China\u2019s speech at the United Nations has caused friction with critics who allege that countries have grown quiet on Beijing\u2019s hypocritical stances with respect to a number of issues, ranging from human rights to the energy crisis.<\/p>\n
\u2018We saw this with a number of Beijing Olympics sponsors who preach social justice in the U.S. and turn a blind eye towards mass torture, rape and forced labor in China,\u2019 Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on readiness, told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n
\u2018The appeal of the Chinese market is just too tempting despite their long history of stealing IP, subsidizing competitors and using slave labor,\u2019 he added.<\/p>\n
Chinese Vice President Han Zheng focused his speech at the U.N. General Assembly during its annual high-level week on a number of issues related to equity, justice and international peace, saying that \u2018diversity is a defining feature of human civilization \u2026 civilizations should prosper together by respecting each other, advance together by drawing on each other\u2019s strengths and seek win-win outcomes by pursuing common ground.\u2019<\/p>\n
Zheng also said nations should advance human rights through cooperation and oppose double standards; in particular, the use of human rights and democracy as a political tool to interfere in the affairs of other countries.<\/p>\n
Many countries at the United Nation\u2019s high-level week found it easy to hit upon Russia and the continued invasion of Ukraine, but few, if any, took China to task for the hypocrisy of espousing the need to advance human rights while committing what a U.N. report called \u2018serious human rights violations\u2019 toward its Muslim population, the Uyghur people.<\/p>\n
\u2018People have given up trying to change China. Exhaustion has set in,\u2019 Gordon Chang, senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute and author of \u2018The Coming Collapse of China,\u2019 told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n
\u2018At least in the past, people were hopeful about making money in the China market,\u2019 he explained. \u2018They thought \u2013 correctly \u2013 that criticism of China\u2019s rights record would mean Beijing would block them from business opportunities.\u2019<\/p>\n
He suggested that the world has not maintained interest in the Uyghur crisis because \u2018they cannot see\u2019 the crimes China commits, making it difficult to hold China accountable even as reports from global bodies find continued evidence of human rights abuses.<\/p>\n
Chang lambasted China for the fact that \u2018virtually all\u2019 of its policies \u2018are hypocritical,\u2019 pointing to \u2018Beijing\u2019s pronouncements on world peace.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018While saying that China has never attacked any other society, China is fueling the Ukraine war with lethal and other aid to Russia, is supporting insurgencies that look like wars in North Africa, and is threatening in East Asia to break apart neighbors as well as annex Taiwan,\u2019 Chang said.<\/p>\n
He added that \u2018climate activists are not willing to call out Beijing because they think by doing so Chinese leaders will be offended and will not cooperate on an enhanced climate deal,\u2019 but he said the activists \u2018have got it backwards.\u2019<\/p>\n
Waltz pointed to China\u2019s stance on energy and its urging of the rest of the world to engage new energy policies while continuing to open \u2018more coal-fired plants than the rest of the world combined.\u2019 BloombergNEF released a report at the beginning of 2023 that found China had spent more than $500 billion on low-carbon energy production \u2013 accounting for half of the total spent around the world in 2022 \u2013 but the country still possesses an almost unquenchable thirst for coal and oil energy consumption, according to energy watchdogs.<\/p>\n
The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a nonprofit think tank in Helsinki, published a report this year that detailed how China\u2019s coal power plant permitting, construction and project announcement \u2018accelerated dramatically\u2019 in 2022 \u2013 the highest level since 2015 and exceeding that previous peak.<\/p>\n
The only point on which nations continue to find common ground to try and hold China accountable is the issue of Taiwan, but even then the support is checked by the fact that nations continue to affirm the One China policy \u2013 part of what the White House has called \u2018strategic ambiguity\u2019 about its defense of the island.<\/p>\n
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June said that the Biden administration does not support Taiwan independence but remains committed to making sure Taiwan has the ability to defend itself \u2013 mainly due to the fact that \u201850% of commercial container traffic goes through the Taiwan Strait every day\u2019 and that \u201870% percent of semiconductors are manufactured in Taiwan.\u2019<\/p>\n
Waltz called the Biden administration \u2018the softest administration on China since the end of the Cold War,\u2019 alleging that the White House has \u2018pursued dialogue with China above all else, even at the expense of action on issues,\u2019 such as Taiwan\u2019s backlogged weapons delivery, illegal Iranian oil sales and the Uyghurs.<\/p>\n
\u2018There is a narrative that engaging with China and refraining from consequences will somehow moderate its policy or its desire to dominate Asia,\u2019 Waltz said. \u2018Under President Xi, the opposite has been true.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018China must face consequences for its behavior \u2013 that is the only way it will learn,\u2019 he added.<\/p>\n
The White House did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment by time of publication.<\/p>\n
Fox News Digital\u2019s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.<\/p>\n