Trump Urged to Condemn China's Religious Freedom Abuses in Trade Talks

President Donald J. Trump is joined by US Trade Rep. Ambassador Robert
Lighthizer, Sec. of Treasury Steven Mnuchin, Cabinet members and White House
 Sr. advisers, as he meets with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He Thursday, April 4, 2019,
in the Oval Office of the White House, following continued US–China trade talks.|
 Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead

By Samuel Smith

Christian Post

The Trump administration was strongly urged by a congressionally-mandated commission to bring up the continued persecution of Christians and other religious minorities with China’s top trade negotiator during this week’s trade talks in Washington.

The bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which includes three evangelical leaders who’ve engaged informally with the Trump White House, called for administration officials to discuss China's systemic persecution of Christians, Uighur Muslims and others minorities with Vice Premier Liu He during his visit.

Liu's visit comes as the U.S. Department of Defense estimates that as many as 3 million Uighur Muslims have been sent to detention camps in the Xinjiang province of China, while countless Christians, Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners and other religious adherents continue to face arrest, imprisonment and the closing of their houses of worship.

“The communist Chinese government’s brutal campaign to ‘sinicize’ all religions is one of the worst abuses of religious freedom taking place today,” USCIRF Commissioner Gary Bauer, a veteran social conservative activist, said in a statement.

”The Trump administration believed that it was nearing a trade deal with China that would have opened up the Chinese market to U.S. companies. But after days of negotiation between Liu, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, no deal was reached.

Additionally, the U.S. increased tariffs on up to $200 billion of Chinese goods by 15 percent as China was accused of backtracking on months of negotiations when it submitted drastic edits to a draft trade agreement. Chinese officials blamed the U.S. for the deal not being reached and vowed to counter the U.S. tariffs.

USCIRF and other religious freedom advocates have long called for the U.S. government to include religious freedom concerns as part of the U.S.’ ongoing trade discussions with China and other countries called out for religious freedom violations.

At an event on Capitol Hill last week, Bauer said that trade negotiations with China should be more than just about “tariffs and jobs” but should also ensuring that the Chinese people are allowed to worship the way that they see fit.

“This is about the right of every man and woman, whether Muslim or Buddhist or Christian or Falun Gong, to worship as he or she sees fit,” Bauer argued in a statement Friday. “

 At a time when the lives and freedoms of millions of Chinese people are under attack by their own government, we must put religious freedom and human rights on the agenda, too.”
severe violations of religious freedom. 

In its 2019 annual report, USCIRF called for the Trump administration to use targeted sanctions against Chinese officials who either “perpetrated or tolerated” religious freedom violations.

USCIRF suggested the administration sanction the Communist Party Secretary of Xinjiang, Chen Quanguo. Quanguo is said to have been responsible for violations committed against Buddhists in Tibet, who are reportedly subject to intrusive surveillance and political indoctrination.

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