The White House is offering tepid support for protesters in China who are speaking out against Beijing’s draconian “zero-COVID” lockdown policies.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday that “we’ve been very clear people have a right to protest without fear.”
It’s quite a change from the vile, often vicious attacks the White House leveled against Americans who opposed draconian COVID policies. Or Canadians, for that matter.
National security spokesperson John Kirby claimed that “a lockdown is not a policy that we support here,” but the Chinese protesters “obviously … have concerns about that.”
“And they’re protesting that, and we believe they should be able to do that peacefully,” he added.
Those words appear to be falling on def ears, as Chinese authorities have responded swiftly and violently to suppress the protests.
The breaking point for the uprising appears to be a fire at an apartment building that killed 10 people. Video shows firefighters seemingly hindered from getting to victims by virus control barriers, with some suggesting residents could not leave due to restrictions.
Tucker Carlson blasted the Biden Administration’s weak response when asked if they support protests against the Chinese Communist Regime:pic.twitter.com/mvMd0h0TgO
— Tea Party Patriots (@TPPatriots) November 29, 2022
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White House Pressured Canada to Crack Down on Freedom Convoy
To be certain, the White House response to China’s crackdown on protesters has been incredibly meek and mild.
Senator Marco Rubio offered his theory on why the administration can’t bring itself to offer a full-throated defense of the lockdown protests – Because there are similarities between their beliefs and those of the Chinese Communist government.
“It’s very weak and I think part of it is the self-awareness that there are people in the party of the president, the Democratic Party, who are governors, mayors, people in different parts of the country who actually wanted people arrested and in some cases did, who wanted people fined and businesses closed, who had people removed from airplanes, who had all kinds of things that were going on and all kinds of restrictions.”
Rubio rightly noted that the lockdown measures and crackdown on protests in America do not equate to the violence being wrought by Chinese officials.
That said, the pathetic response to China’s crackdown comes just days after a report that top Biden administration officials pressured Canada to squash a ‘freedom convoy’ protest by truckers opposing vaccine mandates.
The New York Post reports that “frantic phone calls” were made by White House officials – including White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg – urging their Canadian counterparts to “clear truckers blockading parts of the United States’s northern border.”
The protest would later migrate to Ottawa, where truckers would be ‘coerced’ to move out by having their bank accounts frozen, while protest leaders were arrested and charged criminally.
The Canadian protesters were threatened with the seizure of their vehicles, fines, and revocation of their licenses. Children were used as pawns. Authorities even threatened to seize truckers’ pets under the guise of being for the animal’s safety.
Images emerged from the crackdown of an elderly woman along with others being trampled by police horses.
Power corrupts. When U let your governments power go unchecked this is what happens. History has proven this fact many times. Freedom is not free, the left fail to see this, just because u agree with your govt today does not mean u will agree with them tommorrow #freedomconvoy22 pic.twitter.com/UNHmKkD9dC
— Hodgetwins (@hodgetwins) February 19, 2022
Another video from that time shows a police officer using the butt of their gun to corral a protester.
Police drag away a Freedom Convoy protesters and proceed to beat the individual.
Keep your eye on the scene as the person is dragged off into the background by the police and is repeatedly hit with what looks like a gun. pic.twitter.com/jxRKlR5ZFU
— Marie Oakes (@TheMarieOakes) February 18, 2022
Media Hypocrisy
The White House isn’t the only entity expressing support for the protests in China, a complete hypocritical contradiction to how the ‘freedom convoy’ was treated.
Their cohorts in the media are also singing a different tune, offering favorable and sympathetic coverage of the ongoing crackdown in Beijing – as they should.
But it’s not something they ever offered to Americans or Canadians.
CNN, for example, is calling the protest in China an “unprecedented challenge to Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policy.”
They note fatigue over the lengthy lockdowns, as well as the “continued onslaught on personal freedoms.”
The reporting reflects a sense of understanding of the frustrations bubbling over. But they didn’t care about those things when the truckers protested.
Recall, if you will, CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem, responding to the ‘freedom convoy’ by demanding police officers take drastic actions including slashing their tires and making arrests.
“Slash the tires, empty gas tanks, arrest the drivers, and move the trucks,” Kayyem wrote.
Remember this gem? pic.twitter.com/xU5fjyZzpE
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) November 28, 2022
The media repeatedly referred to the truckers as ‘insurrectionists,’ a label intended to provide negative connotations. Now that ‘insurrectionists’ in China are on the right side of things, they won’t dare use that word.
The Chinese protesters are heroes. The Canadian protesters? Trumpian rubes.
Compare this to the liberal media cheering Biden for “putting the screws” on unvaccinated Americans.
The truckers were also smeared by the media as ‘white supremacists.’
Republicans don’t get a pass on this either.
While they’re whining about the White House responding weakly to the current China protests, they weren’t exactly holding press conferences on the steps of the Capitol, taking a stand against Canada’s own forceful crackdown.
It’ll be interesting to see how the White House, the media, and current lawmakers navigate their support for protesters in China and amplify their voices opposing violent crackdowns.
Especially after they left the ‘freedom convoy’ out in the cold.
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