China among "countries of particular concerns" on USCIRF report

In its 2009 annual report released May 1, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) again designated China among “countries of particular concerns.”  The report said the Chinese government engages in systematic and egregious violations of the freedom of religion or belief, as religious activities in China are tightly controlled, and some religious adherents were detained, imprisoned, fined, beaten, and harassed.

The report noted that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed to make human rights a low priority in U.S.-China relations when she remarked during her recent Asia trip that "successive administrations and Chinese governments have been poised back and forth on these issues, and we have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security crisis."  The report urged the Obama administration to do more for religious freedom in China.

However, interestingly, the same report also found that religious communities continue to grow rapidly in China, and the freedom to participate in officially sanctioned religious activity increased in many areas of the country over the past year. It pointed out that high-ranking Chinese government officials, including President Hu Jintao, have praised the positive role of religious communities in China and articulated a desire to have religious groups promote “economic and social development”—an endorsement that some believe may open legal space in the future for religious groups to conduct charitable, medical, and economic development activities. 

The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) welcomed USCIRF's finding that "in Tibetan Buddhist areas, religious freedom conditions may be worse now than at any time since the Commission’s inception," and was pleased that it recommended the U.S. government to "promptly appoint a Special Coordinator on Tibetan issues at the State Department in order to press Beijing to end the criminalization of peaceful advocacy in Tibet."  Mary Beth Markey, Vice President for International Advocacy at ICT proclaimed: "this report should be read in Beijing, where decisions are routinely made to employ force rather than facts in ruling Tibet. The key to stability in Tibet is understanding the Tibetan Buddhist identity and the profound devotion of the Tibetan people to the Dalai Lama.”

But the Chinese government is obviously not willing to be sitting there be judged and lectured by western governments and media. So China on Tuesday rejected the USCIRF report as biased and groundless. Ma Zhaoxu, spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, reiterated that "the Chinese government protects its citizens' freedom of religious belief according to law, and every ethnic group in any part of China enjoys full religious freedom," and stressed that "the USCIRF's attempt to smear China with the report will never succeed." China issued a white paper on the protection and development of Tibetan culture last September and recently published its first working plan on human rights protection.

This human rights action plan well indicates that the Chinese government is now more confident and more proactively projecting its own notions of religious freedom and human rights to the international community than it had ever before.  The question is only how far would the Chinese authorities be able to convince its own people and to a lesser extent westerners on these issues and thus change today's established conceptions of religious freedom and human rights.

In its 2009 annual report released May 1, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) again designated China among “countries of particular concerns.”  The report said the Chinese government engages in systematic and egregious violations of the freedom of religion or belief, as religious activities in China are tightly controlled, and some religious adherents were detained, imprisoned, fined, beaten, and harassed.

The report noted that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed to make human rights a low priority in U.S.-China relations when she remarked during her recent Asia trip that "successive administrations and Chinese governments have been poised back and forth on these issues, and we have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security crisis."  The report urged the Obama administration to do more for religious freedom in China.

However, interestingly, the same report also found that religious communities continue to grow rapidly in China, and the freedom to participate in officially sanctioned religious activity increased in many areas of the country over the past year. It pointed out that high-ranking Chinese government officials, including President Hu Jintao, have praised the positive role of religious communities in China and articulated a desire to have religious groups promote “economic and social development”—an endorsement that some believe may open legal space in the future for religious groups to conduct charitable, medical, and economic development activities. 

The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) welcomed USCIRF's finding that "in Tibetan Buddhist areas, religious freedom conditions may be worse now than at any time since the Commission’s inception," and was pleased that it recommended the U.S. government to "promptly appoint a Special Coordinator on Tibetan issues at the State Department in order to press Beijing to end the criminalization of peaceful advocacy in Tibet."  Mary Beth Markey, Vice President for International Advocacy at ICT proclaimed: "this report should be read in Beijing, where decisions are routinely made to employ force rather than facts in ruling Tibet. The key to stability in Tibet is understanding the Tibetan Buddhist identity and the profound devotion of the Tibetan people to the Dalai Lama.”

But the Chinese government is obviously not willing to be sitting there be judged and lectured by western governments and media. So China on Tuesday rejected the USCIRF report as biased and groundless. Ma Zhaoxu, spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, reiterated that "the Chinese government protects its citizens' freedom of religious belief according to law, and every ethnic group in any part of China enjoys full religious freedom," and stressed that "the USCIRF's attempt to smear China with the report will never succeed." China issued a white paper on the protection and development of Tibetan culture last September and recently published its first working plan on human rights protection.

This human rights action plan well indicates that the Chinese government is now more confident and more proactively projecting its own notions of religious freedom and human rights to the international community than it had ever before.  The question is only how far would the Chinese authorities be able to convince its own people and to a lesser extent westerners on these issues and thus change today's established conceptions of religious freedom and human rights.

In its 2009 annual report released May 1, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) again designated China among “countries of particular concerns.”  The report said the Chinese government engages in systematic and egregious violations of the freedom of religion or belief, as religious activities in China are tightly controlled, and some religious adherents were detained, imprisoned, fined, beaten, and harassed.

The report noted that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed to make human rights a low priority in U.S.-China relations when she remarked during her recent Asia trip that "successive administrations and Chinese governments have been poised back and forth on these issues, and we have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security crisis."  The report urged the Obama administration to do more for religious freedom in China.

However, interestingly, the same report also found that religious communities continue to grow rapidly in China, and the freedom to participate in officially sanctioned religious activity increased in many areas of the country over the past year. It pointed out that high-ranking Chinese government officials, including President Hu Jintao, have praised the positive role of religious communities in China and articulated a desire to have religious groups promote “economic and social development”—an endorsement that some believe may open legal space in the future for religious groups to conduct charitable, medical, and economic development activities. 

The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) welcomed USCIRF's finding that "in Tibetan Buddhist areas, religious freedom conditions may be worse now than at any time since the Commission’s inception," and was pleased that it recommended the U.S. government to "promptly appoint a Special Coordinator on Tibetan issues at the State Department in order to press Beijing to end the criminalization of peaceful advocacy in Tibet."  Mary Beth Markey, Vice President for International Advocacy at ICT proclaimed: "this report should be read in Beijing, where decisions are routinely made to employ force rather than facts in ruling Tibet. The key to stability in Tibet is understanding the Tibetan Buddhist identity and the profound devotion of the Tibetan people to the Dalai Lama.”

But the Chinese government is obviously not willing to be sitting there be judged and lectured by western governments and media. So China on Tuesday rejected the USCIRF report as biased and groundless. Ma Zhaoxu, spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, reiterated that "the Chinese government protects its citizens' freedom of religious belief according to law, and every ethnic group in any part of China enjoys full religious freedom," and stressed that "the USCIRF's attempt to smear China with the report will never succeed." China issued a white paper on the protection and development of Tibetan culture last September and recently published its first working plan on human rights protection.

This human rights action plan well indicates that the Chinese government is now more confident and more proactively projecting its own notions of religious freedom and human rights to the international community than it had ever before.  The question is only how far would the Chinese authorities be able to convince its own people and to a lesser extent westerners on these issues and thus change today's established conceptions of religious freedom and human rights.