Arielle
Del Turco
By
Arielle Del Turco and Tony Perkins
August 4,
2020
In the
campaign against people of faith, there is no line the Chinese government won’t
cross.
On
Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testified at a congressional hearing,
highlighting the Trump administration’s efforts to stop China’s human rights
violations and international aggression in its tracks.
Proud of
the administration’s track record, Pompeo stated,
No
administration, Republican or Democrat, has been as aggressive in confronting
China’s malign actions as President [Donald] Trump’s … We’ve sanctioned Chinese
leaders for their brutality in Xinjiang, imposed export controls on companies
supporting it, and warned U.S. companies against using slave labour in their supply
chains. We’ve terminated special treatment agreements with Hong Kong in
response to the [Chinese Communist Party’s] crackdown.
This is an
impressive list of accomplishments, and the Chinese government proves every day
that it deserves to be targeted in this way. China’s campaign of repression
against those of all faiths is almost unparalleled.
Just this
week, more reports emerged detailing how China is using the coronavirus
pandemic to crack down on Christian house churches. The Family Research
Council’s Bob Fu explained the situation to CBN News:
[Chinese
President] Xi Jinping’s portrait was even put on the church pulpit along with
Chairman Mao and the first line item of worship by the government-sanctioned
church before COVID-19 was to sing the Communist Party national anthem.
If the
Chinese government cannot crush Christianity altogether, it will attempt to
reshape it in the image of the Chinese Communist Party.
News also
surfaced this month that low-income Christian families are pressured to abandon
their religious practices before they receive government aid.
Local
officials in one province told Christians to stop attending church services and
instructed them to hang portraits of Mao Zedong and Jinping in their homes. One
woman even lost her financial aid after she said “thank God” upon receiving her
small monthly stipend.
At
Thursday’s hearing, Pompeo once again reiterated that China’s abuses against
Uighur Muslims is the “stain of the century.”
The most
recent horrors committed against Uighurs to be exposed is China’s efforts to
limit Uighur births. New research estimates that hundreds of thousands of
Uighur women have been subjected to mandatory pregnancy checks, forced
sterilization, and even forced abortion.
One Uighur
woman who worked at a hospital recounted witnessing forced abortions:
The
husbands were not allowed inside. They take in the women, who are always
crying. Afterwards, they just threw the foetus in a plastic bag like it was
trash. One mother begged to die after her 7-month-old baby was killed.
Such tragic
accounts are a grave reminder of the suffering Uighurs endure every day in
China.
And while
as many as 3 million Uighurs languish in “re-education” camps, the Chinese
government has been putting many of these arbitrarily detained victims to work
in its forced labour program.
As China
seeks to financially profit from its vast internment camp system, American
companies, consumers, and politicians should be making every feasible effort to
avoid funding these atrocities.
In what is often
described as the “open-air prison” of Xinjiang, advanced surveillance
technology is used to track and control ordinary people as they go about their
day.
Unfortunately,
American technology companies have directly and indirectly aided the Chinese
government in its use of technology to repress the Uighur people. And major
technology companies, including Apple, have been linked to forced labor in
Xinjiang as well.
Reports of
the Chinese government’s repression of religion continue to get worse, even
when it seems that’s not possible.
The Trump
administration’s effort to expose China’s abuses, spearheaded by Pompeo, is
important work. Nothing will change until the world knows about it. Now that
China’s repression is out in the open, it is time for free countries around the
world to join with the United States in pushing back on China’s oppressive
agenda.
Original
Headline: China Is Trying To Crush Christianity and Islam Alike
Source: The National Interest
URL: https://newageislam.com/current-affairs/in-campaign-christianity-islam-there/d/122559