The deliberate murder of a newborn infant, however shocking it may be to the West, is an everyday occurrence in China. Chinese officials, themselves under heavy pressure to enforce the one-child policy, pressure parents in turn to undergo abortions. Infanticide takes two forms, committed both by parents eager to have a son and by officials eager to meet population control targets. But human rights abuses in China are not limited to the one-child policy. They run the gamut from the arrest and torture of religious believers, to the incarceration or execution of political dissidents, to the continued oppression of Tibetans and other minorities.
China holds the dubious distinction of having one of the worst human rights records in the world.
The oppression of the exercising grannies of the Falun Gong continues apace, with arrests now running into the tens of thousands. Many have been tortured by cattle prods and other cruel devices until they renounce their beliefs. Some of this, at least, has been widely reported in the American press. Some has been condemned by influential figures in this country. Yet the ongoing scandal of Chinese human rights abuses seems to have had little effect on those who push for normal trade relations with that country.