(AgapePress) - Two more preachers have reportedly been arrested by authorities in China.
The New York-based group Human Rights in China says authorities have detained two Christian leaders who were preaching at a home in Hubei Province in the central part of the country. CNN quotes the group as saying the two men, who are pastors with the underground Chinese Evangelical Fellowship, were picked up last week at a home where they were attending a family prayer service. The fellowship is branded by Beijing officials as one of a dozen "evil cults" in the country.
A spokesman for Amnesty International says several members of the evangelical group have been detained or sent to labor camps since 1998. It says at least one was severely beaten and died in custody.
This latest report did not give any further details on the fate of the two arrested last week.
Chinese Military Build-Up
While Christian persecution and other human-rights violations in China have been part of the mix on the American political scene for some time now, the political turmoil between communist China and the island nation of Taiwan has been around even longer. A senior policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation says the United States needs to stop making Taiwan "jump through hoops" to get critically needed military hardware.
Stephen Yates is the Senior China Policy Analyst at the Washington-based think tank. He says a recent report in The Washington Times revealed that China has increased its defense spending by nearly 20%. Yates says there is only one reason for that.
"[China] faces no threats on its borders [and] no likely rival in the region will seek to invade or topple the government there," Yates says, "so really the only place one can expect that China's aiming this military capability is at the United States, with an eye towards keeping it out of Taiwan."
Yates says unlike the United States, which has pledged to defend democracies on a global basis, China has no other national security reason to greatly increase and modernize its military.
"One would really have to ask the question of Beijing of exactly what kinds of threats they really see themselves facing in the world," he says. "When one looks at the U.S. defense budget, we have interests globally and we defend them globally. In most cases, we are on the side of people seeking to protect their own freedom."
"What is it that China intends to do with a modernized and better equipped and funded military?"
Yates says the U.S. needs to make it easier for Taiwan to receive the military hardware it needs to deter the communists from making a military move against the island nation.