OPINION:
In a recent commentary piece in The Times, U.S. Reps. Chris Smith of New Jersey and Dale W. Strong of Alabama expose China’s decades-old crackdown on Christianity, which began under Mao Zedong and persists to this day (“Christians face brutal year in China; don’t let Beijing bury repression of religious freedom,” Web, March 4).
As the congressmen point out, “The advance of Chinese totalitarianism in the world is not in America’s interest.”
On my visits to Hong Kong in the early 1960s, the Chinese mainland was still verboten to the West. Then, the once-autonomous British colony served as a haven for Chinese Christians and foreign missionaries fleeing Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward.
So where are China’s Christians to go now?
Today, Chinese Christians face exit bans and transnational repression. Hong Kong exiles, once thought to be safe overseas, may now be subject to bounties for their arrest.
Even families of exiles living overseas may now face persecution under Hong Kong’s national security law.
If President Trump confers with Xi Jinping in Beijing this month, let us hope he speaks up for those who cannot speak for themselves — namely, China’s beleaguered Christians.
BRIAN STUCKEY
Denver, Colorado
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