DATE=2/2/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=CHINA / RELIGION
NUMBER=5-45366
BYLINE=STEPHANIE MANN
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
INTERNET=YES
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: China is intensifying its crackdown on
unauthorized religious and spiritual groups - shutting
down meeting places and sentencing members to prison
terms. Observers say the government is trying to halt
what it sees as a loss of its control over the Chinese
people and a threat to the authority of the Communist
Party. V-O-A's Stephanie Mann reports.
TEXT: In China, people may legally practice only five
religions - all of them approved by the government --
and only as part of what are called patriotic
religious associations. One of the government's
requirements is that all members of the approved
associations believe first and foremost in the
supremacy of the Communist Party.
/// OPT /// The five religions allowed by the
government are Buddhism, Islam, Protestantism,
Catholicism and Taoism. /// END OPT ///
Because of the constraints on freedom of religion,
many Chinese have chosen to worship in unauthorized
ways - either in secret "house" churches, or in folk
religion groups that the government bans as dangerous
superstition.
China scholar Anne Thurston says religious belief has
grown dramatically in recent years - in particular in
traditional Buddhism and in Christianity.
/// THURSTON ACT ONE ///
With this very rapid economic development going
on in China, with the decline of belief in the
ideology of the Communist Party, I think that
there is a real sort of moral vacuum in China
today. So that on the one hand, you see this
sort of crass materialism, and on the other
hand, you see people trying to give new meaning
to their life.
/// END ACT ///
Ms. Thurston, who lives in Washington and studies
contemporary Chinese social issues, says Chinese
people are not finding moral guidance from the
Communist Party or from the materialism of economic
prosperity. So, she says, they are looking to new
sources, including religion.
The largest religion in China is Buddhism, with 100-
million adherents, but Western religions are growing,
too. The government-approved Protestant church has
about 15 million members and the official Catholic
association has four million.
China and the Vatican broke relations in 1957, when
Beijing refused to allow Catholics to look to the Pope
as their spiritual leader. Joseph Kung, a spokesman
for the Cardinal Kung Foundation in Stamford,
Connecticut, which supports the underground Roman
Catholic Church in China, says the unofficial or
illegal Catholic Church has about 10 million Chinese
followers.
/// KUNG ACT ///
All these people -- so called underground
followers or what you call unofficial church or
those people who worship outside the sphere of
the patriotic association -- all they want is to
practice their religious activities in
accordance with their conscience. That's all
they are looking for. May we add, they also are
very patriotic to China. They also love China.
They are not revolutionary.
/// END ACT ///
And Mr. Kung points to recent arrests of underground
Catholic bishops, priests and lay leaders who were
doing no more than practicing their faith. /// OPT ///
Underground Roman Catholic Bishop Han Dingxiang was
arrested in early December. Mr. Kung says he does not
know the whereabouts of the 63 year-old bishop, who
has spent many of the last 20 years in jail. A 65-
year old Roman Catholic lay leader, Wang Chengqun, was
picked up just before Christmas and is reportedly
being held in a re-education through labor camp. ///
END OPT ///
Lately, attention has focused on government actions
against the folk spiritual movement called Falun Gong,
which was declared an illegal cult last year. Falun
Gong combines exercise with breathing, meditation and
folk beliefs and has attracted a wide following among
middle class and middle-aged Chinese.
Last year, thousands of Falun Gong members held a
silent meditation-style demonstration in Beijing's
Tiananmen Square. Since then, more than 15-hundred
practitioners have been jailed. In addition, in the
last few months, the government has shut down more
than 100 study centers of another meditation sect,
called Zhong Gong.
Anne Thurston says the government is worried about its
loss of control as well as the historical precedent
set by such popular movements.
/// THURSTON ACT TWO ///
Traditionally, rebellions in China have often
started with these sort of unorthodox sects.
They begin in times of dynastic decline when
people are looking for new values. The
government is not satisfying their needs. They
look for new values. They form new
organizations, and there's a progression to the
point where finally some of these unorthodox
sects begin to have political overtones and
begin to engage in rebellion.
/// END ACT ///
Both Anne Thurston and Joseph Kung believe that most
people who follow unauthorized religions in China do
not have a political agenda. Ms. Thurston notes the
fact that people choose not to worship in patriotic
religious associations can be interpreted as a
political decision. But she says it is the Communist
Party that politicizes their choice, not the house
churches.
On January sixth, when the Pope ordained 12 bishops
from around the world, the patriotic Chinese Catholic
Church held a ceremony the same day to ordain five
bishops in China. Joseph Kung says this was not a
coincidence, but was part of China's effort to show
the Chinese church is independent from the Pope.
Anne Thurston says Beijing's ordination of bishops,
its arrest of Catholic priests and suppression of
unathorized religious groups are all part of China's
effort to reassert control. But she doubts if the
Communist Party can ever regain the control it once
had over the Chinese people.
// REST OPTIONAL //
/// THURSTON ACT THREE ///
I think that this is really the most troubling
thing to try to understand as China tries to
move forward economically into the 21st century -
that the old Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong Thought
ideology just doesn't work. . They aren't giving
the Chinese people a reason to believe in them.
And that's undermining their legitimacy.
They're going to have to do something, and it's
just not clear what it is.
/// END ACT ///
In the meanwhile, Ms. Thurston says, China may muddle
along - with sporadic protests and crackdowns - as the
people and the party try to find new goals to define
life in China as it enters the new century. (Signed)
NEB/SMN/KL
02-Feb-2000 12:20 PM EDT (02-Feb-2000 1720 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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