WASHINGTON pulled back from imposing a new sanction on Beijing but has extended an existing one after a damning portrayal of persecution in the State Department's first report on international religious freedoms.
The US State Department will notify Beijing this week that a ban already in place on the sale of criminal detection and crowd-control weapons imposed after the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 will now be extended to cover its concerns over religious freedom on the mainland.
'It is not a new sanction but it does create a whole new threshold before the existing ban can be lifted,' one Clinton administration official told the Sunday Morning Post.
'We have made the decision on the basis that it will send a strong message to Beijing but not have a negative impact on the wider relationship.' China was singled out among 194 states in the report as one of just seven regimes of 'particular concern'.
The other six were Burma, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Serbia and the Taleban in Afghanistan - all of which are likely to be 'punished' with similar existing sanctions in the weeks ahead.
The report noted increased levels of religious belief on the mainland but warned of extensive official control measures. It said Beijing had tightened its control over Tibet and religious freedom had diminished, describing reports of abuse and torture of Buddhist monks and nuns as 'credible'.
The report was stipulated on an annual basis as part of the International Religious Freedoms Act passed in Congress last year after increased political concerns on both the Democratic left and Republican right.
