‘Chinese government is at war with faith,’ US envoy for religious freedom Sam Brownback tells Hong Kong FCC
- Trump White House ‘deeply concerned’ by events in Xinjiang
- Envoy warns Chinese policy is breeding terrorism, not preventing it
US envoy for religious freedom Sam Brownback said on Friday that the Chinese government was “at war with faith” and has been misguided in Xinjiang policies that were essentially breeding terrorism.
At the start of a visit to Hong Kong, the lawyer and former governor of Kansas denounced the arbitrary detention of an estimated 1 million ethnic Muslims in camps in Xinjiang in China’s far west.
“The Trump administration is deeply concerned and considered it a deliberate attempt by Beijing to redefine and control these Muslim minority groups, [their] identity, culture and faith,” Brownback said.
He declined to discuss in detail the measures the US government would use in handling what he called a wide range of persecutions of faiths and religious freedoms in China.
Brownback said he would like unfettered access to internment camps in China, where he could speak to inmates freely rather than appear in stage-managed events arranged by Chinese officials.
He also criticised Beijing’s other religious policies, including the handling of Tibetan religious leadership succession and the clampdown on unofficial Christian churches.
