It seems that President Trump and President Xi Jinping are best buddies again after mending fences at the G-20 summit in Osaka. They both want to defuse the tit-for-tat trade war which threatens the economic stability of the world economy. “We're right back on track and we'll see what happens,” says Mr Trump, although that is not exactly the language of iron-clad guarantees.

The link to bioethics?

Well, it is a bit tenuous, but I’m disappointed that Trump did not bring up China’s egregious human rights abuses. If “egregious” seems offensive, how about flagitious or abhorrent? We’re talking about putting a million Uyghurs in concentration camps because they are Muslims. Some members of the United Nations have fewer than a million people.

And it appears that some of them, along with the persecuted Falun Gong sect, are being quarried for their organs. An article appeared in Nature this week reporting the results of a private investigation. It concluded that “forced organ harvesting is of unmatched wickedness even compared – on a death for death basis – with the killings by mass crimes committed in the last century.”

Is the evidence incontrovertible? No, probably not. But that’s why Trump should have asked some pointed questions.

Michael Cook
China’s human rights record, even today, is atrocious. President Trump should have asked some questions.
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Michael Cook

Michael Cook edits BioEdge, a bioethics newsletter, and MercatorNet, an on-line magazine whose focus is human dignity. He writes from Sydney, Australia.

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