C-SPAN
- GOP Rep. Chip Roy used his opening statement at a hearing about anti-Asian violence to complain about China.
- The hearing took place in the wake of a series of deadly Atlanta-area shootings that killed 8 people, 6 of whom were Asian women.
- “What they did to hide the reality of this virus is equally deserving of condemnation,” Roy said of the Chinese government.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas used his opening statement at a congressional hearing about anti-Asian violence to complain about the Chinese government and the coronavirus.
Thursday’s hearing, held by the House Judiciary Committee, comes two days after a series of deadly shootings at three Atlanta-area massage parlors that killed eight people, six of whom were Asian women. Robert Aaron Long, 21, was arrested on murder charges on Wednesday in connection to the shootings.
In his opening statement, Roy said the shootings were a tragedy, that “all Americans deserve protection and to live in a free and secure society,” and that the “victims of race-based violence and their families deserve justice.”
He went on to criticize the hearing, saying: “My concern about this hearing is that it seems to want to venture into the policing of rhetoric in a free society, free speech, and away from the rule of law and taking out bad guys.”
Then Roy employed whataboutism – a Soviet-era propaganda tactic used to deflect blame – as he launched into a tirade against the Chinese government.
“I think the Chinese Communist Party running the country of China, I think they are the bad guys,” he said. “I think that they are harming people and I think they are engaging in modern day slavery.”
“What they are doing to Uighurs … what they are doing targeting our country … what they are doing to undermine our national security, and what they are doing to steal our intellectual property, and what they are doing to rattle throughout the Pacific, I think it’s patently evil and deserving of condemnation,” Roy continued. “And I think that what they did to hide the reality of this virus is equally deserving of condemnation.”
-The Recount (@therecount) March 18, 2021
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