Hillary Clinton’s China

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Here is something you see only rarely in these columns: an editorial of praise for the junior senator from New York. Senator Clinton deserves a salute for a letter she sent to President Bush outlining human rights issues that she urged him to raise in his upcoming visit to communist China. First on the list: “forced abortion.” She spoke out against Red China’s “use of psychological and economic pressure and threats to force women to terminate pregnancies.”


Too often, the only time Democratic politicians talk about unborn children is in the context of abortion as an absolute right for women. For Mrs. Clinton to speak out against pressuring women to terminate pregnancies is a step in the right direction. She even went a step further, describing abortion as a choice that properly belongs not only to women but to “women and their families”- sounding a bit like the Pennsylvania Legislature and Judge Samuel Alito affirming a husband’s role in the decision-making in respect of abortion.


Other issues Mrs. Clinton urged Mr. Bush to raise with China included Tibet, freedom of religion, and the rights of working men and women to organize unions for the purpose of bargaining collectively – all important causes. She’s playing a constructive role by pressing these issues with the president, though we don’t mind saying that on many of these issues, the Republicans have been ahead of her. It’s good, nonetheless, to see some convergence. 2008, after all, is just around the corner.


Mrs. Clinton’s husband ran for president criticizing an earlier President Bush for being soft on human rights in China, but when William Clinton acceded, that stance went by the wayside in favor of an emphasis on commerce. The current President Bush has been an eloquent spokesman for freedom around the world. But if Mrs. Clinton ever makes it back to the White House, one thing to watch will be whether her China policy is informed by the values that animated yesterday’s letter. If it is, she’ll be cheered by lovers of freedom from Brooklyn to Beijing.


The New York Sun

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