World Tibet Network News Friday, February 13, 1998

BEIJING, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Three U.S. clerics aiming to open a dialogue with Chinese authorities on freedom of religion held a landmark meeting with President Jiang Zemin on Thursday.

"This is a historic first meeting of an American delegation of religious leaders with President Jiang Zemin," Rabbi Arthur Schneier of New York said in a statement.

Schneier, Rev. Don Argue, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, were sped in a motorcade into Beijing's leadership compound for the meeting with Jiang.

Jiang occasionally broke into English as he greeted the visitors amid laughter and jokes. The media were ushered out of the red-carpeted meeting room before talks began.

The U.S. clerics were appointed by U.S. President Bill Clinton for a mission that began on Monday and will include a tour of Nanjing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Tibet and Hong Kong. They are scheduled to return to the United States on March 1.

In a sign of warming ties between the United States and China, Jiang invited the religious delegation to China during a visit to Washington last October.

Schneier's statement said the trip was "a tangible dividend of the China-U.S.A. summit."

Some human rights activists have questioned the value of the trip, during which the clerics will be chaperoned by their Chinese hosts and introduced only to state-approved "patriotic" religious leaders.

"It's part of an attempt by the two governments to shift the question of human rights from the political agenda to the diplomatic agenda," said Robbie Barnett, director of the London-based Tibet Information Network.

The clerics said on Wednesday they were willing to risk being manipulated to open a dialogue.

China cracks down on worship outside officially sanctioned religious establishments, and millions of believers risk police harassment by gathering in "home churches."

The clerics are expected to meet Chinese leaders representing the Buddhist, Catholic, Protestant, Moslem, Taoist and Jewish faiths.

China officially puts the number of Protestants at 10 million and Catholics at four million, but church leaders say double that number meet underground.

China has shown signs of increasing willingness to engage critics of its human rights policy and open itself to scrutiny.

Last month, China formally invited Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, to visit.