My Way

God And China By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF - November 26, 2002ZHONGXIANG, China -- She never broke when she was tortured with beatings and electrical shocks, and even when she was close to death she refused to disclose the names of members of her congregation or sign a statement renouncing her Christian faith. But now, months later, Ma Yuqin abruptly chokes and her eyes well with tears as she recounts her worst memory: As she was being battered in one room, her son was tortured in the next so that each could hear the other's screams, as encouragement to betray their church. ''They wanted me to hear his cries,'' she said, sobbing. ''It broke my heart.'' Ms. Ma, a steel-willed woman of 54, was brave enough to tell her story of the persecution that Christians sometimes still face in China. Dozens of members of her church are still imprisoned, and those free are under tight scrutiny, but several church members dared to meet me for a tense interview after we all sneaked one by one into an unwatched farmhouse near Zhongxiang, a city in central China, 650 miles south of Beijing. China is in many ways freer than it has ever been, and it's easy to be dazzled by the cellphones and skyscrapers. But alongside all that sparkles is the old police state. Particularly in remote areas like this, police can arrest people and torture or kill them with impunity, even if they are trying to do nothing more than worship God. Accordingly, Washington must press China hard to observe not only international trade rules, but also international standards for human freedom. Secret Communist Party documents just published in a book, ''China's New Rulers,'' underscore the grip of the police. The party documents say approvingly that 60,000 Chinese were killed, either executed or shot by police while fleeing, between 1998 and 2001. That amounts to 15,000 a year, which suggests that 97 percent of the world's executions take place in China. And it's well documented that scores of Christians and members of...