Coke Tries to Can Uyghur Rights Bill
The hypocrisy is enough to make anyone sick.
Americans aren’t the only ones concerned about a Biden administration. Persecuted people all around the world have a lot to lose if Donald Trump isn’t reelected. Just this past week, a Uyghur leader bluntly said that a liberal president would be a nightmare for the suffering minorities in China. “We’re actually quite worried, I’ll be honest with you.”
And they have reason to be. Not only is Joe Biden desperate to get back into communist China’s good graces, his early picks for key posts like secretary of State will be a disaster for religious freedom around the world. “Prior to setting up these concentration camps in 2016 and 2017, the Chinese government claimed that it was fighting against terrorism — and this was part of the excuse for why they have millions of people in [locked away] in these forced labor camps, is to ‘fight against extremism and terrorism,’” Salih Hudayar told the Federalist. Incredibly, Anthony Blinken, Biden’s choice to replace Mike Pompeo, was fine with this.
“Blinken stated that China was doing the right thing, and that the U.S. supported China’s efforts to fight against terrorism, and that they would seek to try to cooperate with them. And this worries us. … If this is going to be the next secretary of state, things are going to go [badly] — there is going to be a lot of backpedaling.”
It’s bad enough that America’s corporate giants — brands like Apple, Nike, Costco, Coca-Cola, and Patagonia — are secretly working to keep the Uyghurs in chains. Tim Cook’s empire, Apple, has been using slave labor for years in at least four factory compounds. The place near Xinjiang is so sprawling that it’s been coined “iPhone city.” Thousands of Uyghurs, ripped away from their families, are forced to work there manufacturing chargers and screens — while U.S. executives, half a world away, drone on about racial justice.
The hypocrisy is enough to make anyone sick, but especially lifelong religious freedom advocates like Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J.). “You know, one of the greatest disappointments I’ve had in 40 years of promoting human rights and humanitarianism in Congress is that the profit motive… trump[s] human rights.” He goes back to the most favored nation status, where so many people argued that America wheel and deal with China so that our American values would rub off. “And all of these big wigs in corporate America said, ‘If you just trade more, they’ll matriculate into a democracy.’ And that has absolutely not happened. I voted against it at the time And it was Bill Clinton who shamelessly de-linked human rights from trade on May 26, 1994. It was an infamous day. Nobody remembers it, but I do. And now we have a situation where you’ve got slave labor camps, the most horrific oppression imaginable by Xinjiang against the Muslims in the region.”
Now, he pointed out, the House has actually come together to ban imports from the Chinese regions where the oppression is most severe. In one of the strongest showings of bipartisanship, Republicans and Democrats sent the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act to the Senate, and what is corporate America doing? Trying to water the whole thing down so they can keep their cheap supply chains intact. “I’m just disappointed in the extreme,” Smith said, “with the big wigs in corporate America. They should be on the front line of saying, ‘We want our workers’ rights protected.‘ Human rights should be for everyone, including people in faraway factories.”
Originally published here.
Critical of Critical Race Theory
Apart from the elections and coronavirus, nothing has taken 2020 more by storm than racial tension. The death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor has led to violence in the streets, the toppling of statues, the renaming of schools and universities — and in many corners of the country, a fierce emphasis on Critical Race Theory. What is it and why should we care? Dr. Owen Strachan joined me on “Washington Watch” to explain.
Like most people, Strachan isn’t questioning whether there’s racism in America or excusing our horrific, slave-holding past. But Critical Race Theory isn’t a cure for either of those things, he argues. It’s a contentious, unjust construct that weaponizes our past and accuses every person of holding secret prejudices. “That’s a big claim,” he points out, with even bigger ramifications. “Your average person in America, including a so-called white person, is not a white supremacist. This system is not uniting us. Tragically, it’s dividing us.” And unfortunately for America, the proponents of this theory are taking it everywhere — to college campuses, the federal workforce, even pulpits.
“Sadly,” Strachan said, “a lot of Christians look at… this country and they see the kind of sins and weaknesses and failings that you and I have already clearly identified. They believe that they need to do anything they possibly can to counter that heritage and overcome it in the current day. And so in many cases, I think, they are tricked or led to in making that claim that there are white supremacists, that America is systemically unjust, [and this] is going to solve that. They think it’s going to be the bridge to diversity that the church [wants]… [but] it’s going to breed the opposite.”
Last summer, the issue created a storm of controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention when the delegates decided to pass Resolution 9, a neutral statement on Critical Race Theory instead of a repudiation of the concept. As Strachan pointed out, the acid test for believers on this subject should be what scripture says. “Instead of embracing society, we would do better to… embrace the biblical gospel and recognize that there’s one new man in Christ Jesus, and that is the only solution to racial disunity, prejudice, bias, and any structural inequities… So we might hear theories sound good when they talk in the tone. But I would very much counsel pastors and Christians to not embrace the system.”
Several Southern Baptist seminary presidents appear to have listened. This week, six of them released a joint statement condemning racism and Critical Race Theory. They called the theory “incompatible with the Baptist faith and message.” “Unfortunately, the problem of racism still exists, but Critical Race Theory is not a biblical solution…the closer you look into the history, advocates, and aims of Critical Race Theory the more troubling it becomes,” noted Jason Allen, president of Midwestern Theological Seminary — where Strachan is a professor.
With this statement, the Southern Baptist Convention is taking a clear, intentional, and public stand against Critical Race Theory. It was a gutsy move in light of the current cultural friction. The church needs leaders who will take a stand against the lies and deception of the world. These men are trying to obey the words of Paul, “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (Colossians 2:8).
Critical Race Theory has taken far too many in the church captive and deceived its members through the tactics of shame and guilt. May we join in praying for the eyes of the church to be open, our hearts softened, and our minds to be sharpened. As Strachan told listeners Wednesday night, “I think we’re all in danger of being taken captive by worldly ideology. And that’s happening today… [But] I pray that this statement is used to stop the advance of CRT in the SBC and even push it back in our time.”
Originally published here.
Biden’s Senate Problem
If Joe Biden wants a radical cabinet, he’ll have to get through the Senate first. How hard will that be? Find out in my “Washington Watch” interview with Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
