Bush Banters as a Buffer in Beijing

By Steven Lee Myers - New York Times
Monday, August 11, 2008 - Web Link
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August 10, 2008

Emerging from services at a small Protestant church here, President Bush on Sunday prodded China’s leaders over religious freedom, saying they had nothing to fear from believers, but he avoided public confrontations over it or any other issue during his visit for the Olympic Games.

Interspersing sports and diplomacy in ways that were almost dizzying at times, Mr. Bush concluded a series of meetings with President Hu Jintao of China and other senior leaders without any discernible rancor.

The leaders’ public remarks were limited almost entirely to banter about the Olympics, though Mr. Hu somberly expressed regret for an assault on Saturday that killed an American visitor and gravely wounded his wife at the Drum Tower, one of Beijing’s landmarks.

“Your government has been very attentive, very sympathetic, and I appreciate that a lot,” Mr. Bush said, meeting with Mr. Hu in an ornate hall at Zhongnanhai, the walled complex for China’s senior government and Communist Party leaders.

Mr. Bush thanked Mr. Hu for helping to arrange the visit to the Beijing Kuanjie Protestant Christian Church, officially registered with China’s state-run religious bureaucracy, which he attended with his wife, Laura, and their daughter Barbara.

“No state, man or woman should fear the influence of loving religion,” Mr. Bush said after the service, standing with the church’s youth choir in the rain.

Before the president’s trip to China, his aides had considered having him visit a “house church,” or unauthorized religious gathering, whose members often face harassment or arrest. After the Chinese authorities objected, the White House opted not to press the matter, in part not to endanger members of the underground churches, officials said.