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" (MFN) 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 "substantial" 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 recommendation?
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.1 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."2
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.3 In November of 1999, six leaders of Protestant groups in Henan were sentenced to re-education through labor.4
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.5 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."6
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.7
The Vatican reports that five churches built without authorization had
been razed. Thirteen were destroyed in the Fuzhou diocese in Fujian.8
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 Xinjinag
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.9
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 authorities 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.10 Others have been held in mental institutions for "re-education."11
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.12
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.
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1
Mickey Spiegel, "China: Religion in the Service of the State,"
testimony at the USCIRF Hearing on Religious Freedom in China, March
16, 2000, Los Angeles, California
2 Human Rights Watch Continuing Religious Repression in China, 1993
3 State Department Annual Report, International Religious Freedom, 1999
4 Associated Press, "Sect Followers Said Tried in Secret," December 30, 1999
5 Newsroom, "China Detains 47 Members of Protestant Group," May 7, 2000
6 Rev. Drew
Christiansen, S. J. "Policy Responses to the Denial and Restriction of
Religious Liberty in the People's Republic of China," testimony before
the USCIRF Hearing on Religious Freedom in China, March 16, 2000, Los
Angeles, California
7 State Department Annual Report, International Religious Freedom, 1999
8 State Department Annual Report, International Religious Freedom, 1999
9 Uighur witness testimony before the USCIRF Hearing on Religious Freedom in China, March 16, 2000, Los Angeles, California
10AP 12/13/1999
11 Lu Siqing,
Director of the Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic
Movements, Hong Kong, Testimony before the USCIRF, Los Angeles,
California, March 16,2000
12 The conditions
have been reported in detail by the State Department, by human rights
organizations, and in the Staff Memorandum For The Chairman that
accompanies the Commission's May 1 Report (the latter two documents
may be found on the Commission's Web site, www.uscirf.gov).
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