WASHINGTON
President Bush sought to focus world attention on religious persecution Thursday, singling out China and Sudan as two of the worst abusers of spiritual human rights.
Bush said the Chinese government ``continues to display an unreasonable and unworthy suspicion'' of religious freedom, in an evening address before the American Jewish Committee. He cited the persecution of followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement and of Buddhists in Tibet.
``China aspires to national strength and greatness. But these acts of persecution are acts of fear -- and therefore of weakness,'' Bush said.
Coincidentally, the United States was voted off of the United Nations Human Rights Commission on Thursday, the first time it has not held a seat since the United Nations was formed in 1947. Sudan was among the nations added to the panel's member states. Human Rights Watch, an international watchdog group, called the U.N. commission ``a rogues gallery of human-rights abusers.''
Bush's remarks are the latest sign that the administration is taking a harder line toward China.
He also called Sudan ``a disaster area for human rights.''
More than 2 million Sudanese have died in an 18-year civil war marked by the brutal persecution of Christians and adherents of traditional Sudanese religions by the Islamic government.
UNICEF estimates that more than 12,000 Sudanese are held as slaves. Bush's White House has come under pressure from both Christian activists and human-rights advocates to help beleaguered Christians in Sudan.
Saying that he hoped to ``turn the eyes of the world upon the atrocities in Sudan,'' Bush named Andrew Natsios, the head of the Agency for International Development, the main U.S. foreign aid agency, to oversee relief efforts in the East African nation.
``This is a first step. More will follow,'' he said. ``Our actions begin today, and my administration will continue to speak and act for as long as the persecution and atrocities in Sudan last.''
Bush also listed the governments of Iran, Iraq, Burma, Cuba and Afghanistan as religious persecutors.
Foreign policy experts said Bush's forceful defense of religious freedom around the world signaled that he intends to look beyond traditional national security concerns in shaping foreign policy.
This partially contradicts the posture he struck during his presidential campaign, when Bush said he would be a ``cold-eyed realist'' in international affairs, focusing on issues that directly affect U.S. interests.
``This is not the behavior of a realist. This points to the fact that he has more diverse interests,'' said James Lindsay, a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution, a centrist research center here.