State Dept.: China Detained ‘One-Month-Old’ Girl--Before Obama Toasted Chinese Leader for China's 'Desire to Give Our Children a Better Life'
(CNSNews.com) — When President Barack Obama hosted a state dinner in January for Chinese President Hu Jintao — who also serves as secretary general of the Chinese Communist Party — Obama toasted Hu for China’s “reverence of the family” and its “desire to give our children a better life.”
But in the months leading up to that state dinner, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a U.S-based group, had repeatedly reported on a 2010 incident in which Chinese officials separately detained a new mother and her one-month-old baby girl — keeping the mother and infant apart to intimidate the mother into undergoing a sterilization procedure.
In its annual human rights report on China released last week, the U.S. State Department listed the detention of this one-month-old baby as an example of China’s mistreatment of women.
“A U.S.-based human rights organization reported that in August, the one-month-old daughter of a mother in Changfeng County, Anhui Province, was detained by local family-planning officials until the woman signed a document consenting to a sterilization procedure,” said the State Department Country Report on Human Rights in China.
After publishing reports on the incident in August and November, Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) summarized the incident in a report published on Dec. 21, 2010 — less than a month before Obama toasted Hu at the White House.
“On July 15, 2010, 23 year-old Li Hongmei, who had given . . . birth less than a month earlier, was abducted with her baby by officials in Changfeng County, Anhui Province,” said the CHRD report entitled “I Don’t Have Control Over My Own Body.”
“When her family contacted local officials about her disappearance, a quarrel ensued and Li’s mother was taken into custody by local police and was later administratively detained for 10 days for ‘obstructing the carrying out of official duties,’” said the report.
“The family later learned that Li had been taken to Shuangfeng Hospital, where she was separated from her baby as a means of pressuring her to give her written consent to sterilization; after the procedure she suffered from dizziness and chest pains,” said the report.
When he hosted Chinese President Hu Jintao at a black-tie White House dinner on Jan. 19, President Obama focused on what he suggested were the shared value that the United States and China put on human lives — particularly the lives of children.
“And while it’s easy to focus on our differences of culture and perspective, let us never forget the values that our people share: A reverence for family; the belief that, with education and hard work and with sacrifice, the future is what we make it; and most of all, the desire to give our children a better life,” Obama said to Hu.
“I’m told that there is a Chinese proverb that says: If you want one year of prosperity, then grow grain. If you want 10 years of prosperity, then grow trees. But if you want 100 years of prosperity, then you grow people,” said Obama.
“And so I propose a toast — to our people, the citizens of the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America,” said Obama. “May they grow together in friendship. May they prosper together in peace. And may they realize their dream of the future for themselves, for their children, and for their grandchildren.”
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/state-dept-obama-toasted-hu-china-s-desiKeep bowing down to those Chinese overlords, Obama. I know you've been quiet on the countless Chinese activists that have disappeared since the Jasmine Revolution started.
