By STEVEN LEE MYERS
New Yorkk Times, August 05, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/washington/05prexy.html?partner=MOREOVERNEWS&ei=5040
WASHINGTON — Aides organizing President Bush’s trip to China for the Olympics considered having him worship at a house church, one of the underground religious institutions that routinely face official harassment, but the Chinese authorities ruled it out.
Pastors, lawyers and other political activists whom Mr. Bush considered meeting in Beijing as a signal of support have instead been ordered by the Chinese authorities to leave the city during the president’s visit. Scores of others have been arrested.
The idea of giving a Reaganesque “tear down this wall” speech on human rights in China — as members of Congress and others are calling for Mr. Bush to do — has been abandoned as potentially insulting to the president’s hosts, one senior administration official said. Besides, most Chinese would probably not see or hear it, because of state control of the news media.
Mr. Bush, who departed Monday for a trip to Asia that will include four days in Beijing, has characterized his visit as an apolitical celebration of the Olympic spirit and American sportsmanship. But behind the scenes, according to officials and others involved in the discussions, the preparations have been far more complicated and remain a source of friction.
The White House’s plans have been thwarted by Chinese objections, by security issues and by sensitivities that the administration chose not to upset, even as Mr. Bush faced criticism from human-rights campaigners and lawmakers here in Washington for not doing and saying more.
Harry Wu, a well-known critic in exile of China’s prison system, who met with the president at the White House last Tuesday, dismissed the president’s statements as “just games” and expressed disappointment that Mr. Bush’s attendance at the Olympics was having so little effect on the Chinese authorities.
“There’s no quarrel,” Mr. Wu, now the executive director of the Laogai Research Foundation in Washington, said afterward, with a tone of resignation. “There’s nothing. He’s going. That’s it.”
Mr. Bush first announced last September that he would attend the Olympic Games, a politically risky decision, given China’s authoritarianism and the deep support in the United States for the country’s persecuted Christians, Tibetans and political activists.
Mr. Bush will be the first sitting president to attend an Olympic Games overseas; he and his aides have said the trip is a gesture of respect to China. While his love of sports is evident, he showed no such enthusiasm for the Olympic spirit when the Games were held in Greece in 2004. And he has rebuffed calls to at least boycott the opening ceremonies.
“I know it’s important for me to send a clear signal to the Chinese people that we respect them,” Mr. Bush said in an interview on Wednesday with China’s state television network, CCTV.
In that interview, he mentioned differences with China, but not their nature or causes, striking the balance he has sought in much of what he has said and done regarding American-Chinese relations.
When Mr. Bush met last week with Mr. Wu and four other Chinese dissidents, he did so in the White House residence, not in the Oval Office. And he made sure to drop by a West Wing meeting held the same day between his national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, and China’s foreign minister, Yang Jiechi.
While he evidently will not worship at an underground church, Mr. Bush does plan to attend services on Sunday at the Beijing Kuanjie Protestant Church, one of the most prominent of those officially registered by the government. (And then, that night, he will watch Kobe Bryant and the rest of USA Basketball play China.)
Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, who was among a group of advocates who met with Mr. Hadley last week to discuss China, said the problem with the balance Mr. Bush was striving for was that it too readily accepted the Chinese authorities’ conditions.
Referring to the decision to visit an authorized church, he said: “It’s not an affirmation of religious freedom. It’s an affirmation of government-controlled religion.”
The senior administration official who discussed the trip did not dispute that Chinese objections had shaped the president’s itinerary. “They’re going to make it difficult for the meetings to take place,” the official said, referring to Chinese efforts to keep dissidents away from the president. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivities surrounding the trip.
Mr. Bush will meet President Hu Jintao and other Chinese leaders during the visit. And he and his aides said he would discuss a variety of contentious issues, including human rights in China; Tibet; and China’s resistance to international action in Myanmar, Sudan and Zimbabwe.
The problem for Mr. Bush politically is that the Chinese authorities have intensified pressure on dissidents and others as the Games approach, jailing hundreds in an apparent effort to avoid any demonstrations, according to reports by advocacy groups like Freedom House and Amnesty International.
That has left the president vulnerable to accusations that his entreaties to the Chinese in private have had little discernible effect in public.
The worst nightmare for the White House could be a harsh, even violent Chinese government response to protests at a moment when Mr. Bush is appearing in sparkling stadiums, watching sports with his family.
“He will look awful,” Mr. Roth of Human Rights Watch said, “if he ignores the repression around him.”