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President Bush's meetings this week with present and future leaders
of the People's Republic of China, advocates of religious freedom,
both inside and outside of China, are hoping that he will be a strong
voice for the millions of Chinese Christians and members of other
religious and spirituality groups, including Vatican-affiliated
Catholics and Falun Gong practitioners, who are oppressed by the
PRC's government.
China watchers
have been increasingly critical of the regime's bloody handling
of its "religious problem," with severe crackdowns that
have resulted in mass arrests, destruction of churches, torture,
and the deaths of incarcerated worshipers. Still, they believe that
an alignment of events and situations — the PRC coming to terms
with its new acceptance in the World Trade Organization, increased
pressures from external civil liberties and religious-freedom organizations,
and, they hope, a strong statement from President Bush — will
force a change that will halt the regime's current brutal practices.
The country's
policies concerning organized religion and spirituality groups were
explicitly discussed at a PRC conference in Beijing this past December.
More recently, official government documents were smuggled out of
China, and made public February 11th by the Committee
for the Investigation on Persecution and Religion in China.
The CIPRC study, "Religion and National Security in China —
Secret Documents from China's Security Sector" was prepared
at great personal risk to many. According to Carol Lee Hamrin, a
China scholar and former analyst with the State Department, "The
secret [PRC] documents alone are extremely rare and incredibly important."
These documents
demonstrate — for the first time — how China's government
has officially orchestrated a crackdown campaign directed by their
central-party leaders. According to these internal documents, Hu
Jin-tao and other party leaders know of and encourage the torture
of their fellow-countrymen. These papers detail the lengths that
PRC is taking to identify and ban a variety of "cults"
which are considered a "crawling danger to domestic security
and defense." China's ambiguous definition of "evil cult"
can be applied so arbitrarily that almost anyone in an unregistered
group can be accused of belonging to one. While the 14 "cults"
listed in these documents don't even satisfy the Chinese Communist
Party's own definition of the word, the expense and resources the
CCP has invested in spying on spirituality groups and church members
— both at home and abroad — is astounding.
On February
13th, the U.S. House Congressional Subcommittee on International
Operations and Human Rights once again served as "a conduit
for presentation of new information and evidence derived from testimonials
from victims of Chinese torture and persecution, to help ensure
a place of prominence for human rights and religious freedom issues
in the upcoming discussions between US and Chinese officials."
In her opening remarks, Subcommittee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
urged President Bush to "Let the U.S. send a message throughout
China and throughout the East Asian region and the world, that this
country proudly stands with the oppressed and will continue to fight
for their right to practice their religion and beliefs."
Testifying
before the subcommittee, Paul Marshall of the Freedom House Center
for Religious Freedom stated that his organization "is alarmed
by mounting repression against the major religious and spiritual
groups in China — Protestant Christians, Roman Catholics, Tibetan
Buddhists, Falun Gong, and Uigur Muslims," and provided a clergy
list from Fides News Service of "33 people in need of prayers,
bishops and priests, some who have disappeared altogether, others
unable to minister, confined to strict house arrest."
"Our list
gives the names of 33," said Marshall, "but there are
at least 20 more without even a name."
An analysis
by Freedom House of the CIPRC report stressed how the secret
PRC religion documents "show that China's government, at the
highest levels, aims to repress religious expression outside its
control, and is using more determined, systematic and harsher criminal
penalties in this effort. Hu-Jin-tao, designated as the successor
of President Jiang Zemin, is quoted in the doctrine as endorsing
the drive against the Real God Church. The minister of public security
is quoted giving orders to 'smash the cult quietly.'"
In other testimony
before the subcommittee, Michael K. Young, U.S. commissioner on
international religious freedom for the State Department, offered
the following recommendations:
Prior to
any state visit by the respective heads of state of the United
States and the People's Republic of China, the President of the
United States should obtain assurances that: (a) freedom of religion
and belief will be included as a prominent agenda item for his
discussions and (b) he be given an opportunity to address the
Chinese people directly by live, uncensored broadcast in a major
speech on fundamental human rights and freedoms, particularly
freedom of religion and belief. During any state visit, the President
of the United States should take further steps to promote religious
freedom in his activities and those of the delegation. The Commission
should be invited to designate representatives to participate
in the delegation.
As to what
the average American can do to respond to religious persecution
in China, the Committee for the Investigation on Persecution and
Religion in China — based on interviews with leading Chinese
scholars — suggests:
Just as some
people said Chinese leaders were more anxious to meet Bill Gates
than Bill Clinton, there are many influential groups with clout
in China ... from investors to educators to [United Nations-affiliated
'Non Governmental Organizations'] providing disaster relief or
development assistance, many of them international, not solely
American. They need to be made more aware of the problem and asked
to be part of the solution. Similarly, there are many local level
actors in China from many sectors, including the Christians in
the official church and other house church groups, who need to
come to the aid of those being repressed.
Of course,
George Bush is no average American. This week, as he meets with
PRC officials, Christians and defenders of religious freedom are
counting on him to use this opportunity to directly confront the
brutal treatment of Chinese worshipers and to demand a halt to the
ongoing campaign of persecution, torture, and death. It must be
made clear to the PRC that religious freedom — or, at the least,
the absence of oppressing believers and spiritualists — is
the price of dealing with the United States.
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