90 Miles From Tyranny

Sunday, July 19, 2020

Organ harvesting in China and why the American media and businesses have turned a blind eye

Two China experts discuss the human rights abuses in China and how the world is responding

Laura Moynihan, a China activist and the daughter of the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, says she is "disgusted" and "sick to death" over how government, powerful U.S. media companies and others serve as China apologists.

"The mainstream media is so beyond downplaying this, it's irresponsible," Moynihan said on a new John Solomon Reports podcast about the media's recent coverage of China's treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority.

Among the reported atrocities are members being taken in the middle of the night, forced into labor camps, sterilized and having their organs harvested.

Moynihan was joined on the podcast by longtime China watcher Ethan Gutmann to discuss human rights abuses by the Chinese Communist Party.

Moynihan argues that U.S. media companies have been minimizing the severity of China's human rights abuses, even as the Trump administration imposes increased sanctions on the country over the last six weeks.

She says coverage of the recent protests over the death of George Floyd has kept the China atrocities "virtually out of the news."

"I am sick to death of seeing the China apologist gang, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Committee of 100, the Asian Society, it goes on and on," she said. "They always get out front on the narrative on China. We have no resources in the Tibet movement. ... They've got tons of funding, because they're on the Chinese payroll."

When asked what the United States government can do to hold China accountable for their atrocious behavior, Moynihan said that a key move would be for the administration to continue cracking down on "these front media companies" that act "as agencies of espionage of the Chinese Communist Party."

"Seize their assets, seize their real estate," Moynihan said. "Ban visas for Chinese communist officials."

Moynihan commended Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Trump for taking action recently on the matter of Hong Kong, on which Beijing recently imposed a sweeping national security law, effectively ending democracy in...

These children are the forgotten demographic

You can argue about the merits of pulling down statues, but it’s hard to make the case that mass protests serve no useful purpose. At the very least, they provoke debate and draw attention to uncomfortable topics that it might otherwise be easier to ignore. The recent protests have forced everyone to have difficult discussions about race, class, poverty and attainment. Any serious examination of the statistics shows that we’re pretty far from equal, but what the figures also show is that it’s wrong-headed and damaging to lump very different groups together. In these discussions politicians often lazily assume that all BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) people are the same, and that all white groups are equally privileged. But a proper look at the data shows not just that there are striking difference within BAME groups, but that the very worst-performing group of all are white working-class boys — the forgotten demographic.

It might seem divisive to compare different groups, but attainment in education and in life is relative and if we’re to help the worst off, we have to know who they are. We should help everyone who needs it — but it is vital to be able to compare groups to know who’s falling behind, relative to their peers. In the UK, Bangladeshi-Brits earn 20 percent less than whites on average, for instance, but those with Indian heritage are likely to earn 12 percent more. Black Britons on average earn 9 percent less, but Chinese earn 30 percent more. What these differences tell us is that employers aren’t systematically discriminating between people on the basis of their skin color, and that we have to look elsewhere to see the roots of inequality.

Ucas, the British university admissions service, can provide unique insight into these issues: it is the only outfit in the world to gather detailed information on all university applicants, including their age, gender, neighborhood and school type. This is collected along with data on who applied for...