U.S. News & World Report
April 30, 2001
The statement ripped into the core of the Christian right like a Silkworm missile. Was religious broadcaster Pat Robertson changing his tune on abortion? It sure sounded that way to many evangelicals when the Christian Coalition leader last week responded to a question on CNN about China's history of forced abortions. ". . . I don't agree with it," Robertson said. "But at the same time, they've got 1.2 billion people, and they don't know what to do. If every family over there was allowed to have three or four children, the population would be completely unsustainable."
Reaction was fast and fierce. Kenneth Connor, president of the Family Research Council, said Robertson had "squander[ed] his greatest asset--moral authority." American Life League President Judie Brown and Traditional Values Coalition Chairman Louis Sheldon assailed him for betraying the antiabortion crusade. The criticism from one-time comrades became so loud that Robertson quickly issued a statement reiterating his "lifelong opposition to . . . abortion."
But the damage was done. Robertson had shown his true colors, critics charged. "What's clear," says Gary Bauer, chairman of the Campaign for Working Families, "even in the clarification, is that he refuses to be critical of the government of China."
What gives? Skeptics say Robertson was putting business before principles, noting that the religious broadcaster has cultivated a lucrative relationship with China over the past decade. "It would be really bad for him to criticize China publicly," says Ole Anthony, president of the Trinity Foundation, a religious media watchdog group. "It wouldn't stand him in good stead."
Engagement. Robertson's interests in China are considerable. In 1995, his International Family Entertainment Inc., which has since been sold, invested some $ 1.5 million in a company that produced television programming for China. Robertson is also a major investor in Zhaodaola, a Chinese Internet portal for which Robertson provided a reported $ 10 million in seed money. He has called Zhaodaola "the Yahoo! of China."
Robertson--who has visited China several times and met with Premier Zhu Rongji--has also been allowed to conduct religious activities in China, which still has a prohibition on many kinds of missionary activities. Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network has aired shows on Chinese government-run TV. CBN China, his Christian relief mission, opened a Beijing office in 1999. Afterward, Robertson angered some evangelicals by severing ties with China's underground churches. Robertson has never made a secret of his many secular and religious dealings with Beijing. Calls to his office last week were referred to Roberta Combs, the Christian Coalition's executive vice president. "For anyone to suggest that Dr. Robertson would change his position on abortion due to business concerns," Combs said in a written statement provided to U.S. News, "is ludicrous."
This isn't the first time China policy has led to a rift between Robertson and other Christian conservatives, who generally oppose open trade with countries that have records of persecuting Christians. Last year, Robertson strongly supported granting permanent normal trade relations to China, while Bauer allied with labor and the human rights groups that fought the measure, insisting that trade should be contingent upon human-rights policies. To some extent, this reflects the same philosophical conflict--do close ties to China promote democracy, or merely enrich an authoritarian regime?--that has divided Democrats and Republicans alike. "The only way to pursue morality is to engage China fully and openly as a friend," Robertson wrote in a 1998 Wall Street Journal column, arguing that trade would promote change in China.
But to Bauer--who had a major falling-out with Robertson over the trade issue--the flap shows how a financial interest in China "is changing America . . . . It turns some American capitalists and, in some cases, even some religious leaders, into apologists for an odious regime."
Copyright 2001 U.S. News & World Report |
