UPDATE 3-Trump meets Chinese Uighur, other religious persecution victims at White House

(Adds Chinese ministry comment)
By Alexandra Alper
WASHINGTON, July 17 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump,
who has made religious freedom a centerpiece of his foreign
policy, met on Wednesday with victims of religious persecution
from countries including China, Turkey, North Korea, Iran and
Myanmar.
Trump counts evangelical Christians among his core
supporters and the State Department is hosting a conference on
the topic this week that will be attended by Vice President Mike
Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Four of the 27 participants in the Oval Office meeting were
from China, the White House said: Jewher Ilham, a Uighur Muslim;
Yuhua Zhang, a Falun Gong practitioner; Nyima Lhamo, a Tibetan
Buddhist; and Manping Ouyang, a Christian.
China sentenced Ilham's father, Ilham Tohti, an economics
professor and Uighur rights advocate, to life in prison on
charges of separatism in 2014, drawing condemnation at the time
from the United States and international rights groups.
Nearly two dozen nations at the U.N. Human Rights Council
this month urged China to halt persecution of ethnic Uighurs in
its western region of Xinjiang, where U.N. experts and activists
say at least 1 million are held in detention centers.

The Trump administration has been weighing sanctions against
Chinese officials over their policies in Xinjiang, including the
Communist Party chief of the region, Chen Quanguo, but has held
back amid Chinese threats of retaliation. Relations between the United States and China are already
tense over a tit-for-tat trade war, with the United States
alleging that China engages in unfair trading practices.
Reuters reported in May that the U.S. administration was
considering sanctions on Chinese video surveillance firm
Hikvision over the country's treatment of Uighurs, citing a
person briefed on the matter.
The Chinese government rejects any suggestion that it abuses
religious rights and human rights.
"I must point out that in China this situation of so-called
religious persecution does not exist," Chinese foreign ministry
spokesman Lu Kang told a news briefing in Beijing on Thursday.
"We demand that the United States correctly view China's
religious policies and the status of religious freedom in China,
and stop using the issue of religion to interfere in other
countries' affairs," Lu said.
Also present at the meeting were Rohingya Muslims from
Myanmar, the White House said. On Tuesday, Pompeo announced
sanctions against Myanmar military's Commander-in-Chief Min Aung
Hlaing and other leaders it said were responsible for
extrajudicial killings of Rohingya in 2017, barring them from
entry to the United States. Trump's ambassador for religious freedom, Sam Brownback,
said during Wednesday's meeting that the administration would
announce "additional measures" on religious freedom at the State
Department meeting on Thursday. Among the other victims who met Trump were Christians from
Myanmar, Vietnam, North Korea, Iran, Turkey, Cuba, Eritrea,
Nigeria, and Sudan; Muslims from Afghanistan, Sudan, Pakistan
and New Zealand; Jews from Yemen and Germany; a practitioner of
Cao Dai from Vietnam; and a Yezidi from Iraq.