China should act to ensure religious freedoms, a top US opposition lawmaker said at the close of an Asia trip held as US President Barack Obama also visits the region.
House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the lower chamber of the US Congress, was speaking in China as a bipartisan congressional delegation he was leading concluded.
“Religion is something that’s constitutionally protected for us, and we want to be able to promote that as a human right across the world,” Cantor told reporters from Shanghai late on Saturday at the end of a trip to China, South Korea and Japan.
“I think it’s a legitimate issue, and I look forward to hopefully being able to meet with the Chinese when I’m back in Washington to make the case for religious freedom [in China],” he added.
Foreign governments and campaign groups regularly accuse Beijing of tightly controlling religious freedoms. China maintains it has “protected the legal rights and interests” of worshipers.
In Shanghai, Cantor, who is the highest-ranking Jewish Republican in the US Congress, met with a rabbi and visited Ohel Rachel, a synagogue that is only open to the Jewish community on High Holy Days.
Cantor said he plans to urge Chinese officials in Washington upon his return to allow regular access to the synagogue for Shanghai’s Jewish community, which is composed mainly of foreigners.
The nine-member delegation, which also included former Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, focused on trade, regional security and North Korean denuclearization.
These issues had already come under the spotlight during Obama’s Asia tour. The US president was in Malaysia yesterday on the third leg of a trip that started in Japan and South Korea and is to end in the Philippines tomorrow.
The congressional delegation also met with Chinese academics, one of whom said that “there’s less freedom of the press” in the US than in China, a claim which Cantor said left him “flabbergasted.”
“That’s just plain wrong. I just don’t believe that,” he said, adding, “I’m certainly for freedom of the press... I believe it’s worth it for us to be here on the ground in China to continue to make that point.”
Tensions between the US and China over Beijing’s treatment of foreign journalists have heightened amid claims of retaliation against the New York Times and Bloomberg over reports deemed unfavorable by the Chinese Communist Party.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number