Presidential Candidates Sidestep Biggest Foreign Policy Issue

In the presidential foreign policy debate Monday, the candidates spent approximately eight minutes talking about China. Meanwhile, mass atrocities are taking place in this troubled giant. We need to ask our candidates to speak up.

U.S. President Barack Obama (2nd-R) and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney participate in the third and final presidential debate at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., on Oct. 22. Their debate performances were remarkable for how little time they spent on China and for not mentioning at all the atrocities taking place there. JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images

In the presidential foreign policy debate Monday, the candidates spent approximately eight minutes talking about China. How could they barely scratch the surface of the big issues with the world’s most populous nation, the second-largest trading partner of the United States, the growing Asian power that is tenaciously trying to win friends and influence people in every corner of the globe?

What were they sidestepping? Were they wary of offending someone? Perhaps a guilty conscience? Were they dodging mentioning the deadly ways of the rulers of China, things that they know should be spoken about?

As The Epoch Times has reported from many angles, the ruling regime of China is the world’s long-term, leading violator of human rights. But the abstract, academic term “violators of human rights” does not begin to tell the chilling story. In its history, the Chinese Communist Party is responsible for some 80 million unnatural deaths of innocent Chinese people.