Group Says China Deporting Christian Missionaries
Pastor Dale Morgan
Group Says China Deporting Christian Missionaries*
By ALEXA OLESEN
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 10, 2007; 8:30 AM
BEIJING -- China has kicked out more than 100 suspected foreign
missionaries in a campaign to prevent proselytizing ahead of next year's
Beijing Summer Olympics, a U.S. monitoring group said Tuesday.
The government launched "a massive expulsion campaign of foreign
Christians" in February dubbed Typhoon No. 5, said the China Aid
Association, based in Midland, Texas.
The foreigners, mostly from the United States, South Korea, Singapore,
Canada, Australia, and Israel, were expelled or deported between April
and June, the group said.
It said the campaign was believed to be part of "efforts to prevent
foreign Christians from engaging in mission activities before the
Beijing Olympics next year."
China's Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a faxed request
for comment late Tuesday.
Christian mission groups from around the world say they plan to quietly
defy the Chinese ban on foreign missionaries and send thousands of
volunteer evangelists to Beijing next year. Evangelicals worked the
crowds at the Olympics in Athens, Sydney and Atlanta but the groups say
the Beijing Games offer an opening like no other, in a communist country
that conservative Christians have long reviled.
Susan Stevenson, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy, said the embassy
had "heard some reports of deportations," but could give no details,
citing privacy rules.
China bans open proselytizing and harasses, fines and jails Christians
worshipping outside the Communist Party-controlled official church.
Despite that, millions more Chinese Christians continue to meet
independently and carry out missionary work such as distributing
leaflets at markets, train stations and other public places.
Foreign faithful who live in China are often able to evangelize
privately while working as English teachers, humanitarian workers or in
business.
The Aid Association said foreigners expelled had been either working in
or visiting Beijing, the far western region of Xinjiang, Tibet or the
eastern coastal province of Shandong.
It cited an American who has lived in Xinjiang for 10 years as saying
that 60 foreign religious workers were expelled from the heavily Muslim
region alone.
Jean-Paul Wiest, a Beijing-based expert on Chinese Catholicism, said he
had not heard of mass deportations of missionaries but would not be
surprised if it was happening.
"I've not heard of that ... but it's not too surprising if they are
preaching," Wiest said. "It's supposedly not allowed here."