Rep. Smith: China is a ‘brutal dictatorship’

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Congressional-Executive Commission on China Chair, says that freed Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng’s family is still in danger and comments on China’s human rights policies.

“[Guangcheng] has been through a trauma both physically and emotionally, as well as, his wife and his children. And his extended family, as we all know, who are still at grave risk, they’re being retaliated against, they’ve shifted, them being the Chinese government, from going after him and beating him routinely to beating his family, especially his nephew and brother.”

“It’s very, very bad…. While the Chens are free here, the other Chens are not.”

“This is a brutal dictatorship. Most Americans I think you know they get the happy pictures of Beijing and perhaps Shanghai, maybe even if they go there on vacation they come away with a false impression that belies what is going on by the secret police.”

On women’s rights, he says, “By and large forced abortion is absolutely pervasive. There is missing maybe on the order of a hundred million girls because of sex election abortion and there are about 500 women per day in China who commit suicide. This is the worse violation of women’s rights, I think, ever and now we have missing girls, the current problem of sex trafficking.”

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