Another example of bad China reporting — the misleading headline.
Here’s an article from the Associated Press:
China closes Christian-linked businesses
I was thinking that’d be a real job because of all the people in Fujian, as well as outside of Shanghai, who practice Christianity. I rememberd all the religious book stores I’d seen in Xiamen — and come to think of it, I saw a Christian bookstore in Qingdao too. But if you look at the article, they’re only talking about closing TWO businesses. That’s in all of China! Plus, who makes the allegation that the businesses were closed because they people were Christian — a Christian group in America! That may be why they were closed, but it’s also worth noting the two companies were engaged in making foodstuffs. Food safety has been a hot issue in China, with a lot of company inspections, fines issued and companies closed for making unsanitary products. Another thing that complicates things is that this happened in a Muslim autonomous region. Xinjiang is actually pretty militant about it’s identity — they’re the only area in China that is “non-Chinese” — I mean the people are not East Asian ethnically. Maybe Chinese officials would say they took action to prevent unrest. Locals would probably not take kindly to Christian proselytizing in their area. One last point is that, the complaint was based on the proselytizing, not the business owners’ religion per se.