Addressing a CNN town hall event on Tuesday, President Biden said he would stand up for human rights in China. But, he immediately added, Americans should recognize that “culturally, there are different norms that each country, and their leaders, are expected to follow.”

These were ill-chosen words. Especially since Biden had just identified the top three human rights abuses that define Communist China as its repression of Hong Kong, its threat to use force to subjugate Taiwan, and its genocidal campaign against the Uighur people.