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A Chinese Christian refugee in New York, working with Christians in China, has compiled an extensive new archive documenting brutal religious persecution that has caused more than 100 deaths and thousands of injuries.

Activist Li Shi-xiong, head of the New York City-based Committee for Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China, believes these documents establish that communist rulers at the highest levels take an active role in persecuting house-church Christians. In the past, top leaders in China have blamed repression on overzealous local officials.

The New York committee timed its unveiling of the archive to influence President Bush during his February trip to China.

The archive is a 10-foot-high stack of 22,000 testimonies about persecution of Chinese Christians. It includes court transcripts, internal government documents, and photographs. Experts call it the largest collection ever assembled on the persecuted church in China.

"The secret documents alone are extremely rare and incredibly important," says Carol Hamrin, a star China analyst who recently retired from the State Department. The mammoth collection, which Li calls a "truth bomb," includes 5,000 detailed testimonies of Chinese Christians describing their arrests, interrogations, and jailings. Many accounts include photographs of the persecuted believers, including injuries they suffered while in custody. Some case files include official arrest and court records. The largest number of testimonies comes from central Henan Province, where persecution has dramatically escalated since 1999. Li's group has also collected partial reports on 17,000 others, mostly Christians, persecuted for their religious beliefs.

Li is also documenting the cases of 117 religious people who have died while in official custody, 700 who have been put in labor camps, and 550 who are wanted by the police but are in hiding. He is also investigating 300 police officers accused of being especially abusive.

Freedom House's Nina Shea has written that Li's archive is a "tremendous work." Shea, a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, marvels at Li's "dedication to the cause of religious freedom and his amazing work in the documentation of so many thousands of cases of the persecution of China's Christians." Freedom House, an advocacy organization founded in 1941 by Eleanor Roosevelt, plans to make extensive use of the archive.

China scholar Brent Fulton, head of China Source in Los Angeles, is aware of the archive but has not examined its contents. He says the documents indicate the "degree of seriousness" with which China approaches unregistered religious groups. "They see the unregistered groups as a national security threat."

Li and the New York committee believe that going public with the archive will build international political pressure on China's leaders to end their repression of religion. Fulton foresees the government searching for those who leaked the documents. He also expects more crackdowns. But, he says, "The long-term response to the release of these papers will be good."

The revelation of the archive comes at a sensitive time for China. Political leaders say that the nation of 1.3 billion people faces wrenching changes related to its entrance into the World Trade Organization (WTO) last December. WTO membership will lower trade barriers, enabling China to compete for trade on a more level playing field. Certain parts of China's economy, such as high tech, are expected to do well. Others, such as the inefficient and subsidized industrial and agricultural sectors, may be pummeled. Millions of unskilled laborers could be thrown out of work.

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March 11 2002, Vol. 46, No. 3