Olympics: China Bans Foreign Chaplains – only “official” chaplains allowed (Houston Chronicle)

Because China is a major trade partner with the United States, it can be easy to forget that religious freedom in China is marginal even when China is trying to put its best foot forward.   

This is from the The Houston Chronicle via Bill Cork’s website, Oak Leaves.    

“Previous Olympic hosts welcomed foreign chaplains, but China has banned them from living with the athletes. It has instead pledged that it will provide equivalent services from its pool of state-employed pastors, imams and other clerics.”

. . . 

“China’s ruling Communist Party is suspicious of any cause that could compete with its authority, including organized religion. Officially, the party allows worship only at registered churches belonging to a state-controlled organization; nonregistered places of worship are closely monitored. The party also bans foreign chaplains’ holding services without government permission or proselytizing on Chinese soil.”

. . . 

“As Americans, we believe in having our free will to do as we please and express our views,” McAdams said. “It has been a little awkward, but we are in a communist country, and that is the way things are done.”

Read the full article at The Houston Chronicle.

CHINA: Underground church activist detained enroute to Christian service Bush was attending (The Independent)

Human rights concerns are underlying the pageantry of the Beijing Olympics where persecution against certain religious groups continues.  

Read the full article by Clifford Coonan at http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/news-and-features/bush-steps-up-pressure-on-china-with-call-for-religious-freedom-890295.html

Here are some excerpts from this article:

President George Bush attended a Christian service in Beijing yesterday to call for greater religious freedom in China but, in an indication of how religious persecution persists in the fiercely secular country, a leading local underground church activist was detained en route to the same ceremony.

Hua Huiqi was cycling to the Kuanjie church when he was stopped by security officers working with the religious affairs bureau. He and his brother were taken away and their bibles were seized. 

…

Mr Bush’s calls for greater religious tolerance come hard on the heels of critical remarks about China’s human rights record that have already angered his hosts. Relations have been strained since his comments last week. Mr Hu was supposed to attend a ceremony to inaugurate the US embassy in Beijing on Friday but decided against.

Nobody knows how many Christians are in China. The official figure is 4 million Roman Catholics and 10 million Protestants, but other estimates, which include the underground churches, put the figure at 54 million, of whom 39 million are Protestant and 14 million Catholics. Christianity has a long history here, mainly from the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). After the First Opium War in 1842, missionaries – and especially the schools and universities they founded – played a significant role in Westernising China. Communist China threw out foreign churches in 1950.

. . . .

“I told him not to go because it’s during the Olympic Games and this period is sensitive,” Huilin said. “But he was determined to go because he said that church was where he was baptised. So I went with him hoping to protect him.” Later, Huilin said Mr Hua had been able to escape from the location where he was being held because the security officials fell asleep.

. . .

Read the full article at http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/news-and-features/bush-steps-up-pressure-on-china-with-call-for-religious-freedom-890295.html

Bush to attend church in China, urge religious freedom (AFP)

EXCERPTS FROM:  http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jTCaQ-QMoHDqK5mk7ao7ryoZGzMw

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush plans to attend church while in China for the opening of the Olympic Games next month, and will speak about freedom of religion, a top aide said Wednesday.

“When he goes to church on Sunday (August 10) he will make a statement afterwards in which he discusses his view on religious freedom in China,” said national security council director of Asian Affairs Dennis Wilder.

…

Bush, a devout Christian, has walked a diplomatic tightrope over the Olympics, repeatedly insisting the games are not a political venue while recently stepping up his public criticism of Beijing’s rights record.

…

“What we are looking for in China is not gestures, we are looking for structural change, we are looking for long term change,” Wilder said.

“We are looking for the Chinese at these games to show that they are making progress, to demonstrate to the world, the spotlight is on Beijing, this is an opportunity for Beijing to show that it is widening … freedom of press, freedom of expression,” he said.

…

Asked about China’s failure to release political prisoners as a goodwill gesture ahead of the Games, Wilder said: “Obviously I would like to see all these political prisoners that we have on our lists released.

“We have handed the Chinese lists of people that we think are unfairly in prison.”

China Responds: “China reject’s Bush’s ‘religious freedom’ remarks” and asks him to stop “interfering” in internal affairs (Xinhuanet)

BEIJING, July 16 (Xinhua) — Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao on Wednesday rejected U.S. President George W. Bush’s remarks concerning religion freedom in China, urging the United States to view China’s religious condition with a just and objective attitude.

“China is a country under the rule of law, and the Chinese government protects its citizens’ freedom of religious belief according to law, and Chinese citizens enjoy full freedom of religious belief protected by law,” Liu said.

…

“Meanwhile, what needs to be stressed is that people are all equals in the eyes of the law. Anyone’s speech or behavior should not violate the country’s law nor imperil the state security and social stability,” Liu said.

Read more at http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-07/16/content_8557004.htm

Economic interdependency quiets voices against Chinese human rights abuses

By Michael D. Peabody

Last week as it circled the globe, protesters chased the Olympic flame as it traveled to Beijing. That China has been involved in human rights abuses and untoward activities in Tibet is a fact, and a boycott of the Olympics would certainly send a signal to the authorities that the world is paying attention. But as far as having a lasting financial impact, it would be a drop in the bucket when compared with the sheer volume of trade with China that takes place every single day.

Although the Soviet Union was demonized as the Evil Empire because it pointed nuclear missiles at the United States and threatened to turn our country into a ditch, up until the last few months as politicians have begun to grasp the value of speaking out about the issue, China has escaped much of our scrutiny most likely because of its business acumen and our flat-out dependence on it. Face it – almost everything is made in China these days. Even the computer mouse that went out of control and accidentally deleted this paragraph the first time I wrote it was made in China.

Normally, I don’t like to think too hard about the person who fastened the screws that hold it together or glued the little pads on that help it slide around. If the stories coming out of China are correct, it was probably made by a sweat-shop employee who earns a few cents a day and is treated like a slave, an actual slave, or a prisoner, so that I could buy it for $5.95 (after a rebate I never received) and still give Best Buy a healthy profit. Same goes for my phone and this computer. Even my Canadian-made shirt would fall off without its Chinese-made buttons. If I were to suddenly boycott all my stuff that was made in China by people living under less-than-favorable conditions, I would probably be forced to wear an American-made barrel. So would you.

According to the Financial Times, China has had the world’s largest economy for 18 of the past 20 centuries.[1] China represented a full 33% of the world’s gross domestic product as recently as 1820. It has only been in the last 100 years that the United States overtook China’s economy as a function of the industrial revolution and possibly the onset of communism, and this period may be viewed as an anomaly if current trends continue.

It is well-known that the communist government of China has enslaved, tortured, and killed political dissidents, including Christians, Buddhists, and everybody else who has questioned the regime. China has severely limited freedom of speech to the point where, according to Reporters Without Borders, at least 30 journalists and 50 bloggers have been thrown in jail for what they have written. In fact, if I was living in China and published this, I would probably get a strict talking-to by the local officials. And if a person in China decided to print out this page and pass it around, they could be arrested.

So does China deserve to host the Olympics? Ask Ye Guozhu, the leader of the human rights protests in China. Of course, you’ll have to wait a while to do so since he’s currently serving a four-year prison sentence, has limited access to his own attorney, and can only dream about seeing his family.

Whether or not a boycott would achieve a positive result for human rights in China is a matter of debate. If it worked, then human rights problems could be significantly reduced as Chinese authorities recognized the errors of the ways. Most likely, they would respond by increasing penalties against those who dared to report the problem, and stifle communications with the rest of the world.

Culpability for the current state of affairs in China is not limited to China, but also to those countries which opened vast arenas of trade without any concurrent requirement that human rights be upheld. In fact, the disparity has lowered the prices of Chinese goods that are almost impervious to changes in the value of the dollar, and we fill our closets with items made by people who have been denied their basic human rights.

We used to think that free trade with China would lead to an improvement in the human rights situation, but this has not been working. While we have seen a shift away from socialism to nationalist capitalism, the authoritarian component has remained the same. As a nation, we are locked into trade with China, and indeed are in debt to them to the tune of billions of dollars. Thus, the responsibility of effecting change is unlikely to ever be borne by this nation, however, as an individual consumer you do have the choice to effect a positive change in China, and you can vote with your wallet.

If you’re reading this, you are probably already opposed to torture and slavery and you might have even been one of the protestors along the route. You may want to see the United States boycott the Olympics. But what about trade with China? Are you willing to buy only items made by reasonably compensated people and companies that refuse to take economic advantage of limited human rights?

I’m realizing that this is probably sounding a lot like a sermon, so like any good sermon, it’s time to ask for a commitment – The Olympics are largely symbolic, our dollars speak in real terms. My friends, it is one thing to complain about the Olympics being held in that land of persecution and torture, but odds are, like me, you will not be attending or otherwise be contributing in a significant manner. We know that the total money spent during the Olympics will only be a trickle compared with the daily oceans of commerce, yet continue to feed this dragon that has little to no regard for basic human rights? Brothers and sisters, the time has come to ask this important question, what are we going to do about China?

Michael D. Peabody is an employment law attorney in California who frequently writes on Constitutional Law topics.