the way that the policy works.
Very foolish for China to continue the policy - they are on the cusp of a demographic bust and economically they are not yet developed enough to cope.
Isn't he a few decades late with this one...
Quote from: Valmy on August 24, 2011, 08:05:34 AM
Wait Biden is responding to Republican sillyness by instantly caving to them?
isn't that the Obama way?
What an idiotic piece of pandering from Biden. Draconic measures aside, it's a pity noone in the Western world dares to tell the poor they are breeding too much.
I guess Nazis forgot to take eugenics with them when they retreated from Poland.
Quote from: Martinus on August 24, 2011, 09:44:39 AM
What an idiotic piece of pandering from Biden. Draconic measures aside, it's a pity noone in the Western world dares to tell the poor they are breeding too much.
Um we are having a demographic collapse for having too few children.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 24, 2011, 08:38:54 AM
Very foolish for China to continue the policy - they are on the cusp of a demographic bust and economically they are not yet developed enough to cope.
they'll just invade india and take their womenz. they have a few to spare.
Quote from: HVC on August 24, 2011, 09:48:25 AM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 24, 2011, 08:38:54 AM
Very foolish for China to continue the policy - they are on the cusp of a demographic bust and economically they are not yet developed enough to cope.
they'll just invade india and take their womenz. they have a few to spare.
Actually, IIRC India has the same problem.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on August 24, 2011, 10:13:46 AM
Quote from: HVC on August 24, 2011, 09:48:25 AM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 24, 2011, 08:38:54 AM
Very foolish for China to continue the policy - they are on the cusp of a demographic bust and economically they are not yet developed enough to cope.
they'll just invade india and take their womenz. they have a few to spare.
Actually, IIRC India has the same problem.
they won't once china kills a good chunk of the male population in the war.
Quote from: HVC on August 24, 2011, 10:15:23 AM
they won't once china kills a good chunk of the male population in the war.
Nuclear weapons don't discriminate.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on August 24, 2011, 10:53:03 AM
Quote from: HVC on August 24, 2011, 10:15:23 AM
they won't once china kills a good chunk of the male population in the war.
Nuclear weapons don't discriminate.
It's a war of booty (word works both ways :P ). non-glow in the dark weapons only
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 24, 2011, 08:38:54 AM
Very foolish for China to continue the policy - they are on the cusp of a demographic bust and economically they are not yet developed enough to cope.
Yeah, it would seem the time is about up for that policy.
As an aside, if two single children are married they're entitled to have two kids under the existing policy. Not that that's going to seriously dent the demographic trend.
Maybe that's what Biden's about? They figure China's going to reverse the policy in the not too distant future, so if they start bringing it up now they can claim "look, we pressured China successfully on this" once China actually does something about it.
Or maybe he's being evil, and is trying to trick China into keeping that policy, to avoid being seen as giving in to the pressure. :ph34r:
Does India have similar policies?
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on August 24, 2011, 10:53:03 AM
Quote from: HVC on August 24, 2011, 10:15:23 AM
they won't once china kills a good chunk of the male population in the war.
Nuclear weapons don't discriminate.
Or do they? :shifty:
Quote from: Jacob on August 24, 2011, 11:56:03 AM
As an aside, if two single children are married they're entitled to have two kids under the existing policy. Not that that's going to seriously dent the demographic trend.
Aren't most young adults the only children of their own parents by now?
Quote from: Valmy on August 24, 2011, 09:46:17 AM
Quote from: Martinus on August 24, 2011, 09:44:39 AM
What an idiotic piece of pandering from Biden. Draconic measures aside, it's a pity noone in the Western world dares to tell the poor they are breeding too much.
Um we are having a demographic collapse for having too few children.
A demographic collapse would be a good thing in a society that wasn't as sick as ours.
Quote from: DGuller on August 24, 2011, 09:45:53 AM
I guess Nazis forgot to take eugenics with them when they retreated from Poland.
Poland doesn't practice eugenics. Martinus was born.
Quote from: Ideologue on August 24, 2011, 05:40:16 PM
Quote from: DGuller on August 24, 2011, 09:45:53 AM
I guess Nazis forgot to take eugenics with them when they retreated from Poland.
Poland doesn't practice eugenics. Martinus was born.
:pinch:
I wrote something, but it came off too mean, and might hit unintended targets. So take this post as me putting down Marty in a clever way. Dguller can post the laugh-out-loud emoticon in response.
:lol:
Wait... :mad:
Quote from: Razgovory on August 24, 2011, 06:21:25 PM
I wrote something, but it came off too mean, and might hit unintended targets. So take this post as me putting down Marty in a clever way. Dguller can post the laugh-out-loud emoticon in response.
Seize the day.
I always attack all gays, except for Sheilbh, Habsburg and Top Cat.
Quote from: Iormlund on August 24, 2011, 03:15:28 PM
Quote from: Jacob on August 24, 2011, 11:56:03 AM
As an aside, if two single children are married they're entitled to have two kids under the existing policy. Not that that's going to seriously dent the demographic trend.
Aren't most young adults the only children of their own parents by now?
I don't think so. The 1-child policy doesn't seem to be especially strict and there are a number of exceptions, although I don't know them. One of my friends is from Jiangxi and is the oldest of 3 children, for example.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 24, 2011, 08:38:54 AM
Very foolish for China to continue the policy - they are on the cusp of a demographic bust and economically they are not yet developed enough to cope.
They have relaxed the policy a lot. Middle class Chinese can now pay a fine (i.e. buy a licence) to breed more than one kid. It is the poor rural farmers who can't afford it. Net result: the poor breed less, the rich breed more.
As I understand it, one of the main reasons they can't officially end the policy is because this will result in the laying off of hundreds of thousands in the one-child only office.
Birthright Lottery. That's the way to go.
Quote from: Neil on August 24, 2011, 05:20:25 PM
A demographic collapse would be a good thing in a society that wasn't as sick as ours.
So because our society is sick a demographic collapse is a bad thing? :hmm:
Quote from: Valmy on August 24, 2011, 08:56:09 PM
Quote from: Neil on August 24, 2011, 05:20:25 PM
A demographic collapse would be a good thing in a society that wasn't as sick as ours.
So because our society is sick a demographic collapse is a bad thing? :hmm:
Our society isn't equipped to handle a right-sizing. It is designed to pursue growth above all things, which requires a growing population.