Chris Smith: “I would just point out that articles that were issued under Li Peng, 144 and 145, the Chinese now prohibit, strictly…”

“I would just point out that articles that were issued under Li Peng, 144 and 145, the Chinese now prohibit, strictly prohibit, any foreign proselytizing. If a missionary goes to China, he or she cannot speak out and proselytize, whether it be the Christian faith or any other faith. So their law makes it a crime, and so much of a crime that deportation is the minimum of what would happen to that person. The maximum is that they will go to prison. My staff and I and others in this Congress have worked to help people, some of whom were Americans who went over there and somehow drifted outside of the official boundaries and talked about Christ in one case, and he was arrested and was held and we had to intercede on his behalf.”