WP: Rice to Attend Church Service in Beijing (as GHWB, Clinton have done)

Rice to Attend Church Service in Beijing
Visit Has Significant Political Undertones

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 19, 2005; 10:34 AM


SEOUL, March 19 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to attend a church service for Palm Sunday in Beijing, aides said Saturday. The visit to the Gangwashi Protestant Church was described as a private visit by a deeply religious woman, but it also has significant political undertones.

Earlier on Saturday, in Tokyo, Rice gave a speech in which she called on the Chinese leadership to move toward an "open, genuinely representative government" that respected human rights. She said that if Chinese leaders look at their neighbors in Asia, "they will see that democracy works. They will see that freedom of religion and respect for human rights are part of the foundation of decent and successful societies."

The State Department regularly criticizes the state of religious freedom in China. Although the Chinese constitution provides for freedom of religious belief, the State Department in its most recent report said that "the government's respect for freedom of religion and freedom of conscience remained poor, especially for many unregistered religious groups and spiritual movements such as the Falun Gong."

Gangwashi, a few blocks from Tiananmen Square, is one of the biggest Protestant churches in Beijing and is officially registered and sanctioned by the government. Rice has requested that no television cameras record the visit out of respect for worshippers....

***

Former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton both visited churches in Beijing when they were in office....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49372-2005Mar19.html

you got your Force of Relgion -- that's when the government tries to shove a particular religion down your throat, and then calls you an evil heathen if you do not bow down before the Golden Calf du jour.

Condi and the Oil Company Christian OddFellowship of BushCo, Inc. know quite a bit about the efficacy of that particular religio-politico-manipulo strategery.

"There ought to be limits to freedom." - GW Bush on May 21, 1999

of this thread. I've always assumed China was athetist - a communist machine that's barreling toward world domination in business.

I wasn't even aware that there was a protestant church in Beijing. Hm, peculiar...

I wonder how the parishioners are treated.

And why just protestant? What makes them the World Authority? I would say that Buddhism would be a better match in China. It's very big in Japan, as well as Shinto.

to the ugly skank

Out of all the photos I've seen since coming to the DU, that's got to be one of the worst.

God, look at her. I could write a book based on that photo, and it would still not do it justice.

She's -------evil. Every line in her face shows it.

That is the only reason for what motivates her. She is not human.

and thrown the first stone! My how they take his name in vain! "...a deeply religious woman...." my ass!

It's the unequal treaty, missonary mission bullshit all over again.

When do the gunboats arrive?

It's the equivalent of tracking pig shit into the palace.

This is the Secretary of Lies, what a boor!

after 'IT' leaves.

To ask the Chinese to look at Japan as a positive example is about the dumbest goddamn thing you could say to them. Does Ms. Rice lack a single staff member aware of the deep animosity and resentment the Chinese continue to feel over the largely unacknowledged and un-apologized for atrocities commited by the Japanese in WWII? The rape of Nanking anyone? The point to Japan as an example of a "decent and successful society" is rubbing salt in some pretty deep wounds.

Plus, for the poster above who thinks China is a totalitarian atheist state there are thousands of active monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques in China. Falun Gong was surpressed because they were advocating the overthrow of the government. I don't agree with that suppression but to assume from that that there is *no* freedom of religion in China is incorrect.