Joe Biden once traveled to China as vice president of the United States and said he fully understands and does not second-guess the country’s one-child policy (since modified to more like a two-child policy). That was horrific, and the White House scrambled to insist Biden didn’t really mean it.

There’s no greater contrast to Biden’s performance than Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese dissident and refugee who earned the wrath of the Chinese Communist government by exposing its brutal practices of forced abortion and sterilization and coerced birth control. Chen will speak tonight at the Republican National Convention.