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Blind Faith
Is the State department
soft on China?
By Ann Noonan
Has the State Department sent a signal to Beijing that
it will downplay concerns over China's notorious and
ongoing abuse of believers? That's something
U.S.-based defenders of a wide array of hounded and
hunted Chinese groups - from "underground" Catholics
allied to the Vatican to Falun Gong practitioners -
want answered.
Concerns over an apparent Foggy Bottom policy shift
were prompted two weeks ago, when John Hanford, U.S.
ambassador-at-large for international religious
freedom, told a congressional committee that Chinese
officials are willing to permit their young to
participate in religious Sunday schools and youth
camps.
Given the reality of the PRC's official and
often-brutal campaign and policies against believers,
Hanford's comments (at the House Subcommittee on
International Relations and Human Rights' hearing on
the department's 2002 International Religious Freedom
Report) took aback the regime's critics, who expect
the State Department to challenge PRC claims - about
Sunday school or anything else - without overwhelming
evidence.
With Hanford's testimony coming just two weeks before
premier Jiang Zemin's visit to the U.S., the mood
among activists was disappointment over a lost
opportunity, and confusion as to whether the State
Department was glossing over the PRC's ugly record.
Admittedly, in other parts of Hanford's testimony, and
in the department's religious-freedom report, China's
abuses were cited. But in both politics and
international affairs, perception is reality, and the
perception created by Hanford's odd juxtaposition of
the terrible abuses with the alleged "Sunday school"
claims is that China has started to turn a corner on
persecution.
It hasn't. With Premier Jiang now in the U.S.,
Congress and the American people need to know that
there is no let-up in the suffering of Chinese people
of faith. And why should it, since religious
persecution is official PRC policy.
China's well-publicized Central Communist Party
pronouncements last December at the National Religious
Working Conference in Beijing detailed how the PRC
will deal with China's "religious problem." That
conference outlined the PRC's policy of strict control
and regulation of people of faith throughout China.
Contrary to the Ambassador Hanford's statement, there
is absolutely nothing in the PRC's treatment of adults
or children to suggest that any change is occurring,
or is even in sight. Rather, the lives of those who
practice religion in China are threatened by ever
intensifying persecution.
For example: The Zenit Catholic News Agency reported
this July on how five adults and 25 children in
southeastern China were arrested for studying the
Catholic catechism. The story told of the arrest of
children, ages 10-16, who received the catechesis on
July 21 in the village of Dongan, in the Lianjiang
district of Fujian province.
Or: The Committee for the Investigation of Religious
Persecution in China is currently circulating a
petition for a Christian seeking asylum which states
"On June 2, this year, because of joining the Shouter
Group and attending "Fukien Youth Offering Training
Course [in Fukien - Chuen Chau] 31 people were
arrested for organizing a training meeting for the
youth." The group has detailed how "Christian pastors
- even from the official church - cannot freely
baptize any truly confessed believers under 18 years
old without losing their pastoral positions."
Or: The Michigan-based Gospel Communications
International reports
It is estimated that there are about 500 million
children in China. Every day at school and college
they are taught that God does not exist and that to
believe in Jesus is superstitious and unpatriotic. It
is illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to be taught
from the Bible or encouraged to put their faith in God.
It is also illegal to print any Christian literature
for children.
Even State's International Religious Freedom Report
this year details: "In areas where ethnic unrest has
occurred, especially among the Uighurs in Xingjing,
officials continued to restrict the building of
mosques and prohibited the teaching of Islam to
children."
Let's pile on: The Falun Dafa Information Center's
website has one section dedicated to "Teenage Students
Abused and Tortured." It reads:
Currently all students who do not renounce their
belief in Falun Gong and issue a written statement to
this effect are expelled from school. This directive
includes elementary school children all the way up to
highly educated students in University programs.
And then: Religious Sunday school and youth camps in
PRC are contrary to Article 34 of China's own
constitution which does not extend the right of
freedom of religious belief to people under the age of
18. China does not allow religious teaching in schools.
China's constitutional provisions are applied
uniformly; provinces do not have the power to override
the rules set by Beijing.
That is a staggering record of abuse and hostility to
religious education of children. Hence the
incredulence of religious-freedom activists over the
U.S. giving any - any - official credence to China's
undoubtedly bogus claims.
Emily Kutolowski from Friends of Falun Gong USA has
recognized Ambassador Hanford for doing "very good,
important work." But she says her organization is
concerned "that he has seemed to put forth little
effort with regard to ensuring the rights of
unregistered or unofficial groups that are being
persecuted, such as Falun Gong and underground house
churches. In fact, he seemed to somehow accept the
Chinese government's declaration of these groups as
illegal, though they are widely accepted and supported
elsewhere."
U.S. Congressman Chris Smith's assessment of the
current situation in China is very clear: "The state
of religious freedom in China remains abysmal.
Millions of Chinese who choose to practice
Christianity, Islam, Tibetan Buddhism, or adhere to
the principles of Falun Gong are forced to live in
fear of government persecution."
"I have traveled to China three times," Smith says,
"and I have met with religious leaders who have been
imprisoned for their beliefs. Religious persecution is
systematic, because the morally and ideologically
bankrupt Beijing dictatorship is inherently threatened
by any mass organization or belief system that is not
under their total and immediate control."
He didn't learn that in a regime "Sunday school."
Despite the PRC's claims, millions of youth and adults
in China are deprived the universal right to worship.
The U.S. State Department should at least be honest
and acknowledge in detail information it has about the
current situation of religious persecution in China.
Americans don't want the issue sugar-coated nor to be
protected from the truth no matter how harsh it may be.
China's Communists can engage in deception. That's
their job. It's our responsibility, however, to see
through the duplicitous nature of foreign officials
when we know there is little basis to believe whatever
they may promise.
- Ann Noonan is policy director for the Laogai
Research Foundation. For more on religious persecution
in China, click here.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-noonan102502.asp
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