China is taking the families of American citizens hostage to silence their speech on U.S. soil, and the establishment press is too busy obsessing over immigration enforcement to care.
When a foreign power targets Americans' First Amendment rights to suppress dissent, that is a direct assault on national sovereignty. Trump's push to hold China accountable at his upcoming meeting with Xi is exactly the kind of America-first response the Founders would demand—but you wouldn't know it from the corporate media.
The Washington Examiner reported that Beijing's ploy is "brazenly transparent: use loved ones in China to silence free speech in America." Meanwhile, the New York Post, Fox News, and the Philadelphia Inquirer filled their newswires with the tragic death of a Haitian college student in Ohio who lost his Temporary Protected Status. While the Inquirer framed the Ohio case as the result of "extreme stress" from U.S. policy, and the Post and Fox News highlighted the student's feeling of being "treated like an animal," the establishment press collectively shrugged at Americans actually being treated as political hostages by a foreign adversary.
The facts on China's repression are damning. Dr. Gulshan Abbas, a 64-year-old Uyghur doctor, was sentenced to 20 years in China less than a week after her sister spoke at the Hudson Institute about CCP oppression. She has 24 American citizen family members, including siblings, daughters, and grandchildren, who have directly advocated for her release. Then there is the case of Jin, whose U.S. citizen daughter and son-in-law had to appeal to Trump to champion their father's cause with Xi. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently determined that U.S. citizen Min Zin is wrongfully detained. Jimmy Lai and eight Zion Church leaders also remain imprisoned.
Trump must move securing the release of Dr. Abbas and these other political prisoners to the top of his list when he meets with Xi next month. It is a powerful pressure point and the only acceptable response to Beijing's transnational repression. Dr. Abbas suffers from severe osteoporosis, high blood pressure, and an eye condition that could lead to permanent blindness; time is running out. As the Examiner noted, whenever a foreign government targets the ability of Americans to exercise their First Amendment rights, elected officials must defend the Constitution.
The press will wring its hands over domestic enforcement, but the real test of sovereignty is whether the president will make a foreign power pay for censoring Americans on our own soil.
