DrumsofWar wrote:1) Congratulations on reading the first link on Google and showing your impressive research skills. Now read the rest which are even more well sourced and you'll see exactly the torrent of persecution I'm talking about.
Just take even half of those claims and the amount of persecuted Christians is greater than the figure of 300 a year. You also ignored the fact that the church is state controlled, which is already pretty bad, given the separation of church and state in most other nations for many centuries now.
Such "research" was your suggestion. So let us just read the first page of Google results for such a search:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=Hnd&q=china+persecute+christian&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
1. The one I already cited
2.
http://www.christianpersecution.info/china.php
The cases of detention/death:
Two members of the Laojie Christian Church in the village of Sangdong in China's Henan province have been detained, just days after authorities officially banned their church for a second time, Worthy News learned Tuesday, August 18.
Christians in China's Shaanxi Province are suing law enforcement authorities for illegally
detaining and fining them and confiscating their personal properties, in a case that could impact house churches, Worthy News learned Saturday July 25.
Tree[sic] of the five Christians arrested on July 13 in a Christian youth camp raid in Tengzhou city of Shandong province have been
released, an advocacy group said Tuesday, July 21.
Security forces raided a Bible school in eastern China run by the vice-president of the Chinese House Church Alliance (CHCA) and
briefly detained a dozen people, a Christian advocacy group said Monday July 20.
A petition
calling for the release of a prominent Christian human rights lawyer, which was signed by some 100,000 people around the world, has been delivered to the Chinese embassy in Washington and the U.S. State Department, organizers said Friday, July 17.
At least five Christians, including two teenagers, were behind bars Wednesday, July 15, in China's Shandong province, where worshipers and rights investigators said security forces raided a Christian youth camp and abolished a house church.
Two Chinese American missionaries were missing and at least four Christians remained detained Monday, July 13, following a police raid on a church in China's volatile Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region where a riot last week left 184 people dead, Christians said.
The pastor of a major Chinese evangelical church and his wife have been sentenced to one year "re-education through labor" for "engaging in illegal religious activities," trial observers confirmed Wednesday, July 1.
Chinese Christians on Wednesday, July 1, were awaiting the international community to "pray and act" on behalf of
jailed Christian house church leader Shi Weihan and six of his associates who have been sentenced to prison terms for allegedly printing Bibles and Christian books without government approval, their supporters said.
More than a dozen house church leaders and Christians in two Chinese provinces were free Tuesday, June 30, after they were released by authorities from detention amid international pressure, Chinese Christians said.
News that China
released a Christian woman after serving over two and a half years in prison for protesting the destruction of a mega-church has been overshadowed by the
ongoing detention of Christians in a similar case, Chinese Christians and rights investigators said Wednesday, June 24.
A Christian human rights attorney was recovering of his injuries Wednesday, June 24, after he was detained, interrogated and tortured by officials of China's Public Security Bureau (PSB), Christians said.
At least six Christians from China's Henan province were behind bars Thursday, June 18, after security forces stormed their house church following a similar raid on a house church in Sichuan province, Christian rights investigators said.
Over a dozen Chinese house church leaders faced another day of detention Saturday, June 13, and some of them the prospect of years imprisonment, after security forces raided a house church in China's Sichuan province, Christians said. There was also
concern over the whereabouts of a prominent human rights lawyer after a Chinese official spoke about his alleged kidnapping by security forces.
A court in Beijing found Christian bookstore owner and house church leader ,Shi Weihan, guilty of illegal business operation and
sentenced him to three years in prison and fined him 150,000 Yuan fine ($22,000) for printing and distributing Bibles for free, his defense team and Christian supporters said Thursday, June 11.
So that is around 60 arrests and 16 releases over the past four months. That amounts to less than 200 a year.
3.
http://persecution.net/china.htm
"Through a system of "re-education through labour,” the Chinese government detains hundreds of thousands each year in work camps without even a court hearing" - no indication here of how many are Christian
"Pray for spiritual and physical strength for the thousands of Christians in prison for their faith in Christ" - no exact number much less any specific source or time period
Updates on left side of Web site similar to those on previous site
4.
http://www.crossroad.to/News/Persecution/alert/China.htm
"We have just received news of a mass arrest of 170 house church Christians in Nanyang County, Henan Province."
"On May 11, 2003, a house church in Anshan in Liaoning province of China was raided by officials of the Public Service Bureau. Approximately forty Christians were tied up and their names recorded."
"Sister Ma and her family were sound asleep one night in May 2001, when Chinese Public Security Bureau police burst into her house and arrested her, her son and her daughter-in-law ..."
"House church Pastor Phillip Xu has been sentenced to 18 months "re-education through [hard] labor" for leading an unregistered church service. "
A bit more than 210 arrests over a period of several years.
5.
http://www.persecution.com/ - an evangelical site about persecution of Christians in general
6.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=61272
"'Leading up to the Olympic Games, we actually see things getting worse'" - no statistics
7.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians - Wikipedia article
All these sources show that two or three hundred Christians are in detention every year, many of whom are held only briefly.
Again, remind me of how many innocent Muslims the Americans have killed in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Also, China is officially atheist; that is about as great a barrier between church and state as one can have. By the way, the Church of England is governed by the United Kingdom's head of state.
Oh, and arguing that Tibet is an integral part of China is in the same vein of language as Imperial Japan's claim of "Asia for the Asians".
No, it is not because Japan did not have an historical claim to China lasting 700 years. Also, if you are comparing Japanese war crimes like the Rape of Nanking and Unit 731 to the persecution of Tibetan separatists by Chinese Communists, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Not only do the people of the 50 States in America all accept Washington's rule of law as valid (except for those 2 guys in Texas and Palin's husband in Alaska),
That is because most of the indigenous Americans died, anyway. If China went ahead and most the Tibetans who spoke against Chinese rule, in 50 years, all the people in Tibet would "accept [Beijing's] rule of law." But Beijing does not promote massacre, only its sovereignty over Tibet.
Tibet has had a valid claim for independence since before the Tang Dynasty when it was so strong that even the Emperor had to recognize them as a peer to Xi'an.
Yes, and the English feared William Wallace as well. What is your point? Though Tibet has such a claim, at the present moment, is it more valid than China's sovereignty over Tibet that has lasted for several centuries?
In that same vein, there actually is a Scottish independence movement in the works which is proceeding among peaceful lines. (Some conducted polls gave as high as 50% support in Scotland.) China is still actively persecuting Tibet and minorities elsewhere.
If the Scots are right in principle, then the right thing to do would be to give them their land. Does their pacifism make England's claims any better? No, it does not. But London rules over Scotland, and you do not criticize the English. If the United Kingdom ought to have sovereignty over Scotland, then China ought to have sovereignty over Tibet. Just because the Tibetans sometimes cause violent revolt does not make their claims any better, so China ought to put down insurrection with force if needed.
2) Congratulations on documenting the very change in China I was talking about. Propaganda is no longer being taught because it's become vestigial and now all history before the reforms is being whitewashed. (The devastation wrought by American expansion on Amerindian tribes is at least mentioned in our textbooks.)
You were not talking about change. You said "The Communist regime 'enlightened' its people and raised the literacy rate by forcing them to learn state-written propaganda (and still do)."
Actually, one can freely discuss the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, though not the Tiananmen protests of 1989, which came after the reforms. No history before the reforms "is being whitewashed."
3) Actively supporting brutal dictatorships and obstructing wide international efforts to stop them is much worse than being "actively interfering sanctimonious colonizers".
So you think African countries would benefit more from the European imperialism of the last several centuries than from Chinese investment? The Europeans exported wars, famine, poverty, hunger, and greed. The Chinese export jobs.
Also, if you consider China to be a brutal dictatorship like Sudan and Iran, which your tone and posts certainly convey, then do you propose that the United States stop doing business with China (and have no one to buy up its debt)?
4) China has 3.7 times the population of the United States and has executed 138 times the amount of people per year. Thanks for playing.
No, I should be thanking you for making the lacunae in your arguments so obvious. Why do you complete dodge: "However, you fail to explain how capital punishment is a bad thing for society or what any of this has to do with the supposed evilness of Communism. Texas executes more than the other states. Does that make Texas the most Communist and evil state?"
Really, you're blaming my language as being anti-Chinese when I've laid the blame exclusively on the Chinese regime.
First of all, the Chinese government today is drastically different from that of 40 years ago. I thought you learned this already when you stopped your argument of "[t]he people in charge in Beijing are the EXACT SAME PEOPLE who caused the massive body count 40 years ago," but I guess not.
Second of all, you
are being "anti-Chinese" because you told anyone who "disapproves of 'hatred' of China" to "shut the fuck up."
I'd love to play the reference game but I really don't have to.
So you tell people to do research but refuse to do any of your own? "Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
Why do you just go on dodging some of my previous points? I can see your posts dwindling down a good bit every time. I hope that you will not just descend into labeling me a "troll" and disregarding my points, which are fact-based, like your comrades have.
It's the same thing as if you were arguing that the US faked the Apollo moon landing and that the Soviets were capable of reaching the Moon with the Soyuz program and providing 5,000 web links to that effect. I'm not obligated to prove that the US did land on the Moon on July 20, 1969.
Do you think the
New York Times or BBC would print anything like that? Plus, you have not provided anything to counter what I have stated, so you do not seem too credible. I am sure articles saying that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin did land on the Moon vastly outnumber those saying they did not...
Honestly, the leaders of China are not heartless monsters, despite what you want to think about them, and all the Chinese are not brainwashed by their government. In fact, you come off as more brainwashed by refusing to acknowledge facts. Perhaps you are perplexed that China is rising after a century and a half of troubles, but in any case you sound really unhappy, even bitter, that people's livelihoods are improving there.