CHINA TIGHTENS CONTROL OVER CHRISTIANITY

NANJING, China,
Arrests of house church Christians mark government crackdown on
religion.

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.

by Xu Mei
www.compassdirect.org