Beijing, China -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attended a church service in Beijing Sunday in a visit that highlighted U.S. concern for religious freedom in the world's most populous country.
The visit to one of China's largest state-approved churches followed Rice's repeated denouncements during a tour of Asia about China's human rights record, and particularly its restrictions on worship.
The top U.S. diplomat drew attention to one of the problems in Sino-U.S. relations on the first night of a two-day trip to China that comes as the major powers are also at odds over Taiwan and Beijing's rapid military buildup.
Rice, who met China's leaders at the Great Hall of the People, has used her trip to increase pressure on Beijing to persuade its communist neighbor North Korea to return to negotiations over scrapping its nuclear arms programs.
The daughter of a preacher, who describes herself as deeply religious, Rice has always attended church on Palm Sunday, an important date in the Christian calendar.
Still, she could have gone to church earlier Sunday in Seoul but chose to worship in China and allow reporters traveling with her to attend the Protestant service, knowing her appearance would grab attention.
At the Gangwashi church, just west of Tiananmen Square, Rice listened to a translation of the service through headphones and sang hymns in front of an altar bordered with plastic green plants in pots.
At a church that had supported the 1989 pro-democracy movement, the congregation of several hundred applauded Rice when she left at the end of the service.
In 1989, the church hung a banner saying "Christians Support the Students" across its front, and numerous dissidents attended services at the church, the group Human Rights Watch has said.
RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY FLOURISHES
China is on a U.S. blacklist of only eight countries worldwide considered "of particular concern" for limiting religious freedom.
Despite laws meant to protect religious freedom, the Communist government forbids organized worship outside state-backed "patriotic" religious organizations.
But religious activity has flourished as an increasing number of people have sought religious changes alongside social and economic reforms that started in the late 1970s.
Rice is not the first senior U.S. official to make a point of visiting churches in China.
In 1998, then-President Bill Clinton visited a Protestant church in Beijing's Chongwenmen district and spoke to the congregation about religious unity and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited the same church as Rice.
This week, China freed one of its highest-profile political prisoners and Washington opted not to seek a U.N. rebuke of Beijing's rights record as it had done last year.
The concessions came as Sino-U.S. ties are dogged by tensions over differences on North Korea and over Taiwan, an island the United States is committed by law to help defend.