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Federal Document Clearing House
Congressional Testimony
May 10, 2000, Wednesday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 5160 words
HEADLINE:
TESTIMONY May 10, 2000 STEVEN T. MCFARLAND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR UNITED STATES
COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM HOUSE
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS CHINA TRADE STATUS
BODY:
Testimony Of Steven T. McFarland on behalf of The U.S. Commission On
International Religious Freedom Before the Committee On International Relations
Of The United States House Of Representatives May 10, 2000 Mr. Chairman and
members of the Committee, thank you for inviting the U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom to testify concerning the condition of religious
freedom in China as you deliberate the important question of whether or not to
grant Permanent Normal Trade Relations to the People's Republic
of China. My name is Steven McFarland and I have the privilege of serving the
Commission as its Executive Director. It is a particular honor to testify before
this committee, whose chair, ranking member, and so many of whose members have
lead the Congress in elevating human rights as a primary consideration of U.S.
foreign policy. As you know, the U.S. Commission on International Religious
Freedom is a federal legislative agency that was created by the International
Religious Freedom Act of 1998, 22 U.S.C. 6401 (note), Pub. L. 105-292, as
amended by Pub. L. 106-55. This bipartisan Commission is charged with the
responsibility of advising the President, the Congress, and the Secretary of
State on conditions of international religious freedom and what the United
States can and should do to promote it. Our first annual report, published last
week on May 1, focuses primarily on three specific countries--Sudan, China, and
Russia. The Commission's Recommendation on PNTR For China The Commission's nine
voting members come from both political parties and a diversity of religions,
and a number of them strongly support free trade. Yet the Commissioners were
unanimous in their report in asking that the Congress not grant PNTR to China
until substantial improvements are made in respect for religious freedom. The
Commission's reasoning is stated in its Report: The Commission believes that in
many countries, including some of China's neighbors, free trade has been the
basis for rapid economic growth, which in turn has been central to the
development of a more open society and political system. This belief has been a
major factor for the annual decision, by presidents and congressional majorities
of both parties, to grant "most favored nation" (NON) trade relations to China
each year over the past two decades. Moreover, a grant of PNTR and Chinese
membership in the World Trade Organization may, by locking China into a network
of international obligations, help advance the rule of law there in the economic
sector at first, but then more broadly over time. Nevertheless, given the sharp
deterioration in freedom of religion in China during the last year, the
Commission believes that an unconditional grant of PNTR at this moment may be
taken as a signal of American indifference to religious freedom. The government
of China attaches great symbolic importance to steps such as the grant of PNTR,
and presents them to the Chinese people as proof of international acceptance and
approval. A grant of PNTR at this juncture could be seen by Chinese people
struggling for religious freedom as an abandonment of their cause at a moment of
great difficulty. The Commission therefore believes that Congress should not
approve PNTR for China until China makes substantial improvements in respect for
religious freedom...... The Commission offers five standards for Congress to
measure whether China is making substantial improvement in this fundamental
human right: a. China agrees to establish high-level and ongoing dialogue with
the U.S. government on religious-freedom matters; b. China agrees to ratify the
International Covenant On Civil and Political Rights, which it signed in 1997;
c. China agrees to permit unhindered access to religious prisoners by the
Commission; d. China discloses the condition and whereabouts of persons
imprisoned for reasons of religion or belief, e. China releases from prison all
persons incarcerated for religious reasons. The Commission does not nominate
these as preconditions for PNTR, but as standards or plumblines. The Commission
unanimously recommends that PNTR be considered only if and when China agrees to
a number of these measures. And rather than proposing a strict formula, the
Commissioners leave up to the Congress how much progress China must agree to on
some or all of these five standards before PNTR is granted. That China should
make substantial improvement in religious freedom before being awarded PNTR is
the Commission's recommendation; whether progress is sufficiently "substantiar'
would be left up to the Congress. The Commission concluded that these are
significant yet "doable" requests to make of China. The Chinese government could
announce tomorrow that it intends to: ratify the ICCPR, commence high- level
talks on religious freedom, invite the Commission to visit incarcerated
religious leaders, and release all religious prisoners who are elderly, ill, or
children. If it did so, this Congress might well conclude that such intentions
demonstrated sufficient improvement in respect for religious freedom to proceed
with granting of PNTR. Indeed, the vote on PNTR could take place as scheduled in
several weeks. The Commission's Findings What happened in China to lead the
Commission to this unanimous redommendation? Over the last several months, the
Commission has conducted research and held hearings on limits to religious
freedom in China. The commissioners found that violation of religious freedom in
China is egregious, ongoing, and systematic. In fact, conditions are worsening,
as the Chinese Communist Party and government leaders promulgate new laws and
policies to eliminate religious activity beyond their direct control. What
little religious freedom Chinese enjoyed in the past is being constricted.
Protestant house- churches, the underground Catholic church, Tibetan Buddhists,
Uighur Muslims and Falun Gong practitioners are all feeling the squeeze. This
past year saw: the continued prohibition of religious belief for large sectors
of the population; the ongoing harassment of unregistered churches; the
assertion of state control over authorized religions; an increase in the number
of sects branded "heretical cults"; the continued use of notorious extrajudicial
summary trials and the sentencing to reeducation through-labor camps for
so-called "crimes" associated with religion; and credible reports of torture of
religious prisoners. 1. Continued ban on religious belief for large sectors of
the population The right to freedom of belief is explicitly denied to the 60
million members of the Chinese Communist Party, the 3 million members of the
Chinese military and hundreds of millions of citizens under the age of 18.
Several campaigns to purge the Party and military of believers have been waged
over the last five years. The state has reasserted its monopoly over the
spiritual education of minors, thus making participation by children in any
religious activity subject to discipline. 2. Assertion of state control of
authorized religions Regulations in the PRC now require that all religious
groups register with local units of the Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB) in the
Ministry of Civil Affairs and that they affiliate with one of the five
authorized religions: Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims, Protestants and Catholics.
Churches are required to be self- supporting, locally led, and self-propagating.
It is in this narrow officially sanctioned space that people of faith may
exercise their religious beliefs--to use a Chinese metaphor, the "cage" in which
the bird of religious liberty will be allowed to fly. While in theory
registration requirements need not be onerous, and in fact many congregations
operate under RAB auspices with little interference, serious restrictions on
freedom of religious expression have been reported in recent years, Many of the
limits imposed on registered churches are in violation of accepted international
standards of free exercise of religion. Human Rights Watch reports that
registration oversight of these authorized religious groups entails official
scrutiny of membership; allowing censorship of religious materials and
interference with doctrinal thought; ceding some control over selection of
clergy; opening financial records to government scrutiny; restricting contacts
with other religious institutions; accepting limits on some activities, such as
youth or social welfare programs, or building projects; eschewing evangelism;
and limiting religious activities to religious sites.' The state requires that
political indoctrination be an important component of religious training for
recognized religious groups. This often comes at the expense of religious
education as is the case with a recent movement to "reduce the number of years
of seminary training of Catholic priests from the normal five to six years to
two. Authorities limit the building of mosques, monasteries, and churches even
for approved groups. They restrict the numbers of students in Christian
seminaries, Buddhist monasteries, and Islamic schools. They proscribe the
teaching of certain doctrines and labeled heretical practices such as exorcism
and healing. Chinese authorities remain deeply suspicious of the involvement of
"hostile foreign elements!' in Chinese congregations and severely limit
association between Chinese and foreign religious groups. 3. Ongoing harassment
of unregistered churches The Chinese strategy is to manage religious affairs
within a legal and bureaucratic framework that places responsibility for
developing religious policy on the United Front Work Department of the Communist
Party and the management of religious issues under the direction of the
government's Religious Affairs Bureau. All religious groups are now required to
register with local RAB officials. The Protestant house-church movement and
Catholics loyal to the Vatican are among those groups that have resisted
registration on principle or been denied permission to register. While in many
areas officials have allowed the unregistered groups to continue without
harassment, in others, officials have been zealous to the point of abuse in
their campaign to force the registration of places of worship. Human rights
groups report Chinese authorities detained 40 Protestant worshipers in Wugang in
October of 1998, at least 70 worshipers in Nanyang in November, and 48
Christians, including Catholics, in Henan in January of 1999. Authorities
detained, beat, and fined an unknown number of underground Catholics in Baoding,
Hebei in the same month. In April of last year, Public Security personnel raided
a house church service in Henan. Twenty- five Christians were detained.
Seventy-one members of the Disciples Sect were detained in Changying in April.'
In November of 1999, six leaders of Protestant groups in Henan were sentenced to
re-education through labor.' Just this week, a reliable Hong Kong source
reported that Chinese police have detained 47 Protestants in Anhui province and
criminally charged six of their leaders for organizing an illegal sect and
illegal gatherings.' Similarly, leaders of large Protestant house-church
networks who, in 1998, challenged the government to a dialogue, have been
targeted for arrest. Unauthorized Protestant places of worship have also been
destroyed. Some observers report a concerted effort to "eliminate underground
bishops and bring them under the authority of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic
Association."' This patriotic association is being introduced into areas in
which it never existed before. It is pressing underground bishops for obedience,
not just cooperation. Without consultation of church leaders, dioceses are being
re-organized: Some recently divided dioceses are being re-united and others have
been abolished. On January 6 of this year, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic
Association ordained five bishops without Vatican approval and over the
objections of many in the Chinese Catholic church. There are reports of many
detentions of Catholic clergy loyal to the Vatican in recent months in an
apparent attempt to force their allegiance to the official church. One, the
young Father Weiping, was detained in May of 1999 while performing an
unauthorized mass. He was found dead on a Beijing street shortly after being
released from detention. An autopsy was not conducted and the cause of death is
unknown.' The Vatican reports that five churches built without authorization had
been razed. Thirteen were destroyed in the Fuzhou diocese in Fujian.' 4.
Repression in Xinjiang and Tibet Some of the most egregious violations of
religious freedom occur in Tibet and Xinjiang, where ethnic, political, and
economic factors complicate the relationship between the atheist state and large
communities of Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims. In these areas Chinese
controls on information are especially tight. In these sensitive regions,
authorities seeking to crush separatist activities infiltrate and attempt to
dominate religious institutions which they fear foment opposition to continued
Chinese control. Religious freedoms are curtailed and in response, resistance
intensifies. Amnesty International reports that authorities in the Yinjinag
Uighur Autonomous Region have closed mosques and Koranic schools, halted the
construction of unauthorized' mosques, prohibited the use of Arabic script, more
tightly controlled Islamic clergy, and required Muslims who are Party members or
who work in government offices to abandon the practice of Islam or lose their
positions. The Chinese press reported that "rampant activities by splittists"
justified the closure of 10 unauthorized mosques, and the arrest of mullahs who
it said had preached "illegally" outside their mosques. It further related that
public security personnel raided 56 mosques. While allowing some Muslims to make
a religious journey to Mecca, authorities deny that experience to hundreds of
Uighurs desiring to do so.' In Tibet, where Chinese authorities fear growing
Tibetan nationalism and the political and organizational power of the
monasteries, religious institutions are likewise tightly controlled. In an
action denounced by the Dalai Lama, authorities of the Tibet Autonomous Region
and the RAB in Beijing approved the selection of a boy as the reincarnation of
the sixth Reting Lama. This is the latest in a campaign to control the future
leadership of Tibetan Buddhism. In 1995, the Dalai Lama identified a young boy,
Gendun Choekyi Nyima, as the reincarnate Panchen Lama. The Chinese immediately
denounced the Dalai Lama's choice, detained the boy and his family, and pushed
the acceptance of their choice, Gyaltsen Norbu. Chinese authorities continue to
hold the Panchen Lama at an undisclosed location and refuse all requests to
visit him put forward by official and unofficial foreign delegations. Each of
Tibet's major monasteries is overseen by a Democratic Management Committee,
members of which are vetted by authorities for their political reliability. The
Committee regulates religious affairs, finances (90 percent of which come from
private donations), security, and training. It enforces limits on the number of
monks and nuns within monasteries and conducts invasive "patriotic" education
campaigns that force monks and nuns to denounce the Dalai Lama and accept the
Chinese-selected Panchen Lama. Authorities limit the religious festivals
Tibetans are allowed to observe, the rituals monks are allowed to perform, and
the courses of study that monasteries are allowed to teach. In 1995, Chinese
authorities asserted that a sufficient number of monasteries, monks and nuns now
exist to satisfy the daily religious needs of the masses. The Party Secretariat
of the Lhasa City Administration announced that it would not allow more
monasteries to be built and that monasteries constructed without permission
would be destroyed. 5. Increase in the number of sects branded "heretical cults"
and banned Article 300 of the Criminal Law, as amended in 1997, and as
interpreted by the People's Supreme Court and the National People's Congress,
stipulates that central auth6rities have the right to delegitimize any belief
system they deem to be superstitious or a so-called "evil religious
organization." Leaders of these so-called cults are subject to "resolute
punishment." In the absence of a clear definition of terms, Chinese authorities
have wide latitude for using the designation "cult." Even private religious
practice is forbidden to members of groups declared by Chinese authorities to be
"evil cults." Falun Gong, a syncretic meditation movement whose spiritual
teachings draw on Taoist and Buddhist belief systems, has been the target of a
virulent anti cult campaign. On April 25, 1999, 10,000 practitioners staged a
peaceful demonstration outside the residential compound for top Party officials
in central Beijing. The gathering was prompted by reports of police violence
against fellow practitioners in Tianjin and by an official ban on publishing
Falun Gong materials. In the months that followed, the group was declared an
"evil cult" and by year's end the government acknowledged having detained more
than 35,000 adherents. Some detainees were tortured. Zhao Jinhua was reportedly
beaten and killed while in Shandong jail." Others have been held in mental
institutions for "re-education."" In closed trials Falun Gong leaders received
prison sentences of 6 to 18 years. Many of those who have told their stories to
outside media have been severely punished. The law has been used against a
number of other religious groups. In January of this year, Zhong Gong, a
meditation and exercise sect claiming 20 million practitioners, was added to the
list. Also banned are a sect with Buddhist origins, Yi Guan Dao, and at least 10
evangelical Protestant groups including the China Evangelistic Fellowship in
Henan province. Conclusion For these reasons, the Commission unanimously
concludes that "an unconditional grant of PNTR at this moment may be taken as a
signal of American indifference to religious freedom... A grant of PNTR at this
juncture could be seen by Chinese people struggling for religious freedom as an
abandonment of their cause at a moment of great difficulty. The Commission
therefore believes that Congress should not approve PNTR for China until China
makes substantial improvements in respect for religious freedom. . " Mr.
Chairman, on behalf of the members of the U.S. Commission On International
Religious Freedom, thank you for the privilege of appearing before this
Committee today. With your permission, I would ask that the chapter on China in
both the Commission's Report and the Staff Memorandum that accompanied it be
included in the hearing record with my testimony. Thank you.
LOAD-DATE: May 15, 2000, Monday