Time: Mon Apr 07 02:43:29 1997
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Date: Mon, 07 Apr 1997 02:33:47 -0700
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From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: The Chinese Christians
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<snip>
>
>April 4, 1997
>
>ON MY MIND / By A.M. ROSENTHAL
>
>THE CHINESE CHRISTIANS
>
> They knew what they did. When President Clinton and Vice President Gore
>opened the White House to visits from China's top arms peddlers and allowed
>Beijing's middlemen to drop money into the political begging bowl, they
>knew that they were increasing the power of the world's biggest
>dictatorship, one particularly devoted to religious persecution.
>
> Now they complain about not being fully informed by their staffs or
>investigators about donations. Journalists ask what counts in courts of law
>-- what did they know, or why didn't they know?
>
> But in the courts of political morality and common sense, they are
>indicted for having empowered China not just at fund-raising time but year
>round since 1993.
>
> That was when Mr. Clinton made business deals with China his top
>priority, not human rights, or weapons proliferation, or other items
>outside the cash flow.
>
> The evidence is obvious. Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore are neither ignorant,
>stupid nor naïve. They understand that when you hold out the bowl, the hand
>that gives today will be the fist that knocks on the door tomorrow. They
>know nobody in a dictatorship interested in staying off the rack arranges
>money for foreigners, or pays campaign White House visits, without
>instructions from the regime.
>
> But here's some lovely news: Americans are getting fed up with the
>Administration's passionate courting of China.
>
> They are awakening, sadly late, to the Communists' persecution of the
>Christianity that the great majority of Americans practice themselves. The
>awareness is creating the first nationwide constituency to oppose American
>appeasement of Beijing.
>
> So far, the Administration and the China business lobby have been
>getting away with a collection of falsehoods about U.S.-China relations:
>
> An annual deficit of $35 billion in trade with China somehow is dandy
>for the U.S. Americans will eventually get jobs out of it, if they wait
>patiently while forced-labor products flood them out of the market.
>
> The persecution in China of Christianity and other religions will not be
>as easily diddled out of the American conscience once it takes full hold.
>
> For all dictatorships, free religion means free minds, their particular
>terror. Beijing meets its fears as dictatorships do: arrests and beatings
>of clergy and worshipers -- recently as prelude to Mr. Gore's grand visit
>-- and regulations to drive congregations into officially supervised
>churches. Millions of Chinese Catholics and Protestants resist and commit
>the crime of worshiping together in their own "house churches."
>
> The oppression is reported by human rights groups and the U.S.
>Government itself. The only mystery is why Americans, Christian or not,
>showed such callousness to Christian persecution in China, other Communist
>countries and some Muslim countries. American businessmen may have feared
>closing off markets or oil contracts, but that does not excuse them, and
>certainly not the rest of us.
>
> The time of our apathy may be ending. The letters that have come to me
>since I began writing about Christian persecution enrich my life, and buoy
>my belief in the importance of people living in freedom to speak and act in
>support of victims of despotism.
>
> How to move from attention to action? In New York, City Council
>President Peter Vallone is working to end municipal investments and
>deposits in persecuting countries. Done nationally in cities and states, it
>would amount to scores of billions.
>
> In Washington, there is increased Congressional determination to help
>Chinese Christians and Tibetan Buddhists, the two major targets, but no
>agreement on how to do it.
>
> One approach is to use the tariff weapon, specifically against imports
>from China's largest exporter and beneficiary of forced labor -- its armed
>forces. The other is to withhold loans from the World Bank and the
>Export-Import Bank, and fight about tariffs next year.
>
> Failure in Congress to push forward to help Christians in China would be
>the China lobby's greatest victory. One letter I got came from the
>11-year-old granddaughter of a famous American politician, whom she already
>outwrites.
>
> She is deeply troubled about persecution of Christians. Will grown-ups
>keep her waiting year after year for the answer to her question: What can
>we do to help?
>
>
>
========================================================================
Paul Andrew, Mitchell, B.A., M.S. : Counselor at Law, federal witness
email: [address in tool bar] : Eudora Pro 3.0.1 on Intel 586 CPU
web site: http://www.supremelaw.com : library & law school registration
ship to: c/o 2509 N. Campbell, #1776 : this is free speech, at its best
Tucson, Arizona state : state zone, not the federal zone
Postal Zone 85719/tdc : USPS delays first class w/o this
========================================================================
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