[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18545-18546]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



        CHINESE GOVERNMENT IMPRISONS 80-YEAR-OLD CATHOLIC BISHOP

  (Mr. WOLF asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous 
material.)
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today after reading today's editorial 
from the Washington Post titled ``Catholic `Criminals' in China,'' that 
describes how the Chinese Government has rearrested an 81-year-old 
Roman Catholic bishop, Bishop Zeng. Here is a picture of Bishop Zeng in 
prison garb. And the Senate today is ready to grant MFN to China.
  The bishop has spent most of his life in a Chinese prison, imprisoned 
through labor camps. He was imprisoned in 1958, was let out of jail for 
1 month, then rearrested and imprisoned until 1991. In 1996, in his 
late 70s, he was rearrested again and put in a forced labor camp. 
Imagine being in a forced labor camp at 70 and 80 years of age.
  A Chinese leader affiliated with the Chinese Government's recent 
public relations blitz said, ``American voters should get to know us.'' 
Indeed, American people, this Congress, the Clinton administration and 
the next administration must know the true character of the Chinese 
Government is one that throws 80-year-old Catholic bishops into forced 
labor camps.
  Does anyone in the Clinton administration care? Does the Congress 
care? Does anyone care?

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 9, 2000]

                     Catholic `Criminals' in China

       The Communist regime in China has identified and rooted out 
     another enemy of the state: 81-year-old Catholic Bishop Zeng 
     Jingmu. The Cardinal Kung Foundation, a U.S.-based advocate 
     for the Roman Catholic Church and its estimated 10 million 
     followers in China, reports that Bishop Zeng was nabbed last 
     Thursday. An embassy spokesman here said he couldn't comment. 
     This wouldn't be a first for this apparently dangerous 
     cleric. He was imprisoned for a quarter-century beginning in 
     1958. In 1983, the Communists let him out--for one month. 
     Then they jailed him for another eight years, until 1991. In 
     1996--at the age of 76--he was sentenced to three years of 
     forced labor and reeducation. When he was released with six 
     months still to run on that sentence, in 1998, the Clinton 
     administration trumpeted the news as ``further evidence that 
     the president's policy of engagement works.'' The fatuousness 
     of that statement must be especially clear to the bishop from 
     his current jail cell.
       Bishop Zeng has been guilty of a single crime all along: He 
     is a Catholic believer. He refuses to submit to Communist 
     atheism or to the control of the Catholic Patriotic 
     Association, an alternative ``church'' created by the regime 
     that does not recognize the primacy of the pope. China's 
     government is willing to tolerate some religious expression 
     as long as it is dictated by the government. Anyone who will 
     not submit--whether spiritual movements such as Falun Gong, 
     evangelical Protestant churches, Tibetan monasteries or the 
     real Catholic Church--is subject to ``repression and abuse,'' 
     the State Department said in its recent report on 
     international religious freedom. The admirably 
     straightforward report noted that respect for religious 
     freedom ``deteriorated markedly'' in China during the past 
     year. ``Some places of worship were destroyed,'' it said. 
     ``Leaders of unauthorized groups are often the targets of 
     harassment, interrogations, detention and physical abuse.''
       Bishop Zeng is a man of uncommon courage, but his fate in 
     China is sadly common. Three days before his arrest, Father 
     Ye Gong Feng, 82, was arrested and ``tortured to 
     unconsciousness,'' the Cardinal Kung Foundation reports. It 
     took 70 policemen to perform that operation. Father Lin 
     Rengui of Fujian province ``was beaten so savagely that he 
     vomited blood.'' Thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have 
     been arrested during the past year; the State Department 
     cites ``credible reports'' that at least 24 have died while 
     in police custody.
       Last month the Chinese government launched a public 
     relations mission to the United States, dispatching exhibits, 
     performers and lecturers--on the subject of religious 
     freedom, among others--on a three-week charm offensive. 
     ``American voters should get to know us,'' said the Chinese 
     functionary in charge. The U.S. ambassador to China, Joseph 
     Prueher, appeared at a

[[Page 18546]]

     joint new conference announcing the mission, and a number of 
     U.S. business executives--from Boeing, Time Warner and 
     elsewhere--happily sponsored it. We have nothing against 
     goodwill cultural exchanges, but Chinese and American 
     officials should not delude themselves that U.S. suspicions 
     are caused chiefly by prejudice or lack of understanding. On 
     the contrary, Americans understand just fine what kind of 
     government throws 81-year-old clerics into jail.

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