Ashcroft at the CFR. (Insider Report).

"Our fight, as President Bush noted, is not just America's fight, but it is the world's fight' declared Attorney General John Ashcroft during a February 10th address to the Council on Foreign Relations. Ashcroft boasted that the Bush administration has assembled a 90-nation coalition that shares "a commitment to the rule of law, supporting freedom of speech, religious tolerance, political democracy and equality between men and women.... We will either stand together to defend freedom or we will fall together to freedom's enemies."

Conspicuous on that list of supposed freedom-loving allies is Communist China. "I've had an opportunity to meet with dozens of foreign leaders to discuss ways to enhance our joint law enforcement capabilities.... Today alone, for example, I will meet with officials from two of the world's great powers, both China and Great Britain." In December 2001, Ashcroft recalled, "the United States and the People's Republic of China established a counter-terrorism working group. As a direct result of the working group's efforts, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation now has its first office ever in China...."

In response to a question by James Hoagland of the Washington Post, Ashcroft reported that FBI officials in Beijing "aspire to the rule of law, and are making improvements in moving toward the rule of law that are significant." Meanwhile, however, despite China's continued abuses of individual rights (including freedom of speech and religion), the administration is content to assist Beijing in prosecuting those designated enemies of the regime. According to Ashcroft, "we will assist [Communist officials] in prosecutions, and we are doing that in a number of cases."