Indian views on Tibet: Religion in China
Monday, 19 May 2008, 2:42 p.m.
Introduction
Religious observance in China is on the rise. According to a survey
published in a state-run newspaper, 31.4 percent of Chinese adults are
religious, a figure that is three times the initial government
estimate. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is officially atheist, but
it has been growing more tolerant of religious activity for the past
twenty years. China’s constitution explicitly allows “freedom of
religious belief,” and in 2005, the State Council passed new guidelines
broadening legal rights for state-sanctioned groups. In March, U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recognized these efforts and
removed China from the State Department’s list of top human rights
violators. But experts say that Muslim Uighurs, Buddhist Tibetans,
unregistered Christians, and groups that the party brands as cults,
such as Falun Gong, are still persecuted and repressed.
Freedom and Regulation
Article 36 of the Chinese constitution says that Chinese
citizens “enjoy freedom of religious belief.” It bans discrimination
based on religion, and it forbids state organs, public organizations,
or individuals from compelling citizens to believe in-or not to believe
in-any particular faith. In 2005, the State Council passed new
Regulations on Religious Affairs, which allow religious organizations
to possess property, publish literature, train and approve clergy, and
collect donations as long as they have registered with the state.
According to Chinese criminal law, officials who deny citizens of their
right to religious belief can be sentenced up to two years in prison.
But religious freedom is still not universal in China. The state only
recognizes five official religions-Buddhism, Taoism, Islam,
Catholicism, and Protestantism-and considers the practice of any other
faith illegal. Religious organizations are required to register with
one of five state-sanctioned patriotic religious associations, each of
which is supervised by the State Administration for Religious Affairs
(SARA). Religious groups that fail to affiliate with one of the five
official religions are denied legal protection under Chinese law.
In 2007, two professors of Shanghai-based East China Normal
University polled 4,500 people about their religious belief. Their
findings, which were published in the state-run China Daily, said that
the five official religions account for 67.4 percent of religious
adherents in China. Many of the unregistered believers were said to
worship legendary figures such as the Dragon King or God of Fortune.
According to a report from the U.S. State Department, groups that the
Chinese government classifies as “cults” (such as the Falun Gong, Zhong
Gong, and a variety of Christian sects) account for many of the
unregistered believers as well.
Public security officials monitor both registered and
unregistered groups to prevent them from disrupting public order,
impairing the health of citizens, or interfering with the state’s
education system. Some experts say that SARA uses these legal loopholes
to curb religious freedom throughout the country. “The fine print
matters,” says Andrew J. Nathan, former chair of the advisory committee
of Human Rights Watch, Asia. He notes that SARA denies legal protection
for groups it deems “subject to foreign domination,” as well as groups
whose activities fail to classify as “normal.” These legal ambiguities
give SARA the flexibility to decide which religious groups can get
state approval.
The Atheist CCP
The CCP is officially atheist, in accordance with its Marxist
roots. According to the U.S. State Department, the party has issued
circulars ordering party members not to hold religious beliefs, and it
has demanded the expulsion of party members who belong to religious
organizations. CCP officials have said that party membership and
religious beliefs are incompatible, and they discourage the family of
CCP members from publicly participating in religious ceremonies.
But despite official orders that cadres be atheist, some
members of the CCP manage to juggle their faith with their party
membership. “In most cases, ordinary Chinese do enjoy the ability to
privately and quietly practice the faith that they profess,” says Scott
W. Harold of the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown
University. Adam Segal, CFR senior fellow for China studies, agrees,
adding, “If you’re a party member and you practice religion through a
state-sanctioned way, it would not necessarily be a problem.” According
to a profile of the CCP from GlobalSecurity.org, up to 25 percent of
party officials in some localities engage in some kind of religious
activity.
Christian House Churches
Since the 1980s, there has been a significant growth in
Christianity throughout China. But many Christians choose not to
register with the state. “Some groups don’t want to accept the official
doctrine,” says Nathan, noting that the state-sanctioned form of
Christianity is considered too liberal by many adherents in the
countryside. Some Catholics practice off the record because the state
forbids them from pledging allegiance to any foreign figure, including
the Pope. Pope Benedict XVI has said he would like to restore
diplomatic relations with China, which were cut off in 1951 after the
Communists came to power. But a dispute over the Vatican’s right to
appoint bishops has prevented progress.
Harold adds that the state limits the number of people who can
join each church, so some Christians who want to join the
state-sanctioned church find that they cannot do so legally. These
regulations have prompted the creation of a sizeable underground
Christian community. It is hard to estimate the number of Christians
who practice without state sanction, but the Pew Research Center
reports that the number is probably between 50 and 70 million. Many of
these Christians hold services in “house churches,” which are private
religious forums that adherents create in their own homes. SARA allows
friends and family to hold informal prayer meetings without registering
with the government, so these makeshift house churches have more
theological freedom than state-sanctioned churches.
House churches, like official churches, are often besieged by
the state. According to a report (PDF) from the China Aid Association,
Chinese officials harassed house churches in at least sixty cases last
year, resulting in 788 arrests and 693 detentions. But experts say the
CCP is growing more tolerant of these covert religious forums. In March
2008, Open Doors International, a Christian religious freedoms group,
endorsed the State Department’s decision to remove China from its human
rights blacklist because “religious freedom in China, compared to five,
ten years ago, is in much better shape now.”
Islam and Uighurs in Xinjiang
According to China’s latest census, which was conducted in 2000,
there are over 20 million Muslims in China. The country has ten
predominantly Muslim ethnic groups, the largest of which is the Hui, an
ethnic group closely related to the majority Han group. Ranking next to
the Hui are the Uighurs, a Turkic people who live primarily in the
autonomous region of Xinjiang province in northwest China. According to
the U.S. State Department, officials in Xinjiang tightly control
religious activity, though Muslims in the rest of the country enjoy
greater religious freedom.
Xinjiang is an area of special concern because of its Turkic
leanings, as well as the fact that it is the base of the East Turkestan
Islamic Movement (ETIM), a militant Islamic separatist group. Since
1990, China has accused the ETIM of engaging in more than two hundred
terrorist attacks, though experts say the state may be exaggerating.
Most Uighurs do not support the ETIM, but they are frustrated with the
Chinese government because they face discrimination for having a
different religion, language, and culture than the typically wealthier
Han Chinese.
The CCP also worries about Xinjiang because of the region’s
ethnic and religious ties to neighboring states. “What Uighurs have is
a very large population of ethno-linguistic and religious brethren in
Central Asia, and all the way up to Turkey,” says Harold. “They
strongly feel that the Uighurs are treated as second-class citizens in
China.” He says that the state is worried about foreign
influences-especially Islamic extremism-that might emanate out of
Central Asia and cross into China. These concerns prompt the CCP to
keep a watchful eye on religious activity in the region.
Tibetan Buddhists
There are over 5 million ethnic Tibetans in China, most of whom
are Buddhist. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of Tibetan
Buddhists, as well as an active participant in the ongoing debate about
Tibet’s political status. Since 1987, he and his exiled government in
India have played a key role in garnering international support for
Tibetan independence. Buddhist monks within Tibet have also been active
political dissidents, organizing anti-government demonstrations (which
erupted into violent riots in March 2008). Experts say that
demonstrations like these have convinced the CCP that Tibetan monks are
the ringleaders of political dissent in the province.
In order to quell this dissent, the CCP restricts religious
activity in Tibet. The state monitors daily operations of major
monasteries and it reserves the right to disapprove any individual’s
application to take up religious orders. “Beijing’s hope is that
ultimately a new generation of Tibetans will emerge that will be less
influenced by religion,” writes Melvyn C. Goldstein, director of the
Center for Research on Tibet at Case Western Reserve University, in a
1998 Foreign Affairs
article. In order to shape the new generation, the CCP has created
“patriotic education campaigns” that promote a state-sanctioned version
of Buddhism.
Experts say that discontent amongst Tibetan Buddhists stems in
part from economic disparities between ethnic Tibetans and Han Chinese.
But they also stress the sincerity of Tibetans’ religious grievances.
“It’s definitely the case in Tibet that one of the most immediate
sources of frustration of those people who have been most active
recently has been China’s policy towards religion,” says Harold. “The
state attempts to vilify the Dalai Lama and force Tibetans to believe
something that they do not believe: that he’s evil, that he’s
splittist, and that Tibet has always been and will always be a part of
China.” Nathan agrees that there is a real religious element in the
Tibetan conflict, adding, “The state has unfolded patriotic education
campaigns in the monasteries, which they wouldn’t do if religion didn’t
really matter to the Tibetans.”
Falun Gong/Falun Dafa
Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) is a spiritual movement
that blends aspects of Taoism, Buddhism, and Qigong, which is a
traditional Chinese exercise. Falun Gong practitioners say the movement
has ancient origins, but it first appeared in its modern form in 1992,
when group founder Li Hongzhi began teaching the exercises in
Changchun, China. In 1999, the CCP outlawed the group and began an
ongoing crackdown against its adherents. According to the U.S. State
Department, Falun Gong practitioners continue to face arrest,
detention, torture, and abuse. Practitioners who recant their beliefs
are sometimes subjected to harsh treatment in prisons, reeducation
through labor camps, and extrajudicial “legal education centers.”
In an official statement, the CCP said it cracked down on the
Falun Gong because the group was “advocating superstition,” “spreading
fallacies,” and “hoodwinking people.” But experts say the state’s
suppression of the Falun Gong had less to do with its doctrine than
with the organizational capacity it demonstrated in April 1999. Earlier
that month, Chinese physicist He Zuoxiu had criticized the Falun Gong
in an article published by Tianjin Normal University. The article
sparked a small protest among Falun Gong followers, which was quickly
suppressed by Chinese police. Two weeks later, over ten thousand Falun
Gong practitioners gathered near the headquarters of the CCP, where
they conducted a silent, peaceful, and remarkably well-organized
protest.
“Falun Gong was what it was for ten years without attracting a
crackdown,” says Nathan. “It was only after the demonstrations in 1999
that Falun Gong stood out among the Qigong groups for its
organizational ability.” According to Cheris Shun-ching Chan, assistant
professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh, the Chinese
government is especially wary of well-organized religious sects. “In
Chinese history, anti-government rebellions almost always took the form
of new religious movements,” she writes in the China Quarterly,
adding that semi-religious groups like the Yellow Turbans, White Lotus
Sect, and the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace have all been vehicles of
political revolt. Segal says that the CCP was also alarmed by the
demonstration “because they didn’t see it coming,” which made their
response all the more severe.
Looking Forward
When Chinese President Hu Jintao reiterated his party’s
commitment to free religious belief in October 2007, it launched a
flurry of articles that said China was on a new, more liberal path. But
experts do not anticipate immediate or drastic change in China’s
religious landscape. “There is no systemic reason for change,” says
Nathan, noting that the government has no incentive to give up control
of the authorized or unauthorized groups. Segal is also skeptical,
saying, “It would have to be a completely different kind of political
environment” for truly independent churches and religious groups to
emerge. But Harold holds out more hope for the future, suggesting that
China’s growing middle class might prompt more liberal religious
policies. “I think as societies become more moderately well off, social
tensions begin to relax a little bit,” he says, adding that the
emerging middle class might resist religious repression. But he follows
this claim with a disclaimer, adding, “But maybe that’s a little
hopeful on my part.”
(This article was written on 16 May 2008 by Preeti Bhattacharji in Council on Foreign Relations.
www.cfr.org The views expressed in this column are those of the writer, not necessarily those of the Central Tibetan Administration)