Jason Carter: Amid the tensions of Bush’s visit to the world’s fastest growing economy, the president emphasized China’s repression of religious and social freedoms by attending “one of the few state-approved and state-monitored congregations in the country,” The New York Times reported. The symbolic gesture came only two weeks after the State Department declared China a “country of particular concern” in its annual report on international religious freedoms. The report has conferred this title upon the Communist superpower each year since it was first published in 1999. While more important concerns, including the two nations’ growing trade imbalance and cooperation in diffusing North Korea’s nuclear program, dominate the article, the Times appropriately ran a front-page photo of Bush standing among Chinese pastors and choir members that captures the tone of the visit. Though Bush seeks to maintain focus on China’s human-rights violations and nascent religious freedoms through symbolic solidarity with the nation’s churchgoers, China’s concessions in these areas may be little more than a tip of the hat to the West, as China stays on track to pass the United States as the world’s leading economy by mid-century.