Biden: I won’t ‘second-guess’ China’s one-child policy

by Kathleen Gilbert

U.S. Vice President Joe U.S. Vice President Joe Biden shakes hands with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

CHENGDU, China, August 22, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In remarks before a Chinese audience Sunday, Vice President Joe Biden said he would not “second-guess” China’s coercive population control policy, although he said the scheme was not economically sustainable.

Biden noted that Chinese officials “share a similar concern” with American leaders in terms of a shaky economic outlook.

“You have no safety net.  Your policy has been one which I fully understand - I’m not second-guessing - of one child per family,” said Biden.

“The result being that you’re in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people.  Not sustainable.”

The implementation of China’s one-child policy is notoriously brutal – with women routinely forced to undergo abortions and sterilizations, or handed crippling fines and other punishments for “illegal pregnancies.” Human rights activists say as many as 35,000 abortions are performed in China each day, nearly ten times the rate of the United States.

Reggie Littlejohn, president of Human Rights Without Frontiers, agreed with Biden’s economic outlook but said his dismissal turned a blind eye to “terrible human suffering.”

“Does he ‘fully understand’ that China’s One Child Policy causes more violence to women and girls than any other official policy on earth?” said Littlejohn in an email to LifeSiteNews.com. “Chinese women are literally dragged out of their homes, strapped to tables and forced to abort.”

The vice president’s visit is aimed to assuage fears over America’s downgraded credit rating in a Communist country that possesses $1.2 trillion in U.S. Treasury holdings.