Canadian religious freedom ambassador Andrew Bennett says religious freedom violated in China

Not easy for this Government, as all governments, to balance economic interests with human rights concerns.

For the Conservative government, particularly challenging given their support, now muted, to Tibetans, their legitimate focus on issues relating to religious freedom and their overall anti-Communist regime framework:

“In China, unlike other parts of the world, religious freedom is being violated almost solely as a result of government restrictions.”​

“And that’s certainly a concern and an issue that we seek to raise with the Chinese,” Bennett told host Evan Solomon on Wednesday.

Under Canada’s long-standing “one China” policy, the Canadian government takes no position with regard to specific autonomy claims. But with religious freedom now a central tenet of Canada’s foreign policy, Bennett said it will take a stance when governments choose to discriminate on the basis of religion.

“In China right now, were seeing increasing state persecution of a variety of religious communities and this has been escalating over the last year or more.”

“For example, the case of China’s officials prohibiting Uighur Muslims from fasting during Ramadan. You know, this is completely unacceptable,” Bennett said.

“Now were seeing reports that the Chinese government wants to nationalize Christianity.”

Having Bennett do some early messaging will likely be followed by more discrete raising of the issues during the PM trip.

Interests are simply too serious to allow for “huff and puff” diplomacy.

Canadian ambassador Andrew Bennett says religious freedom violated in China – Politics – CBC News.