Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese human rights activist, brought to the United States by the Obama administration, gave a speech at the Republican National Convention on August 26, where he praised President Donald Trump.
Who is Chen Guangcheng
The Chinese human rights activist is known for his work fighting against forced abortions under the "one child" policy in China. He faced harassment for years before he fled to the US Embassy in Beijing for refuge back in 2012.
After a month of negotiations, Chen was permitted to leave China, and he flew to the US, where he has lived ever since and started a new life.
While Chen expressed gratitude, he often criticized the Obama administration and the Democrats, with critics accusing him of espousing views and conspiracy theories.
Before his speech at the RNC, he tweeted a video of a Trump supporter defacing a Black Lives Matter display in New York, with the caption "freedom."
Chen attacked the "policy of appeasement of former administrations," including Obama and Biden. He also said that they allowed the CCP to infiltrate and corrode different aspects of the global community. However, during his speech, he did not mention Obama.
Chen instead praised President Trump for leading the fight to stop China's aggression and called on Americans to support, vote, and fight for President Trump "for the sake of the world."
Tough on China
America's relations with Beijing have soured under President Trump, who has made being tough on China one of the key planks of his reelection campaign, as reported by New York Post.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also praised President Trump in his speech on August 25. He stated that Trump pulled back the curtain on the predatory aggression of the Chinese Communist Party.
According to the Pew Research Center, bother Democrats and Republicans see China much more negatively than in the past, with 83% of Republicans surveyed saying that they have an unfavorable view of China.
According to Pew, while Republicans have never fully trusted China, Democrats in recent years have become suspicious too, with 68% of Democrats surveyed stated that they view China unfavorably.
A lot of the Chinese dissidents living in the United States are vocal about their support of Trump's "tough on China" stance, as reported by The Guardian.
Chen is closely linked to Bob Fu, a conservative Christian pastor who called himself "God's doube agent." Fu has met with Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence and praised President Trump on social media.
Fu assisted in Chen's departure from China and was also involved in Chen getting positions at the Witherspoon Institute, a conservative think tank based in New Jersey and Catholic University in Washington.
However, not all Chinese dissidents agree with Chen and Fu. Teng Biao, a human rights lawyer who represented Chen in the past, tweeted on August 26 that for Chinese human rights defenders, "there is zero logical consistency to supporting Trump."
Biao stated that he is good friends with Chen, but he completely opposes what he is doing.
Biao posted on his Twitter account that he would never support a person who told a dictator to "keep building the concentration camps in Xinjiang and who labeled Tiananmen democracy movements and Hong Kong protests as riots, referencing the comments allegedly made by President Trump.
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