By Dan Murphy
United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spent his early childhood here in Westchester, and Yonkers. Very few details are available about Blinken’s time in Yonkers, other than that he was born in Yonkers on April 16, 1962, to Judith and Donald Blinken and shortly thereafter moved to New York City, then to Paris, and the rest is history.
Recently, on an appearance on 60 Minutes, Blinken expressed a tougher message on behalf of President Joe Biden concernng China.
Norah O’Donnell: Let’s talk about human rights. Describe what you see is happening in Xinjiang that maybe the rest of the world doesn’t.
Blinken: “We’ve made clear that we see a genocide having taken place against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. More than a million people have been put into, choose your term, concentration camps, reeducation camps, internment camps. When Beijing says, “Oh, there’s a terrorism threat,” which we don’t see. It’s not coming from a million people,”
O’Donnell: “The Chinese have stolen hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars of trade secrets and intellectual property from the United States. That sounds like the actions of an enemy.”
Blinken. It “certainly sounds like the actions of– of– of someone who’s trying to compete unfairly– and increasingly in adversarial ways. But we’re much more effective and stronger when we’re bringing like-minded and similarly aggrieved countries together to say to– Beijing, “This can’t stand, and it won’t stand.”
And on May 7, Secretary of State Blinken, said that the United States would “push back forcefully” against China and Russia if they continued to break the rules of international law at a recent UN Meeting. And at a May 4 meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at 10 Downing Street, Blinken streesed the importance of the US, and its allies to “defend democratic values and open societies,” referencing Human Rights violations in both China and Russia.
Blinken has also been able to acknowledge the continuing challenges that the US faces on race, which is the true difference between the US and China. An editorial on Bloomberg best lays out this point.
“At issue was America’s right to criticize Chinese repression. Said top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi: “Many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States.” His message was clear: Don’t criticize us about Uyghur genocide or mass arrests in Hong Kong.
“The U.S. will approach China with confidence, Blinken said, “even as we have the humility to know that we are a country eternally striving to become a more perfect union.” He added that the U.S. had a long history of confronting its demons, “not trying to ignore them, not trying to pretend they don’t exist, trying to sweep them under the rug.”
“In these impromptu remarks, Blinken captured the essence of American exceptionalism. Its greatness is defined not by strength alone, but by humility — and the determination to confront past sins and strive to be more perfect. There is no such impulse within the Chinese Communist Party. To this day, journalists and activists who seek to keep the memory of the Tiananmen Square massacre alive are disappeared. Social media is monitored and censored by the state, forcing citizens to project public obedience to the party,” writes the Editorial Board at Bloomberg.
Well said, Mr. Secretary of State, the people of Yonkers are proud of you.
