Gavin Newsom visits China but refuses to discuss country’s human rights violations

California Governor Gavin Newsom, who some think could challenge Joe Biden for president in 2024, recently traveled to China to meet with political leaders there — including Xi Jinping. However, he now faces widespread criticism for ignoring the opportunity to discuss human rights with Xi, focusing instead on climate change.

During a press conference, Newsom confirmed that he and Xi did not discuss China’s many human rights abuses. When a reporter asked why Newsom didn’t mention the subject, he replied, “I can’t be everything to everybody at every moment of every minute of every day. But I was very privileged to have the opportunity to speak with some of the most influential leaders in China about the [issues] in a very direct and honest way.”

The Hill is still mentioned essentially he argued that discussing climate change was more important:

I spent an hour with the Foreign Minister, and that was the appropriate place based on my conversations with the State Department under the premise of the fact that that was a better place to have a more nuanced and detailed conversation. explanation of our views on issues of human rights and democracy, on issues related to Taiwan, issues related to international and foreign policy more broadly.

And we took our limited time with Xi, which we were told was only 20 minutes and we had the opportunity to extend it to 45, and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to reinforce the reason I was there: not as the President of the United States, not as Secretary of State, but as Governor of one of the largest states and one of the largest economies in the world, to focus on low carbon, green growth and I do not want to miss that opportunity and moment to influence this foundational agenda, which is more greater than any situational agenda in our lives.

He too claimed that any genocide committed by China is essentially not as important as climate change, and the Biden administration told him not to discuss human rights with Xi.

“I had the opportunity to talk about the most important issue in our lives, the most important issue,” he said. “Everything else is situational, this is the most sustainable issue. It changes everything… There is no more important issue in the world today — long and medium term, and especially short term — than the issue of climate change, which is as important as all those other issues.”

Newsom’s answer was heavily criticized.

“The Chinese dictator must be smiling to see someone so naive come up and kiss his ring,” said Derek Hunter in his article for The Hill. “Newsom just gave him a huge propaganda victory, while also trading moral credibility for empty promises.”

“In politics, a picture tells a story more than anything else,” writes Blanca Begert Politico. “The picture of the Great Wall caused a lot of eye rolls, but it was far from the most important image to come out of Newsom’s week-long trip to China. That would be the picture of him shaking hands with Xi — a political victory at a time of geopolitical tension which is almost impossible for any other governor, and difficult for even national leaders, to achieve.”

Newsweek reported,”[A] group of 60 advocacy groups and non-governmental organizations issued a joint statement on Friday describing the governor’s trip as a move that ‘clearly turns away from engaging on critical human rights issues,'” and that “[i]in previous comments to Newsweek, Human Rights Watch acting China Director Maya Wang said that by framing climate and human rights as a trade-off, the governor is condoning the Chinese government’s efforts to marginalize human rights.

“A true statesman is not afraid to speak truth to power. However, Newsom received well-deserved brickbats for meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and not mentioning the country’s human rights abuses that,” wrote Steven Greenhut for the Reason, added, “Newsom should try to make these meetings as substantive as possible. Instead, he merely serves as a profession for a tyranny because, like Brown, he seems to believe that climate change is causing an existential crisis that nothing else matters.”

China, at the very least, must be held accountable for its human rights abuses, and as someone with presidential aspirations, Newsom should have been prepared to at least talk about it to Xi. Instead, he took the easy way out – and the people who are suffering in China will continue to suffer.

The most prominent current human rights issue in the region is the Uyghur genocide; an estimated two million Uyghurs, as well as other ethnic and religious minorities such as Falun Gong followers, are currently held in concentration camps in the Xinjiang region. Detained people are said to be routinely beaten, tortured, raped, sterilized, and forced to have abortions. Some are allegedly forced to donate organs while still alive — without anesthesia. Uyghurs who escaped were hunted abroad and sent back to China for persecution.

Then, of course, there is China’s One-Child Policy; it is relaxed, but the effects are still felt, with an epidemic of violence against women, the highest suicide rate of women in the world, and millions of girls are missing — aborted simply because they are women. The government is trying to reverse course, but is having little success.

Getting presidential-looking photo ops is one thing; anyone in a position of power and authority has a duty to speak for the voiceless. Newsom had a choice, and he chose to remain silent.