U.S. lawmakers decry Olympics after dissidents blocked

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING, July 1 (Reuters) - Two U.S. Congressmen on Tuesday urged President George W. Bush to rethink attending the Beijing Olympic Games after they were prevented from meeting Chinese human rights activists.

Congressmen Frank Wolf, a Republican from Virginia, and Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, said they had come to Beijing to meet Chinese citizens pressing for greater political and religious freedoms, including two who recently met the U.S. president.

But Chinese authorities pressured or forced nearly all the activists from seeing them, the lawmakers and activists said.

The American lawmakers said such actions, and other repressive steps taken by the Chinese Communist Party, have cast a shadow over the Games and over Bush's vow to attend them.

"Tragically, the Olympics has triggered a massive crackdown designed to silence and put beyond reach all those whose views differ from the official 'harmonious' government line," Smith told a news conference held in the U.S. embassy in Beijing.

"Our thought is that with all of this hoopla that's going to surround particularly the opening ceremony, that that's a political event."

The friction between the U.S. visitors and wary Chinese authorities has again underscored the tensions of the Games, with Beijing under criticism from Western politicians and international rights groups over Tibet, censorship and and restrictions on religion and political dissent.

Wolf, who with Smith presented Chinese officials with a list of 734 Chinese prisoners they said were jailed for dissent, said Bush should not attend the Games unless there were big changes.

"I personally believe that unless there's tremendous progress over the next few weeks whereby they release some of these prisoners, I personally do not believe the president should attend. Nor do I think the Secretary of State should attend," said Wolf.

Two of the Chinese citizens who could not meet the lawmakers, Beijing-based lawyers Li Baiguang and Li Heping, had met Bush in the White House earlier this month after receiving awards from the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy.

Li Heping said security officers had ostentatiously tailed him and told him not to meet the U.S. politicians. He said by telephone that he was surprised that the audience with Bush on June 23 had not given him and Li Baiguang some immunity.

"He [Bush] said he was very concerned about human rights and the rule of law in China, especially religious freedom and the freedom of the press," Li Heping said of the meeting.

"He also said that when he comes to Beijing for the Olympics he will raise these issues with President Hu."

Li Baiguang, an evangelical Christian who has now met Bush twice, could not be contacted. His mobile telephone was cut off and other activists said he has been held by state security police on the outskirts of Beijing.

Wolf said the U.S. government should apply more public pressure, rather than quiet diplomacy, to seek the release of jailed Chinese dissidents.