Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng to speak at Republican convention

Chinese dissident lawyer Chen Guangcheng will speak at the Republican National Convention, the Washington Examiner has learned.

Chen, a blind man known as "the barefoot lawyer" who denounced China’s forced abortion policies and advocated for people with disabilities, received asylum in the United States in 2012 after escaping house arrest.

His appearance calls attention to the Chinese Communist Party's human rights abuses as well as the fraught state of U.S.-China relations, which could be a potent political weapon due to general anger over the coronavirus pandemic and President Trump's dependence on socially conservative voters.

“As the 'barefoot 'lawyer,' he sought justice for those who could not stand up to the repressive communist government on their own and won the admiration of the world for his sense of fairness and his crusade for freedom,” said Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation Executive Director Marion Smith when her organization awarded him the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom in 2015.

Chen’s addition to the schedule comes as Trump seeks to turn his administration’s confrontational approach with China into a winning campaign message.

“Just In: Chinese State Media and Leaders of CHINA want Biden to win ‘the U.S. Election,’” Trump tweeted Wednesday morning. “If this happened (which it won’t), China would own our Country, and our Record Setting Stock Markets would literally CRASH!”

That tweet echoes a U.S. intelligence assessment that China would prefer Trump to lose to Joe Biden this fall. The assessment also concluded, on the other hand, “that Russia is using a range of measures to denigrate” Biden.

Republican officials have seized on the dearth of anti-China rhetoric at the Democratic National Convention to argue that Biden would neglect threats emanating from Beijing.

"The fact that Joe Biden, in his speech last night, never mentioned China was truly remarkable,” Vice President Mike Pence said last week.