Nothing that tumbles from Vice President Joe Biden’s mouth should surprise. But he certainly raised eyebrows — and a lot more — with his stunning remarks in China suggesting support for Beijing’s notorious one-child policy.
A spokeswoman later had to argue that what Biden actually believes isn’t necessarily what he says.
Taking questions at Sichuan University, Biden launched into a riff on China’s demographic crisis.
“Your policy is one which I fully understand — I’m not second-guessing — of [allowing only] one child per family,” the vice president helpfully offered.
Seriously? Apparently not.
After an outpouring of condemnation, spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff issued a statement reiterating that “the Obama administration strongly opposes all aspects of China’s birth-limitation policies.”
Which is good to hear. As was her claim that, by calling the policy “unsustainable,” Biden was actually “arguing against the one-child policy to a Chinese audience.”
If she was telling the truth, that is.
For the record, China’s three-decade-old one-child limit for urban families has been denounced by human-rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
And with good reason: It involves forced sterilization, coerced abortions and de facto “gendercide” — the weeding out of female babies, creating a huge imbalance in favor of male births.
Frankly, it’s astonishing that the second-highest-ranking official of an administration that considers itself committed to reproductive rights should give tacit endorsement to a policy that is the very antithesis of a woman’s right to choose.
So what does Biden really think?
After that display of verbal summersaults, who knows?