Charges against China on religion unfair

China's religious study institute released a long article on Wednesday refuting the US Government's unfair charges against the country's religious affairs.

The China section of the US State Department's "Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 1999" distorts facts and harbours ulterior motives, according to the article from the Chinese Religious Studies Centre.

The report, issued by the US State Department in September, irresponsibly commented on the religious affairs of many countries.

A month later, the US Congress held hearings on the issue and listed China and several other countries as countries of "special concern." The US then imposed economic sanctions against these countries.

"Leaving aside the question of whether the United States has the right to interfere with the domestic affairs of other countries according to its domestic laws, let's first analyze the report to show what nonsense it is," the article said.

The US report has presented its arguments from a biased viewpoint and has never broken free of its Cold War way of thinking.

With pre-conceived prejudice, the report held that no religious freedom exists in China.

It reasoned that since China is a country ruled by Communists, it could not possibly allow religious freedom since Communists are atheists, and that the Chinese Government could only confine and control the development of religions.

The report went on to distort and fabricate information, in an attempt to attain the so-called "facts" for its arguments, the article said.Not even the authors of the report could offer a satisfactory explanation as to why in China, a country ruled by so-called "autocrats and dictators," the number of religious believers has expanded so quickly, showing more vitality than in Europe and North America which claim to "fully embrace religious freedom."

Occasionally, the US Government report had to admit that in China the number of religious believers has continued to rise and that in some places had encountered no interference from the government.

In fact, the Communist Party of China has always respected and protected religious freedom in the country. Even the Chinese Soviet Areas of the 1930s and the Liberated Areas of the 1940s pursued a policy of religious freedom, the article noted.

Since the founding of New China 50 years ago, the central government has enthusiastically enforced full protection of its citizens' rights of religious freedom, which have been explicitly stipulated in its laws including the Constitution, the Criminal Law and the law on the autonomy of ethnic regions. Relevant laws have also been adopted to penalize behaviour encroaching upon Chinese citizens' right to religious freedom.

The US State Department report claimed that it knew of no Chinese public servant who had been punished for interfering with citizens' religious freedom. "We are not sure whether the authors are really ignorant and ill-informed or just pretending not to know," the article said.

The severe punishment of the Sichuan Pictorial Publishing House and its counterparts in 1993 should have fully demonstrated the solemnity of the Chinese laws and the sincerity of the Chinese Government in protecting the freedom of religion, it noted.

In recent years, the Chinese Government has signed a series of major world conventions on human rights and enacted relevant laws and regulations to implement these conventions.

It has also enthusiastically supported the participation of religious believers in governmental affairs.

So far, over 17,000 of these believers have been admitted into the People's Congress and the People's Political Consultative Conference at all levels.

The Chinese Government's policy of freedom of religious belief has been both sincere and successful, the article stressed.

Incomplete statistics show that at present China has over 100 million religious believers, 85,000 places for religious activities, 300,000 religious workers, and 3,000 religious groups. Religious groups have also established 74 religious schools and universities.

The article noted that there are in China 13,000 Buddhist temples with 200,000 monks and nuns. Around 120,000 of these follow Tibetan Buddhism. There are more than 1,500 Taoist temples with 25,000 followers; more than 30,000 Islamic mosques with 18 million believers; and 12,000 churches with about 10 million Christians.

China's religious groups handle their own affairs, manage their own educational institutes, publish their own religious books and magazines, and sponsor their own social welfare activities.

The rights of religious workers and religious believers are fully protected by law and no interference in their affairs is tolerated, the article said.

Because of these efforts, many candid and fair observers have expressed the view that China's policy of religious freedom is being enforced with more vigour than ever before.

However, the authors of the report continue to blind their eyes from this widely held conclusion and the basic facts, and spread the nonsense that the Chinese Government limits religious freedom and practices "religious persecution."

The report also distorts facts and fabricates lies in order to deceive and mislead the public, the article said.

President Jiang Zemin, in his meeting with US Christian leaders in November, 1997, noted that despite all the differences between the two countries, the basic facts should not be distorted.