China slams bush....

China airs rare public criticism of Bush Iraq policy
Feb 1,

BEIJING (Reuters) - President Bush should scrap his unilateral approach and respect religious diversity in his "war on terror" to resolve troubles in Iraq, a senior Chinese official said in comments published on Thursday.

Recent anti-war protests across the United States illustrated that the Iraq war was unjust, Ye Xiaowen, director of the State Bureau of Religious Affairs, wrote in the overseas edition of People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, in rare public criticism of U.S. policy.

Ye's bureau oversees Christianity, Buddhism and Islam in the atheist country which only tolerates state-sanctioned religious institutions.

He criticized inflammatory terms such as "crusade" and "Islamic fascism" which Bush had used in the past when speaking of the fight against terrorism and Muslim militants.

"How can you link anti-terrorism with a particular religion?" Ye asked in a commentary headlined "Bush should reflect deeply."

Washington thought it could use Christian civilization to reform Islam but elections and the downfall of Saddam Hussein had transformed Iraq into a "meat grinder" that engulfed innocent lives instead of creating a haven for democracy, Ye added.

"Unilateralism and terrorism breed each other, fight each other, but neither can overcome the other," he wrote. "Terrorism cheats people under the disguise of religion. Why should unilateralism hijack religion as well?

"Amid the pains, can the U.S. try to abandon unilateralism and respect that differences can exist in harmony?" he asked.

China has backed Bush's "war on terror," but human rights groups say it has used that support to justify a wider crackdown on its Muslim Uighur minority characterized by arbitrary arrests, closed trials and executions.

Beijing has waged a campaign in the far-western region of Xinjiang against what it calls Islamic extremists and says Uighur militants are linked to a group agitating for an independent "East Turkestan."

In recent years, China has also promoted the idea that civilizations should co-exist and respect each others' differences, in part to counter Western attacks on its one-party rule and human rights record.