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Jewish World Review / March 29, 1998 / 2 Nissan, 5758
Jonathan S. Tobin
Clinton's three clerics return from China
AS YOGI BERRA would have put it, it was a case of deja vu all over again. At
a press conference in New York City last week, I listened to the account of
three major American religious leaders who had recently returned from an
official visit to China.
They went to bring China's leaders the message that Americans are deeply
concerned about religious persecution in the world's most populous country.
The three were at pains to convince the large throng of journalists from
the national, religious and Asian press corps of the contribution they had made
But as the event proceeded, I found myself drifting back into my own
memories.
I thought back to similar speeches I had heard in my student days by
Americans who visited what was then called the Soviet Union. These were often
academics who bragged about the powerful Communist party leaders who received them.
They were usually not terribly interested in the plight of Soviet Jews. Their main interest was
in promoting "dialogue" with the tyrants of Moscow. They liked the prestige of being the official messengers and wanted no part of the dirty work of pressuring the bad guys.
Memories of Soviet Jewry
That's when I learned the difference between being a bigshot and a real
activist. People like Glenn Richter, who helped found
the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, were received not by Leonid Brezhnev but
by police guarding Russian Missions. But it was their persistence and
willingness to speak truth to power that helped galvanize the Soviet Jewry movement. And
that's a lesson those who say they care about religious persecution around the world need to learn.
The trio of religious leaders: Rabbi Arthur Schneier of Manhattan's Park
East Synagogue, Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of Newark, N.J., and Dr. Don Argue,
president of the National Association of Evangelicals, are all decent, well-
meaning and highly principled men.
Yet as they answered (or failed to answer) some tough questions about religious freedom improving in China (especially from Asian journalists like my anguished colleague from the Tibetan Language Service of the Voice of America), they had difficulty proving that they had
done more than serve as window dressing for plans by President Clinton to further downgrade America's interest in human rights in China.
Their trip was a result of Clinton's summit in Washington last fall with
Chinese President Jiang Zemin. When Dr. Argue, a leader of Protestant
Evangelicals, was invited to the state dinner at the White House for Jiang,
he courageously told Mr. Clinton that he wouldn't attend unless there was
another forum where Zemin could be confronted about religious freedom. Clinton
agreed, and eventually this led to an invitation for the three clerics who received
the red carpet treatment throughout China.
An agenda of faith not politics
The three, who said their mission had a "faith agenda" rather than a
"political" one, said their goal was to impress upon the Chinese leadership
the importance Americans placed on religious freedom. To that end they met
with a host of Chinese autocrats and visited churches and ruins in major
cities. They were even allowed to pay a visit to a prison in Lhasa, Tibet
where Buddhists monks and nuns are imprisoned.
Schneier even had the chutzpah to ask the Chinese president to add Judaism
to the list of "officially" sanctioned religions in China. Though I appreciate
the poignancy of the gesture, I think we Jews would do more for religious
freedom by not acquiescing to the Chinese notion that some religions can be
legal while others are not.
Unfortunately, the report they produced about their trip had all the outrage
of a soggy potato. "Advancing the dialogue" was their mantra. As New York
Times columnist A.M. Rosenthal put it, "The report has all the passion and
compassion of a telephone directory. In tone and language it treats the
Chinese Government, warden of the Chinese gulag and persecutor of Chinese
Christians who disobey Beijing's "patriotic" religious regulation, as if the
clergymen were bowing themselves in and out of an emperor's presence."
Providing cover for Clinton's policies
The fact is their much ballyhooed trip was perfectly timed to serve as an
effective cover for the Clinton Administration. The same week as the press conference, Washington announced that it would no longer support an annual United Nations resolution condemning China's record on human rights, effectively killing the measure before the U.N.
Human Rights
Commission in Geneva. Days earlier it was announced that Mr. Clinton's
planned trip to China was being moved up from November to June because the Chinese
were worried the junket might be derailed by increasing human rights
protests in the U.S. Nothing is being allowed to stand in the way of appeasement of
China by this administration. As Mr. Rosenthal aptly put it, "Mr. Clinton is
not happy when China is not happy."
That's why some of us pressed Rabbi Schneier, who himself has a long record
of activism on behalf of Soviet Jews as well as non-Jewish victims of religious
persecution, whether he was being used by the president.
"I'm a Holocaust survivor," Rabbi Schneier replied. "I personally suffered
religious persecution and I will not be party to any deception...this was a
discussion, not a photo op."
I believe the rabbi has good intentions. After all, he was one of the first
American religious leaders to visit China and to try to draw attention to
the issue of religious persecution. He can also say that his trip did some good
by pointing out that China has now finally signed the U.N. covenant on
protection of political and civil liberties.
Legislation is the answer, not junkets
But I am just as sure that what Chinese Christians and Tibetan Buddhists
suffering for their faith need is for China to feel some pain for its
misdeeds, rather than being rewarded for token gestures like the release of
a couple of dissidents and priests. They need to know that Americans are
unwilling to have principles bought off for a share of the lucrative China
trade.
The solution is the Wolf-Specter bill - the Freedom from Religious
Persecution Act - which the Clinton Administration is fighting tooth and nail. Schneier,
McCarrick and Argue were conspicuously silent about the bill, which offers
the threat of sanctions against persecutors of religious believers. In spite of
Clinton's efforts to downplay Chinese atrocities, the bill has been gaining
support. The latest to sign on to the fight is the Anti-Defamation League.
Good for them, but more Jewish support is needed.
And with all due respect to Rabbi Schneier and his travel buddies, that's
the difference between an activist and a
Bigshots or activists?
to the cause of freedom for religious believers in China.
JWR contributor Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger.
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