China Tightens Control Over Christianity
Arrests of house church Christians mark government crackdown on religion.
by Xu Mei
NANJING, China, August 25 (Compass) -- A serious situation regarding religious liberty has been quietly developing in China. Many had hoped that the Communist Party’s religious policy -- and especially its attitude towards the Christian church -- would liberalize in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
But there is now clear evidence of a crackdown on “illegal religious activities,” especially unregistered Christian group activities, as well as a tightening of controls on academic and media activities related to religion. Even registered church leaders sympathetic to the house churches have been reined in, and projects of the state-controlled Three Self Patriotic Movement involving foreigners have been put on hold.
After a series of government meetings at the highest levels, leaders called for tightened control of religion. Late last year, party leaders reportedly expanded the office which was set up to suppress the Falun Gong cult, so that it could deal with other unauthorized religious groups as well, which they label, sometimes very arbitrarily, as “cults.”
The book Jesus in Beijing has been translated and circulated widely to Chinese officials as evidence of “religious infiltration.” Published in the United States by former Time magazine correspondent David Aikman, the book openly speculates that China could become a Christian country because of the rapid expansion of the church, especially the illegal house churches.
Political Threat?
Reliable sources in China report that this book, along with the DVD The Cross by political-dissident-turned-Christian-evangelist Yuan Zhiming, also now living in the United States, rattled the Communist Party leadership.
Both the book and DVD supply information about the house churches which would be regarded as quite innocuous overseas, but a few political references and images have made both works highly sensitive within China.
In the first week of June, an important meeting of all provincial leaders was reportedly held in Beijing. The main theme was the importance of maintaining control of religious affairs in order to ensure the continuance of the monopoly on power of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
At the meeting, provincial governors were ordered to report directly to Beijing on the state of religion in their provinces, a rare development showing the concern at the very highest levels in Beijing that religion -- and particularly Christianity -- is perceived as a threat to political stability.
As a result, leaders have planned yet another campaign to promote atheism. They will tighten censorship over Internet sites and the publication of religious books. Funding and student recruitment for various university centers for the study of religion will be frozen.
At the end of July, detailed national regulations were approved to guide the administration of all religious affairs in China. This followed more than two years’ debate on various drafts by the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA), as the former Religious Affairs Bureau is now known.
Reports in the South China Morning Post suggest that these measures may be foreshadowed in Shanghai’s revised regulations, which focus on monitoring the religious activities of foreign residents and the use of the Internet by religious groups.
The head of SARA, Ye Xiaowen, who has been uncritically welcomed in North America and other countries, seems to have taken a leading role in alarming the government, possibly to extend funding for his department which was slated to be scaled down in 2003.
Leaders of the state-controlled TSPM have played a dutiful role as well in the campaign. For example, a book attacking the Christian missionary movement for being a “tool of imperialism” to “invade China” in the 19th century was published recently to loud praise within official church circles.
As usual, church officials also have downplayed the growth of believers in China, to shore up their claim to represent the whole Chinese church. TSPM leaders visiting Hong Kong for a Bible exhibition in early August said the estimate of 80 million Protestants in China, a number propagated by international advocacy groups, was “outrageous.” Rev. Deng Fucun, vice chairman of the TSPM, told reporters from Japan Today, “Of course I would like to say there are 80 million believers in China, but in fact there are just 16 million.”
Officials at the exhibition also insisted that Bibles were freely available in China. However, in August, Compass obtained a letter from a Chinese resident which spoke of meeting a rural Christian recently imprisoned for owning a Bible. The prison guards broke all 10 of his fingers to ensure that he could “never hold a Bible again.”
Arrests
The new policies have resulted in a wave of arrests in recent months. Over 100 leaders of the China Gospel Fellowship were arrested on June 11 in Wuhan city, Hubei province, although most were released a few days later. (See Compass Direct, “Arrest in China of 100 House Church Leaders Confirms Trend,” June 28.)
Another 100 house church Christians were arrested in remote Xinjiang province beginning July 12. The arrests came during a meeting organized by the Ying Shang church, a large house church network based in Anhui province. Most have since been released, but Luo Bing Yin, a key leader of the Ying Shang movement, has been imprisoned.
Police also detained Jin Da, general secretary of the TSPM church in Ningbo city, Zhejiang province, who was present at the meeting.
Another 40 house church leaders were arrested on July 17 at a training seminar in Cheng Du, Sichuan province.
On August 6, approximately 100 house church Christians meeting for a summer retreat near Kaifeng, Henan province, were surrounded by 200 military police and Public Security Bureau (PSB) officers. All were arrested. Those from outside Henan were sent back to their home provinces, where some have been sentenced or placed under strict surveillance.
After 10 months in detention, a verdict was also issued on August 6 for three Chinese Christians accused of revealing “state secrets.” A report quoted by the Associated Press and the BBC said Liu Fenggang was given a three-year sentence, Xu Yonghai two years, and Zhang Shengqi one year, for “illegally soliciting and providing national intelligence to overseas organizations.”
The three men were accused of leaking information about the case of another Chinese Christian, Ms. Li Baozhi, to the foreign magazine Christian Life Quarterly in 2000, and sending other information about persecution to Christians overseas.
In perhaps the most surprising incident, Pastor Lin Xiangao, more commonly known as Pastor Samuel Lamb, was taken to police headquarters on June 13, for the first time in 14 years. (See Compass Direct, “China Steps Up Attack on ‘Illegal’ Religious Activity,” July 19.)
Due to his high international profile, Pastor Lamb is normally left to run his church without interference. His brief interrogation may be yet another warning signal from Chinese officials.
Reports have also emerged of arrests in China’s Catholic underground. Police detained eight priests in a raid on an unofficial Catholic retreat in Hebei province on August 17. Three other Catholic bishops were arrested in May, prompting a protest from the Vatican in Rome.
Taken together, these events reveal a serious chill in the atmosphere in China so far as the control of religious affairs is concerned. It is alarming that policies are again being implemented which hark back to the Maoist approach of the 1950s and 60s. Educated Chinese intellectuals -- even those who are not religious believers themselves -- have been quietly laughing at the “leftist” attitudes of some leaders in SARA and the TSPM for years.
However, the wave of recent arrests shows that this is no longer a laughing matter. Some observers believe China is headed back down a dead-end road unsuited to its diverse cultural and religious landscape, and entirely at odds with its responsibility as a member of the United Nations Security Council to propagate freedom of religion and belief within her borders.
Copyright 2004 Compass Direct
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