CHINESE EASTER BUNNIES

Next week Thursday, April 20, four days after what many Christians consider their holiest day, Easter, and celebrate the resurrection of Christ, President Bush will meet with Hu Jintao, President of Communist China, in the White House.

The purpose of the meeting is being billed as an attempt to settle "trade differences" between the US and China.  Bush may very well wheedle some minor trade concessions out of Hu, which will be piddling in terms of coming remotely close to correcting the gargantuan trade deficit we have with China.

Bush may also attempt to extract a concession from Hu regarding less Chinese oppression of Tibet – given that Hu was for some years the Chicom governor of Tibet and had a horrible record of tyranny over the Tibetan people. 

Bush will talk to Hu about nuclear proliferation, North Korea, Moslem terrorism, Iran, devaluing the Yuan, and other weighty matters.  Yet the topic Bush will be most interested in discussing with Hu is Christianity.

The most fundamental aspect to George Bush’s personal identity and character is that he is a Christian.  Recall his answer to the 2000 debate question posed to Republican presidential aspirants, "Who is your favorite philosopher?"  Without the slightest hesitation, Bush answered, "Jesus Christ."

Also realize that Bush is a global big-picture thinker.  The way to solve the problem of Moslem radicalism is not, for him, with short little steps.  No, he swings for the bleachers and goes for democratizing the Middle East starting with Iraq.

He was way out in front of everyone, including his closest advisors like Rummy and Condi, on India.  He understood that India is the only possible counterweight to Chinese hegemony over Asia.  Thus nurturing a US-India alliance, economic, political, and military, has been a primary goal of his presidency.

George Bush understands that within 20 short years, China will be the largest Christian nation on earth.  There are already 80 million Christians in China. That number is going to double and quadruple within the next one to two decades. There will be hundreds of millions of Chinese Christians by 2030. China’s future is as a Christian nation.

He knows that a majority of the Chinese entrepreneurs driving the explosive growth of China’s economy are Christian.  And he knows that Chinese Christianity is the only way to save Europe from becoming Eurabia and ultimately win the war on Moslem Jihadism.

He has been briefed on the Chinese Christian missionary movement Back to Jerusalem.  He learned about it from reading The Chinese Christian Crusades. 

He grasps that while European Christianity is spiritually prostrate, and American Christianity is too enfeebled by its hyper-liberal mainline churches, Chinese Christianity has the new-found born-again fervor and passion, the assertive confidence, the money, and the sheer numbers to not only Christianize China, but to re-Christianize Europe with Chinese missionaries, to evangelize Europe’s Moslems, and to compete for souls among Moslems in Islam’s heartlands of the Middle East.

In other words, the resurrection of Christianity is going to come from China.

That’s what Bush really wants to talk to Hu about four days after Easter.

There will be cute photo ops, with Bush giving Hu an Easter Bunny doll and talk about children’s Easter Egg Hunts.  But behind the Easter Bunnies will be serious talk about religious freedom in China.  Beyond economics and foreign policy, that’s Bush’s goal.

That’s why one specific request he’ll make of Hu will be to secure Hu’s approval of Pope Benedict XVI visiting China.  (For a discussion of the difficulties facing Catholics in China, see The Pope In China written a year ago.)

Bush wants a Christian China.  His contribution to this may end up being the greatest achievement of his presidency.

May I wish you all a Happy and Glorious Easter.