Did Biden Dismiss Uighur Genocide During His Town Hall?

No. A New York Post article misrepresents what Biden said.

By
27

An article from the New York Post accused President Joe Biden of shrugging off human rights violations and genocide in China and embracing cultural relativism to downplay concerns. The headline: “Biden Dimisses Uighur genocide as part of China’s ‘different norms’.”

The article is based on comments Biden made during a  CNN town hall in Wisconsin on Tuesday. The Post article begins: 

President Biden is dismissing the genocide against the Uighur population in China, dubbing the mass internment a ‘different norm’ — despite the State Department this month responding to ‘atrocities’ in the camps, following reports of systemic rape and torture.”

The commander in chief made the remarks after being asked during the CNN town hall Tuesday evening about his recent conversation with his Chinese counterpart, starting his response by relaying Xi’s justification for the abuses.

Keep reading with a free account
Create a free Dispatch account to keep reading Get Started ALREADY HAVE AN ACCOUNT? SIGN IN
27
By
Comments (27)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Neil Kellen

    That's the game these days. Find something that can be presented the way you want to show it. The left has mastered it. The right is catching on.

    Collapse
  2. Avatar photo
    Picov Andropov

    Wow. I knew the Post was a trash publication but this is straight-up lying on their part (and I saw other right-wing media outlets parrot similar claims to the Post). Hope they retract this piece and apologize soon.

    Collapse
  3. Avatar photo
    Jeff Greene

    This sounded bad and looked bad. You can parse exactly what he might have meant in a positive way, but it is irritating that as much as I hated Trump, he never, ever got the benefit of the doubt in his comments. Had Trump said this, it would have been the front page of every mainstream newspaper in America, but instead, only the NY Post wrote about it in any meaningful critical way. They may have overstated his comments, but the silence from the rest of the press is deafening.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Devin H

      I think the genuine complaint is that they could have more honestly written their article in a way that would have evoked much more thought than anger.

      Collapse
  4. Avatar photo
    Victor Clairmont

    I don’t know. Watching him live as opposed to the transcript, it definitely seemed bad.

    Looking at the transcript, I wonder if this is just a case of a Biden going back and forth, like how he said there was no vaccination and then there was.

    I think the coms team need to really hammer into Biden what to say and what not to say.

    Which, if they have to do, is a problem unto himself.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Josh

      I think one of the problems is that when Biden talks, it just sounds bad.

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        Mudskipper

        Yeah, we've had two incoherent Presidents in a row. It would be great to have one that can speak clearly extemporaneously.

        Collapse
        1. Avatar photo
          Victor Clairmont

          PREACH

          Collapse
        2. Avatar photo
          JohnF

          I think the difference with this one is that the actual policy that the United States is going to pursue is going to be developed by experts within the State Department who understand China and its history and have clear long-term goals in mind.
          Much better than having a strategy based on a President's perceived need to get votes from soybean farmers.

          Collapse
          1. Avatar photo
            Mudskipper

            No argument from me. Biden, incoherent though he might be at times, is many heads-and-shoulders above Trump.

            Collapse
    2. Counterpoint

      I mean, it wasn’t great. But the New York Post didn’t accuse him of giving a muddled answer. They accused him of dismissing Uighur genocide, which is just a straight up lie. That’s what the fact check is about.

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        Victor Clairmont

        Ok got it.

        Collapse
  5. Joe1776

    Your fact check left out the concerning parts.

    "BIDEN: The Uyghurs.

    We must speak up for human rights. It's who we are. We can't -- my comment to him was -- and I know him well, and he knows me well. We're -- a two-hour conversation.

    COOPER: You talked about this to him?

    BIDEN: I talked about this too.

    And that's not so much refugee, but I talked about it. I said, look -- Chinese leaders, if you know anything about Chinese history, it has always been the time China when has been victimized by the outer world is when they haven't been unified at home.

    So, the central -- to vastly overstate it, the central principle of Xi Jinping is that there must be a united, tightly controlled China. And he uses his rationale for the things he does based on that. I point out to him, no American president can be sustained as a

    president if he doesn't reflect the values of the United States. And so the idea I'm not going to speak out against what he's doing in Hong Kong, what he's doing with the Uyghurs in western mountains of China, and Taiwan, trying to end the One-China policy by making it forceful, I said -- by the way, he said he gets it.

    Culturally, there are different norms that each country and their leaders are expected to follow. But my point was that, when I came back from meeting with him and traveling 17,000 miles with him when I was vice president and he was the vice president -- and that's how I got to know him so well, at the request of President Hu -- not a joke -- his predecessor, President Hu, and President Obama wanted us to get to know one another, because he was going to the president.

    And I came back and said, they're going to end their one-child policy, because they're so xenophobic, they won't let anybody else in. And more people are retired than working. How can they sustain economic growth when more people are retired?"

    I mean he is mostly incoherent but I certainly think it is more than fair to say he seems to be saying politically I have to complain when he commits genocide and XI gets it so he is fine that I am going to complain about it. We have different norms.

    As far as the repercussions Biden couldn't be more clear that he will be all talk and no action. He also shows he is out of touch.

    "BIDEN: Well, there will be repercussions for China. And he knows that.

    What I'm doing is making clear that we, in fact, are going to continue to reassert our role as spokespersons for human rights at the U.N. and other agencies that have an impact on their attitude. China is trying very hard to become the world leader and to get that moniker. And to be able to do that, they have to gain the confidence of other countries.

    And as long as they're engaged in activity that is contrary to basic human rights, it's going to be hard for them to do that. But it's much more complicated than that. I'm — I shouldn't try to talk China policy in 10 minutes on television here."

    I'm sure China is worried you will continue to be a "spokesperson" for human rights. I mean China is very afraid of "spokespeople"! Biden better back off a bit don't you think? Oh wait didn't Joe Biden just say earlier that Xi "gets it"? He gets it, Biden will complain because he has to if he wants to get re-elected but no hard feelings this is just different norms. Yes that is pretty almost verbatim what he said even though it was intermixed with gibberish.

    "China is trying very hard to become the world leader and to get that moniker. And to be able to do that, they have to gain the confidence of other countries."



    Guess what Joe? China is *already* a world leader. They controlled and continue to control WHO they are on the UN human rights council and have at least as much influence with those countries. Bolivia, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, France, Gabon, Malawi, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Russian Federation, Senegal, Ukraine, United Kingdom and Uzbekistan.


    Biden is a complete imbecile if he doesn't see China is *already* a world power. If Biden is announcing he is just going to be a "spokesman" he is indeed essentially greenlighting all of their evil actions.




    Collapse
    1. Michelle C

      Thank you. Biden was incoherent and this fact check at The Dispatch is a weak one.

      Collapse
    2. Robert Bailey

      I have much more confidence in Biden than the previous President. Trump was the textbook example of an imbecile. I doubt he could find China on a map...much less have anything intelligent to say about the Uyghurs (“the what??”) or Chinese history or contemporary politics (“they’re great people! They love me!” 🤦‍♂️)

      Collapse
    3. Avatar photo
      Dan

      Joe, you don't know Chinese culture and history. I'll summarize very distinctly for you: thanks to the Open Door policy that the US proposed and enforced during the fall of the Qing Dynasty, and all the chaos that resulted afterwards, the CCP and most of the Han people would literally rather burn down the world in nuclear fire than ever allow the US or any other Western power to tell it what it should and should not do. Biden knows this--that's why he is acknowledging that he can do little more than warn them verbally and be a spokesperson.
      China will never, *EVER* allow another country to dictate internal policy to it. The Uighurs are doomed to extinction--there is nothing the rest of the world can do, short of triggering a world-ending war. It is a sad and true statement.

      Collapse
    4. Counterpoint

      As to the first part, I think your inference is fair. I will wait to see what Biden actually does, but you absolutely could infer that he only plans to complain about human rights but take little to no action.

      On the second part, Biden said “the world leader.” You changed that to “a world leader” to criticize him, but those aren’t the same thing.

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        Victor Clairmont

        It's why I am confused. I kinda felt he did screw this up.

        Steve on the recent podcast took the same line that he denounced it...

        But I mean, it felt so mealy mouth to me, I understand if the New York Post interpreted it the other way.

        I kinda felt that way too after he said "there was no vaccine" when he came in....

        So.....maybe we're all confused?!

        Collapse
      2. Avatar photo
        Aylene Wright

        I think it's certainly a reasonable analysis of those comments that Biden basically told Xi "look, I *have* to speak out against some of what you're doing in order to sustain myself politically as an American President, but don't worry, I don't *really* care enough to actually do anything about it" and also downplayed the seriousness of the Uighur genocide by chalking it up to "different norms".

        I mean, let's say that a Trump critical R from a purple state had said to some donors, that he had spoken to Trump and explained that in order to sustain himself as the Representative of District P he had to criticize Trump on XYZ , and Trump got it. I can definitely imagine Democrats jumping on that as proof the Republican was actually a stealth Trumpist who was only critiquing Trump for insincere political reasons.

        That being said, this is not a definitive slam-dunk analysis and I do think the NYP article was poorly written as a *news* article as opposed to an opinion or analysis.

        But I do think this might not have been the best material to base a Fact Check on.

        Collapse
        1. Avatar photo
          JohnF

          For me, the most realistic point from the article is at the end when Biden says:
          𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑡'𝑠 𝑚𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡. 𝐼'𝑚 — 𝐼 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑𝑛'𝑡 𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑘 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑎 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑦 𝑖𝑛 10 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒.
          Your first paragraph is a believable (if somewhat cynical) view of politics today. However, it's also an overly simplified one within the context of current US-China relations and American foreign relations overall. Biden likely cares very deeply about the Uighurs (it would be difficult for anyone who has seen any of the recent reports not to care). However, it's not clear that - short of major military intervention - there are a lot of other immediate options available when the Chinese leadership politely says that this is an internal matter and it isn't interested in the opinions of the rest of the world.

          Collapse
          1. Avatar photo
            Aylene Wright

            I am not saying that I agree with the cynical interpretation of Biden's comments. I just don't think it's so totally implausible that I can flatly say "Joe, you're wrong!" (I mean Joe the poster not Joe Biden).

            Totally agree with Biden that the China situation can't be summed up in 10 minutes, though. The NYP version certainly puts a really negative spin on Biden's comments. But are they *so* negative as to be actually FALSE?

            Collapse
        2. Counterpoint

          I agree for the most part. The problem I have is that parsing everything a politician says in this way is leading to an infantilized political discourse.

          We don’t want to be spoken to in talking points and sound bites, but then we criticize the exact wording anytime a politician speaks extemporaneously. This is for sure a both sides equally to blame kind of thing, but I don’t like it.

          The only part I’m not with you on is the fact check part. I don’t think the NYP article was badly written, I think it was a flat out falsehood, correctly called out as such.

          Collapse
          1. Avatar photo
            Aylene Wright

            I think the headline certainly was poorly written and misleading. But the article had a tad more nuance.

            I think something can be misleading without being false, though. Let's say a public official is accused of being friends with some miscreant and he says sarcastically, "Oh yes, that guy is my bestie who I text on my phone every day. This is a ridiculous question, I would rather talk about what I am doing for my constituents", which comes across as, and is reported as a denial of any connection.

            Later, actual texts from the politician to the friend get leaked, but it turns out he only texted the guy twice over two months. Was the politician caught lying? Because while he did sarcastically deny being "besties" with the guy, and he never actually denied knowing him at all. I don't think TD should waste its time running FCs on that kind of story, either.

            Collapse
          2. Avatar photo
            DougAz

            Exactly. I sometimes think Americans are overly educated, erudite and the day jobs no longer use our full capacities.

            So we pick at things

            Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    rlritt


    I bet the interviewers don't really listen to the answers to their questions. They're just thinking about their next question.

    Collapse