US: Same Old Nonsense

Not long ago, the U.S. International Religious Freedom Commission (UIRFC) published its annual International Religious Freedom Report. Part of the report, as usual, accused religious freedom in China of dramatically deteriorating and listed China as a country under its “List of Countries of Particular Concern.”

The commission was established in 1996, allegedly in order to provide international religious freedom consulting for the president of the United States.

Putting together a group of people requires them to work and accomplish something. Thus, the committee reviews and assesses “religious freedom” in countries around the world, makes judgments and puts together a lengthy “annual report.”

The problem is that it is not easy to make up nonsense and lies and also make them sound “reasonable.”

In 1999, I invited Robert A. Seiple, first U.S. ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom, to visit China in order to see what China is really like and to clear up the nonsensical talk about lack of religious freedom. When he went back, he wrote an essay describing the difficulties of the committee always spouting the same old nonsense.

“[A] Chinese official from Beijing’s Religious Affairs Bureau [asked]: ‘Who made you the international morality cop?’

“[The USCIRF Annual Report] is a mammoth challenge. Though this report covers 194 countries, the United States is not one of them. At the very least, this presents the potential for hubris, arrogance and hypocrisy. It suggests an inclination to report only on others, refraining from any sort of self-criticism. If a certain level of humility is important in implementing this legislation — and I believe it is — this absence works against that characteristic. The commission and the Department of State rarely discuss how to promote religious freedom, but they are ready to pick up the club when it comes time to punish. Unfortunately, because of the yearly assessments required by legislation, we feel the pressure to make annual improvements.”

Seiple also acknowledged pressure arising from this idea of the “same old nonsense”:

“Some well-intentioned advocates have sometimes misrepresented the facts. Religious freedom is a passionate issue, and, unfortunately, one that is still supported largely by anecdotal research. This is a recipe for diplomatic disaster. Why we think we can impose a five-year plan on some other nation, and one which does not have our heritage of human rights, seems both arrogant and naïve. Research needs to not only document abuses but also bring an understanding of the context in which religious freedom is curtailed. With no understanding of the local context, we can easily do more harm than good.”

Surely enough, this year’s report released by the commission plays into the same old American nonsense. Its accusations against China are consistent with its deliberate and unprovoked interferences in the internal affairs of other countries. It seems that as long as one hides under the veil of human rights and religious freedom, one can completely ignore facts and make empty promises. However, in order to cover up this problem, this year’s report played a few “new tricks,” claiming in particular that the evaluation criteria were based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international documents, and that its authors took their work seriously by taking into consideration human rights organizations, victims of religious persecution, religious policy experts, U.S. officials and so on before drawing a conclusion.

Human rights and religious freedom are not U.S.-patented beliefs. China has acted within the boundaries of the law to protect the human rights of its citizens by striving to emphasize the positive role of religious figures in economic and social development. How can the U.S. kidnap human rights and religious freedom and use them as a tool to oppress other countries?

A word to the commission: The confession of your former leader proves to be an admission from long ago of the embarrassingly repetitive behavior of the U.S., which serves only to annoy others and hurt yourselves. Are you not yet tired of making the same mistakes year after year?