(CNSNews.com) - Even as developed nations seek to ease cultural and political barriers between themselves and China in order to promote better relations with Beijing, the communist administration's record of religious persecution continues to deteriorate, human rights groups report.
The hope that the international spotlight focused on China since it won the bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games would force Beijing to allow more religious freedom is largely "wishful thinking," they said.
"I don't see any evidence that they will do that," said Joseph Kung, president of the Cardinal Kung Foundation, a civil rights group that monitors the persecution of Catholics in China. "In fact, they're getting bolder in their persecution and there is no indication whatsoever that things will get better."
In April, the communists arrested Mathias Pei, the 83-year-old underground Catholic bishop of Beijing, and the 79-year-old Bishop Shi Enxiang, who has spent 30 years of his life in communist jails. Chinese authorities have given no indication when the clerics will be released.
At least 14 bishops of the underground Catholic Church are imprisoned in unknown locations or are under house arrest because of their affiliation to the Vatican, Kung said.
In addition to these are scores of priests, laymen and women who were arrested in recent months for practicing their faith and are unaccounted for, Kung said. The list of religious detainees is by no means complete because not all arrests are reported and details of the whereabouts of religious detainees are difficult to obtain, he said.
"The communists have become worse and bolder. Any priest or bishop who refuses to register with the Patriotic Association is liable to an automatic sentence of three years in a labor camp," Kung said.
Catholics and Protestants alike in China are persecuted unless they are affiliated with China's "official" churches, reported International Christian Concern, a Protestant group that monitors religious abuses in China.
"The main thing is China doesn't want any Western influence in their churches," said ICC spokeswoman Holly Hursh.
The communists tell the official churches what kind of theology they can preach and what they can teach. Children under 18 are not allowed to attend church and certain books of the Bible are banned, especially those with references to the return of Christ, she said.
According to the State Department's International Religious Freedom Report, there are about 5 million Catholics in the "Catholic Patriotic Association" - the "official" Catholic Church of China - and an additional 10 million Catholics loyal to the Vatican who worship clandestinely in China.
The "official" Protestant Church in China numbers between 10 million and 15 million, while underground Protestant churches claim as many as 30 million followers, the State Department estimates.
People practice their faith despite the fact that they know the government might crack down on them at any minute. Westerners who are caught in house churches are usually deported whereas Chinese people found there can be imprisoned or beaten, Hursh said.
"It doesn't seem like it's getting any better," she said. "The idea that things would get better after we granted them permanent normal trade relations doesn't seem to be the case."
The communists simply use the official churches as evidence that they allow freedom of religion, but they really don't allow true expression of faith there, Hursh added.
In fact, the staging of the Olympics in Beijing could actually have a harmful effect on human rights in China if the communists decide to put on their best face and clear the cities of homeless and poor people, analysts said.