{"id":500,"date":"2008-02-21T16:06:34","date_gmt":"2008-02-21T16:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/02\/chinese-official-in-washington.php"},"modified":"2008-02-21T16:06:34","modified_gmt":"2008-02-21T16:06:34","slug":"chinese-official-in-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/chinese-official-in-washington","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Official in Washington to Deal with US Claims of Religious Intolerance Before Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Associated Press <\/strong><br \/>\nWashington &#8211; A senior Chinese official is trying to calm U.S. misgivings ahead of Beijing&#8217;s coming Olympic Games about what the Bush administration sees as religious intolerance in China.<br \/>\nThe director of China&#8217;s religious affairs bureau met in Washington with U.S. officials and spoke at a Roman Catholic institution, Georgetown University.<br \/>\nYe Xiaowen told reporters Wednesday, after talks with Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky, that China&#8217;s peaceful development depends upon respect for human rights and religious beliefs. Ye said he also met with President George W. Bush&#8217;s ambassador for international religious freedom, John Hanford, and with Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington.<br \/>\nChina has been a target of international criticism that its communist-led government abuses and stymies the voices of its people and ignores violence in Sudan&#8217;s Darfur region. Some have demanded sanctions involving the August Olympics, but the Chinese government has said repeatedly that politics should be kept out of the games.<br \/>\nYe criticized as groundless last year&#8217;s State Department report on religious freedom that said China continued to repress religious groups and was cracking down ahead of the Olympics to tamp down possible dissent.<br \/>\nChina&#8217;s leaders allow worship only in government-monitored churches, temples and mosques. Members of unofficial congregations frequently are jailed and harassed.<br \/>\nYe also said that China&#8217;s Olympic preparations meant it had &#8220;no time&#8221; for anger over last year&#8217;s presentation by Congress of a Congressional Gold Medal, its most prestigious award, to the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, the Dalai Lama, who Beijing says is trying to make Tibet independent from China.<br \/>\nChina, Ye said, is ready to improve ties with the Vatican, provided Catholic officials recognize that self-governing Taiwan is part of Chinese territory. He provided no timeline for reconciliation.<br \/>\nChina has clashed with the Vatican over the right to appoint bishops independently without papal approval and the Holy See&#8217;s diplomatic ties with Taiwan. The Vatican is one of about two-dozen countries that have full diplomatic relations with Taiwan, an island across the Taiwan Strait that China considers a province in rebellion.<br \/>\nYe said he came to America to speak at Georgetown, which was founded by a Jesuit in the 18th century. His bureau is responsible for supervising activities by China&#8217;s five officially recognized religious groups: Buddhists, Muslims, Taoists, Catholics and Protestants.<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Associated Press Washington &#8211; A senior Chinese official is trying to calm U.S. misgivings ahead of Beijing&#8217;s coming Olympic Games about what the Bush administration sees as religious intolerance in China. The director of China&#8217;s religious affairs bureau met in Washington with U.S. officials and spoke at a Roman Catholic institution, Georgetown University. Ye Xiaowen&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Chinese Official in Washington to Deal with US Claims of Religious Intolerance Before Olympics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/chinese-official-in-washington\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chinese Official in Washington to Deal with US Claims of Religious Intolerance Before Olympics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Associated Press Washington &#8211; A senior Chinese official is trying to calm U.S. misgivings ahead of Beijing&#8217;s coming Olympic Games about what the Bush administration sees as religious intolerance in China. The director of China&#8217;s religious affairs bureau met in Washington with U.S. officials and spoke at a Roman Catholic institution, Georgetown University. Ye Xiaowen&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/chinese-official-in-washington\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-02-21T16:06:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"akornfeld\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Chinese Official in Washington to Deal with US Claims of Religious Intolerance Before Olympics","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/chinese-official-in-washington","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Chinese Official in Washington to Deal with US Claims of Religious Intolerance Before Olympics","og_description":"Associated Press Washington &#8211; A senior Chinese official is trying to calm U.S. misgivings ahead of Beijing&#8217;s coming Olympic Games about what the Bush administration sees as religious intolerance in China. The director of China&#8217;s religious affairs bureau met in Washington with U.S. officials and spoke at a Roman Catholic institution, Georgetown University. Ye Xiaowen&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/chinese-official-in-washington","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-02-21T16:06:34+00:00","author":"akornfeld","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/chinese-official-in-washington","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/chinese-official-in-washington","name":"Chinese Official in Washington to Deal with US Claims of Religious Intolerance Before Olympics","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-02-21T16:06:34+00:00","dateModified":"2008-02-21T16:06:34+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/chinese-official-in-washington#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/chinese-official-in-washington"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/02\/chinese-official-in-washington#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Chinese Official in Washington to Deal with US Claims of Religious Intolerance Before Olympics"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a","name":"akornfeld","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","caption":"akornfeld"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/akornfeld"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}