CNA Staff, Jul 2, 2020 / 09:30 am
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden condemned China's forced sterilizations of Uyghur women on Wednesday-nine years after he told a Chinese audience that he was "not second-guessing" the country's one-child policy.
In a campaign press release on Wednesday, Biden decried the "unconscionable crimes against Chinese women" revealed in an Associated Press report on Monday. The AP investigation found a systematic campaign by the Chinese Communist Party of pregnancy checks and forced abortions, sterilizations, and implantations of IUDs on Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang.
In 2011, however, Biden himself was criticized by pro-lifers for telling a Chinese audience that he understood China's one-child policy.
Speaking at Chengdu's Sichuan University in August of 2011, then-Vice President Biden brought up the demographic challenges in the U.S. of having fewer working-age citizens to support a greater number of retirees.