Our relationship with China has always puzzled me, specifically in how many politicians handle it. I understand we like the cheap stuff and rare earth materials, but it’s just jarring to see some Democrats and “free traders” talk about the evils of Chinese oppression one minute and then act like the world is going to end without cheap TVs the next.

In the “let’s remember why China is a dumpster fire” file, here’s an update on their human rights abuses.

On June 17, an independent tribunal which has been investigating “forced organ harvesting” from Chinese prisoners, including Falun Gong practitioners and Uighur Muslims, published its final judgment.

The China Tribunal concluded that “forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale, [and] the tribunal has had no evidence that the significant infrastructure associated with China’s transplantation industry has been dismantled and absent a satisfactory explanation as to the source of readily available organs concludes that forced organ harvesting continues till today.”

It sounds like something out of a horror movie, but it’s real. We’ve already had ample evidence this was happening for a long time, including China admitting it to a point, but this determination says the practice is still ongoing.

For those thinking they are just taking organs from people who were executed for unrelated reasons, it actually goes much further.

Some of the organ extractions were said to have been conducted on live victims who were killed during their procedures.

China is also apparently targeting certain minority groups for organ harvesting, pointing to a dual purpose behind the scheme. They get the organs and they also get to keep wiping out groups they see as problematic and inferior.

The tribunal found that “the Commission of Crimes Against Humanity against the Falun Gong and Uyghurs has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt,” with the “torture of Falun Gong and Uyghurs” in addition to “forced organ harvesting,” but stopped short of concluding that genocide had taken place. The tribunal left that open for further investigation: “There can be no doubt that there is a duty on those who have the power to institute investigations for, and proceedings at, international courts or at the UN to test whether Genocide has been committed.”

The problems with China go far beyond just their totalitarian government. Thousands of years of conditioning have also led to a people that will fiercely defend anything the nation does, no matter how horrific.

It seems to me that Americans are going to have to make a choice eventually. Do we want to keep building the economy and military of a dangerous, genocidal state with international ambitions? Or can we handle paying a little more for our phones? This is the argument Trump should be making in regards to China. Not that tariffs are good in a vacuum, but that it’s a national security imperative that we stop feeding the beast.

I suspect the status quo will remain though.

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