China’s human rights record came under attack yesterday as President Bush condemned the Government for oppressing its people.

With the eyes of the world on China, and heads of state flying in for the opening ceremony at the Bird’s Nest stadium this evening, Mr Bush used some of his toughest language yet to press China to allow its citizens more freedom. Speaking in Bangkok only hours before his arrival in Beijing, he said: “America stands in firm opposition to China’s detention of political dissidents and human rights advocates and religious activists. We press for openness and justice — not to impose our beliefs but to allow the Chinese people to express theirs.”

The remarks were a sharp reminder of the many abuses that are still reported in China, seven years after the promise it gave to the International Olympic Committee that it would take the opportunity of hosting the Games to improve its record on human rights.

China’s 1.3 billion people enjoy far greater personal freedom than they did even a decade ago, with greater rights to move to other parts of the country, to seek jobs nationwide and even to speak their minds in internet chat forums. However, the limits are starkly defined, with activists detained, monitored or jailed for challenging the Communist Party leadership or implicitly criticising its policies.

The latest such example involved a young teacher from Sichuan province who was ordered last month to serve one year of “re-education through labour” — a non-judicial punishment that can be imposed by the police — for distributing on the internet photographs of schools that crumbled in the May earthquake.

Mr Bush, in his last major presidential policy speech in Asia, said: “The United States believes the people of China deserve the fundamental liberty that is the natural right of all human beings.” Qin Gang, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, countered: “The Chinese Government puts people first, and is dedicated to maintaining and promoting its citizens’ basic rights and freedom. Chinese citizens have freedom of religion. These are indisputable facts.”

But Beijing police again demonstrated the limits yesterday when plainclothes officers dragged away three American Christian activists who tried to stage a demonstration for religious freedom for a second day in front of the Mao Zedong Mausoleum on Tiananmen Square. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defence Coalition, said: “We have come here today to speak out against the human rights abuses of the Chinese Government. We have come here today to be a voice to those who are in prison because of their religious beliefs.”

China has stepped up security after a series of protests and a terror attack this week in the Muslim region of Xinjiang, in the north west of the country. A video attributed to the Xinjiang-based Turkistan Islamic Party yesterday showed images of the Olympic logo in flames and an explosion over the Olympic venues.

The choice by the US team of a former refugee from violence in Darfur to carry the flag at the Olympic opening ceremony has turned the spotlight on China’s policy on the Sudanese region. The decision to nominate Lopez Lomong, a Sudan-born 1,500m track star, will add a touch of political drama to the opening ceremony.

Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese dissident who was jailed for his role in the 1989 demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, said China’s leaders were likely to be sanguine about Mr Bush’s comments.

Given Mr Bush’s decision to stay in Beijing until Monday to watch some basketball games, Mr Liu said: “This is probably as much as he can say, since he is coming.”

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