June 1997

Dear friends,

Examples of Recent Persecution 

Regardless of the progress made in trade and the leniency exercised in choosing career, education, and domestic travel, the Chinese Government has in the past 2 years continued intensified and systematic attack on the underground Roman Catholic Church. Here are some abstracts from our press releases: 

• When Vice President Gore and House Speaker Mr. Newt Gingrich visited China this year to discuss the Human Rights condition, the apartments of Bishop Joseph Fan Zhongliang, S.J., the Coadjutor Bishop of the underground Roman Catholic Diocese of Shanghai, and Father Zen Caijun, S.J., a Diocesan priest in Shanghai, were ransacked on March 23, 1997 and April 1, 1997 respectively. Many religious articles, some cash and personal items were confiscated. No reason was given. No warrant or receipt was issued at the raids.
  
• A Chinese Communist Party's document detailing a procedure to eradicate the underground Catholic Church was released by this Foundation and published by Catholic International (March 1997).
  
  • The document spells out a seven-point action plan for the implementation stage (November 25, 1996 - March 31, 1997). It includes registering and setting up a file for each underground Catholic, blockading every exit of the village to guarantee that no one leaves the village on Christmas day for a prayer meeting, forcing them to write letters to renounce their Catholic faith and to join the Communist Government's church known as the Patriotic Association.
  • Consequently, another mass attack on defenseless villagers took place on November 20th of last year when about 300 Catholics were arrested in Jianxi Province. The government, following the above procedure, apparently tried to stop them from organizing a prayer meeting customarily held on Christmas Day.
  • Now circulating worldwide, this communist document removes any remaining doubts about the government's ultimate goal towards the underground Roman Catholic Church and its religious policy.

• Bishop Joannes Han Dingxiang was offered a bribe from a government official to join the Patriotic Association. He refused the offer. He was arrested and is still in jail.
  
• Rev. Charles Guo was sentenced to 2 years in a labor camp because he offered a Mass, administered sacraments, taught catechism, supported the Roman Pontiff and refused to join the Patriotic Association. 
  
• 5,000 soldiers supported by armored cars and helicopters sealed off a tiny village called Dong Lu in Hebei where a national Marian shrine is located and to which almost 100,000 underground Catholics came in 1995. The soldiers destroyed that shrine. They confiscated the Statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and arrested two bishops, many priests and lay persons. Bishop Su Zhimin, the Bishop of Baoding where Dong Lu is located, has now disappeared. His Auxiliary Bishop An Shuxin and the pastor of Dong Lu Shrine, Rev. Cui Xingang, are still in jail.
  
  Please try to visualize this: 5000 soldiers, armored cars, helicopters, beatings and arrests - all against unarmed, defenseless villagers. Doesn't that sound as if Tiananmen Square was repeated all over again on a smaller scale in that tiny village? The only difference is that there were no reporters, and no cameras. The Shrine of Dong Lu is no more. 
  
  The People's Daily (Chinese Government's official newspaper) overseas edition on February 20 reported that the destruction of this Shrine of Dong Lu never took place. Rather, it said that the government cleared an unauthorized cemetery plot! 
  
• Bishop Thomas Zen Jingmu, 75 years old and sick, was sentenced to three years in a labor camp because he celebrated a Roman Catholic Mass without government's permission.

Information Dissemination Program - Media Coverage

The press has finally realized the severity of the religious persecution in China. They have caught up with what we have been reporting for the last six years on the ongoing religious persecution in China.

You may have noticed that many articles have recently appeared in the major press including a front page article and editorial columns of the New York Times, Washington Times, Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and other newspapers describing the intensified persecution of the Roman Catholic Church by the Chinese government. These articles are the direct result of our information program.

These articles were so impressive that the People's Daily overseas edition (Chinese Government's official newspaper) on February 20 had to carry an article 1) reprimanding the New York Times and the Washington Times for publishing what the People's Daily referred to as "nonsense talk," and 2) "advising" them to refrain from such future reporting.

Persecution Continues - The Most Severe since the Culture Revolution - Why?
The Most Favored Nations Trading Status to China Should Not Be Renewed
So Long As Persecution Continues

Forty-eight years since the beginning of this religious persecution in China, hundreds of lay Catholics, priests, nuns, seminarians, novitiates, and bishops are still in jail or labor camps because they continue to refuse to renounce our Holy Father. All reports indicate that the current persecution is the most severe since the Cultural Revolution. The persecution occurs throughout China, in villages and in major cities, in the north and in the south.

Many religious and lay Catholics are knowledgeable of what I have just described. They also possess power, authority and leadership. But, they do not speak out. Their silence can be interpreted by the Chinese Government as approval of its repressive religious policy. Likewise, this silence could also be interpreted by the underground Church as betrayal.

The persecution of Roman Catholics is obviously not ancient history. The persecution continues and gets worse, at a time when China is making significant economic progress, and at a time when China is claming its place in the international community.

Human Rights

China continues its oppressive religious policies not only because many church leaders have sent wrong and misleading signals, but also because most governments in the free world have not been serious in their demands of human rights improvement in China.

Meanwhile, the current policies of the United States Government to delink human rights from trade send a clear, but wrong, message to China that we will tolerate human rights abuses for the sake of profits and trade. This policy also gives the Chinese Government the confidence that it can continue persecuting religious believers without affecting its international relationships.

"Zero Tolerance" has become such a buzz word that U.S. corporations often allude to it in their policies of zero tolerance of all discrimination, conflicts of interest, sexual harassment, child labor, and others. These policies are directly related to the upholding of human rights principles. Yet, the strong commitment to zero tolerance of human rights violations, or, for that matter, even a minimal tolerance has not found its way into the policy of those U. S. companies doing business in China.

It is very wrong, bordering on hypocrisy, for corporations to demand of its employee a strong commitment to human rights by adopting all these zero tolerance policies, when these same corporations are more than willing to relinquish this policy of zero tolerance once the company is located 20 hours away in China. It is even more hypocritical that hiding behind President Clinton's policy of delinking trade from human rights, these companies turn a blind eye to the atrocious religious persecution in China in exchange for their "thirty pieces of silver".

For example, according to the congressional record of February 15, 1996, Chrysler fired an employee because he was arrested by the Chinese government for praying without authorization. Only after an intensive international human rights campaign was waged was he rehired .

Founding Principle of the United States of America

The United States of America was founded because our forefathers suffered, fought, and worked hard to gain this God given right of freedom. This freedom cannot and must not be exclusive to the United States. Rather, it is a fundamental entitlement and should be enjoyed by all people around the globe.

This basic right of freedom was the reason why our country took great risks and sacrifices to help liberate Europe from Nazism, to play a major role in freeing Eastern Europe from Communism, and to help victims of apartheid, war and famine. Our foreign policy on China should not be anything less. To do so otherwise would be an insult to the spirit and principle of our founding fathers, and would be yet another example of double standard in our foreign policy.

The President cannot guard and foster American values in one corner of the world and neglect these same values in another corner of the world, namely China. To do so, America will not only lose its credibility among all nations, but also lose its sense of true values at home, a result which would be a grave disservice to all the people of this great nation.

We must send a clear and unequivocal signal to China that the United States cannot tolerate such violations of human rights as religious and political persecution, forced abortions, and slave labor camps; neither can we tolerate such misdeeds as protectionism trade practice, weapon proliferation, and illegal Chinese political contributions.

Chinese and Americans Have The Same Value of Freedom and Human Rights

Advocates of special interest groups, friends of the Patriotic Association and the Chinese Government have argued that America must not force its values on China by insisting its people achieve freedom and human rights. These groups argue that the Chinese have a different culture.

On the contrary, the Chinese people fully subscribe to the same values that we ourselves espouse. There are about 100 million religious believers who cry out for religious freedom. There are millions of silent dissidents who cry out for freedom of speech. There are not millions, but hundreds of millions of mothers and fathers who cry out for their second babies, slaughtered even before they are born. All these people constitute a huge majority of China's population. They are all helplessly demanding freedom and their human rights.

Human rights is universal. China is a signatory of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. While China violates the human rights, China is not ignorant of these human rights. Anyone claiming that China has a different standard of human rights from the West is either totally ignorant of Chinese culture, or is making a wicked excuse for the atrocities committed by the Chinese government. The only difference between the two countries is that Americans can pursue these freedoms and enjoy them. On the other hand, the Chinese people are voiceless and suppressed. We have a moral duty to help them.

Conclusion - The Most Favored Nation Trading Status Must Not Be Renewed To China This Year

The American spirit dictates, as Mr. A. M. Rosenthal of New York Times wrote, that the altar of freedom, and the altar of human rights must be higher than the cash registers. Anyone arguing otherwise, in support of the renewal of MFN status to China, betrays the noble founding principle of our great nation.

It is, therefore, imperative that President Clinton and Congress take responsibility, as Americans, to strongly protest the atrocities with the objective of stopping China's religious persecution. This mandate needs to be incorporated into the United States foreign policy.

What Can We Do To Help Our Brothers And Sisters In Christ In China

1. Most importantly, we should pray. We need your prayers not only for the underground church, but also for our separated brothers and sisters in the Patriotic Association so that "they too will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and that they too will be courageous witnesses of Christ". May they return home to the Universal Church ruled by our sovereign Pontiff so that China will return to "One Fold and One Shepherd". Please join our Prayer Sponsor Program. A "prayer sponsor" spiritually supports the underground Church by promising to pray for a designated member who could be a religious or a layman belonging to the Underground Church or the Patriotic Association.

2. Knowledge is the most effective weapon against human rights violations. We should educate ourselves and others on the violations of religious freedom experienced by Christians throughout the world.

3. Bishops and priests should be made aware of the ongoing fierce religious persecutions in China and the current misinformation campaign by the Chinese Government on China's Catholic Church.

4. Ask the Bishops to speak out on religious persecution. They have the duty to do so. Ask them to establish a special commission to monitor religious persecution - not only in China, but also worldwide.

5. Ask the United States Bishop and Catholic Conferences to take a stand on religious persecution in China and to take a stand on the Catholic Church in China. Ask them not only to speak forcefully in public, but also to formulate a plan to raise the awareness in all parishes across the United States on the persecution of the Roman Catholic Church in China and on the difference between the Patriotic Association and the underground Roman Catholic Church.

6. Ask your pastor to show solidarity with the persecuted by praying for the stoppage of religious persecution worldwide during general intercessions of each Mass and printing slogans such as "We Are In Solidarity With The Persecuted Church" on the church bulletin.

7. Tell your city representative, state senator, congressman and senator in Washington about the ongoing religious persecution in China. Ask them to sponsor resolutions to make the cessation of persecution of religious believers a priority objective of the United States foreign policy. Also ask them to NOT renew the most favored nation trading status of the People's Republic of China so long as persecution of religious believers continues in China. Your representative will listen only if you are willing to speak out.

8. Ask the newspaper of your hometown to monitor and report the ongoing persecution as well as to editorialize this issue.
   We need the help of the media. Timely and continuous reporting of these atrocities in the free world is extremely important. It puts the Chinese Government on notice that the free world does know of the ongoing atrocities. It will also put the free world on notice that China cannot be taken as a serious partner in international politics and trade if religious persecutions continue unabated. Let's face it. If the Chinese government does not respect such a basic principle, it will not respect and honor other principles and agreements either.
   For example, McDonnell Douglas Corporation had its share of nightmares. It shipped to China in 1994 some highly technical and sensitive equipment and had an agreement with China to use them for producing civilian jetliners only. However, the machines were secretly diverted 800 miles away to a military complex that builds missiles and fighter aircraft.

9. If you are a stockholder, find out if this company is doing business in China. If it is, you are entitled to introduce a resolution to establish a standard of tolerance of human rights violations there. Once China's human rights violations exceed the standard which you had introduced, your company should automatically reduce or withdraw its business from China.
   This kind of resolution is already being introduced. Boeing is facing a demand by a group of stockholders that it adopt human rights standards for its operations in China. Similar resolutions have been presented to Motorola and Allied Signal.

10. Support the Cardinal Kung Foundation. The Cardinal Kung Foundation may be the only organization working directly with the Roman Catholic bishops in China. We need funding. We also work closely with all the major Human Rights organizations. In fact, we are the source of most of their published reports on the persecution of the Roman Catholic Church in China.
    About fifty underground bishops are in China taking care of about 90 dioceses and 8 million souls. They have practically no financial support from the free world. They have no churches, and no collections. Most priests must work as a factory or farm worker and live below poverty level to carry out their ministry. Often, one priest must cover many villages, on bicycle. A $40 donation can support a priest for one month.
    We need to educate seminarians, support religious orders and priests. A $600 (or $50.00 per month) can support a seminarian for one year in China. We also need your financial support to pay for communications, press releases, newsletters, travel expenses to testify at hearings and to attend conferences, and other administrative expenses.
    Catholics in the United States can no longer be a sympathetic bystander. Your suffering brothers and sisters in Christ deserve your active support. We are not talking about renovating a kitchen or repairing one church. We are talking about the immediate needs for 50 bishops, 90 dioceses and 8 million catholics across the whole China. Think of it, my friends. This has to be a precious opportunity for you to directly participate in the ministry of the underground Roman Catholic Church in China.

I testified for the New York City Council and for the California Senate, appeared on many TV and radio shows, delivered speeches in various parishes - all to oppose religious persecutions in China. Numerous telephone calls and letters have poured into my office inquiring on the same matter. The public is gradually getting to know us. Your past support made it possible. Your continuous support is needed. Please visit our web site at www.cardinalkungfoundation.org. May God bless you and reward you manifold.