Residents dance happily in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Photo: Cui Meng/GT

Chinese officials and experts on Friday refuted US politicians' criticism of China's religion policies, noting that instead of slandering China's human rights situation, the US should focus more on improving its own human rights record as its wars have caused great humanitarian harm.

China firmly opposes US slandering of China's religion policies and interfering with China's domestic affairs, China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang told a press briefing on Friday.

Geng's remarks were in response to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's labeling of China's policies in its Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region as "the stain of the century" and US Vice President Mike Pence's criticism of China's policies on human rights and religion at the State Department's Ministerial to Advanced Religious Freedom event in Washington.

"What Pence and Pompeo said is hypocritical. They colluded with members of heresy, which once again exposed their sordid and hypocritical face. For these people, religious freedom is an excuse and a tool to slander and destroy other countries, and to interfere in other countries' domestic affairs," Geng said.

US President Donald Trump met with a group of so-called Chinese religious figures at the White House on Wednesday, including Zhang Yuhua, a Falun Gong practitioner. 

About 30 scholars from China and other countries agreed in a forum in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province in December 2017 that the Falun Gong is a cult that spreads rumors to defame China, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

"The US is the true stain of the 21st century since it started several wars for its geostrategic interests, which have caused great humanitarian disasters and made terrorism spread globally. What the US has done is the biggest damage to the development of global human rights protection work," Qian Jinyu, executive dean of the Human Rights Institution of Northwest University of Political Science and Law in Shaanxi Province, told the Global Times. 

Xinjiang has taken a series of measures on counter-terrorism and de-radicalization, which have brought stability and peaceful development to the region while protecting local residents' interests. However, Pompeo and other US politicians have chosen not to see this and insist on distorting the facts, Qian said. 

Geng said on Friday that people of all ethnic groups in China have religious freedom and the Chinese government protects legal religious activities in accordance with laws and forbids anyone from using religion for crime.

He noted that Xinjiang has established vocational education and training centers in accordance with laws. And it is an effective measure to protect the people's right to survival and development and other basic human rights.

At the US Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that "unless we are willing to speak out against the violations of religious freedom in China, we lose all moral authority to talk about it any other place in the world.

"The US had long lost its moral authority as it wields a 'double standard' to criticize other countries' human rights records but never hesitates to violate human rights in disguise of 'national interests,'" Qian said.

Pompeo on Thursday congratulated countries, which had defied Chinese pressure, adding that "If you have declined to attend for the same reason, we take note," Reuters reported.

The remarks are a blatant threat to the countries, which is a show of US hegemony, experts said.

A total of 37 countries, including many Muslim majority nations, signed a letter to the UN Human Rights Council supporting China's Xinjiang policies on July 12.

"Pompeo himself is also the stain of the US. He can never get rid of seeing the world as a CIA official - always thinking others as the bad guy, with a sordid mind himself. In the global diplomatic field, almost no one likes him. Diplomats are supposed to make as many friends as they can, but Pompeo has done the opposite to offend as many as he can," Li Haidong, a professor with the China Foreign Affairs University's Institute of International Relations, told the Global Times.

Pompeo has long been the Trump administration's spokesperson for slandering China. His remarks show that the US and Pompeo himself have never given up playing the role of "teacher" to other countries on human rights and religion - using superior minds and bias to judge non-US countries and situations in non-Western countries, Li explained.

People travel at a national wetland park in Tajik Autonomous County of Taxkorgan, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, July 9, 2019. Photo: Xinhua

Protecting religious freedom



Pence said on Thursday that the US "spoke out against religious persecution" in China and criticized China's policies in Xinjiang at the State Department's Ministerial to Advanced Religious Freedom even in Washington.

Ironically, the example Pence used to support his accusation of China proves China's efforts to protect its people's religious freedom, analysts said.

Pence said there were fewer than half a million Chinese Christians 70 years ago. "Yet today, just two generations later, faith in Jesus Christ has reached as many as 130 million Chinese Christians."

"The number of religious believers in China has reached 200 million and the number is increasing, which shows that China has protected religious freedom in accordance with laws, and the current policies on religion are suitable to our society," Zhu Weiqun, former head of the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, told the Global Times.

Religious groups in China met in Beijing on Friday to express their anger over the US use of "religious freedom" to attack China's religion policies, according to a release from news portal cpc.people.com.  

Religious people from the China Christian Council said the US disregards the facts and truth and insists on using "religious freedom" to attack China. The US shows no respect for religion because it shamelessly politicizes religion.   

Representatives of the China Islam Association said that the world has witnessed a rise in racism and an increasing hatred of Muslims in the US. The so-called religious figures from China Trump met on July 17 are either cult members or separatists who have nothing to do with religion and have been avoided by religious people.  

Religious believers in China have the right to say whether China has religious freedom or not. The US should stop its poor performance and leave peace to religions, read the release.

"The fierce US attack on our policies in Xinjiang also shows the necessity and importance of the work in the region. When terrorist attacks were happening in Xinjiang, the US never said a word. When the region finally achieved stability, US politicians began making biased judgments," Zhu said.

US politicians never see or admit China's development on religion and human rights since they stay in touch with those who have been identified as separatists and members of heresy. One-sided words cannot represent China's current development, and those who buy these words refuse to know China in an objective way, Li said. 

US President Trump also met with Jewher Ilham, daughter of Ilham Tohti at the White House on Wednesday.

Tohti was sentenced to life in prison in China on September 23, 2014 for splitting the country. As a teacher at Minzu University of China, he spread separatist thoughts in class, instigated isolation and hatred, and colluded with overseas separatists to divide the country, the Xinhua News Agency reported. 

Those who continue to distort China's Xinjiang policies do not care about the Xinjiang people. They want to find a foreign backer and seek personal gain by criticizing China, Xu Jianying, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Research Center for Chinese Borderland History and Geography, told the Global Times.

China hopes the US will not make groundless remarks, which are contrary to the truth and common sense. We urge the US to abide by the truth, abandon bias, take an objective attitude on China's religious situation and policies, and stop using religious issues to interfere in other countries' domestic affairs, Geng said. 

Human rights and religious freedom have always been used as tools by Western countries to attack China. However, when talking about violations in the two fields, the US has the biggest problem and it never allows others to criticize them on these. Criticism of China from many senior US politicians also shows that the US is having an opinion war against China in every field in the hope of containing China, analysts said.

Instead of reflecting on its own treatment of religious people and ethnic groups, as well as its violations on religious groups under the guise of national security, the US is trying to interfere in other countries' domestic affairs, Xu said, citing US human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in March 2003. 

A survey from the Pew Research Center in July 2017 found that 75 percent of Muslim respondents said there was heavy discrimination against Muslims in the US. 

Experts have also noted that China and the US are still trying to solve ongoing trade frictions while the US side is using different cards like Xinjiang and Hong Kong to pressure China.

Despite China's hope of improving such frictions, the US is using methods to cause trouble to the relationship, which won't offer anything positive during negotiations, Li said.