Religion in China in the Twenty-first Century: Some Scenarios

*This paper was originally presented at the 40th Anniversary Conference of the Universities Service Center for China Studies, ‘The State of Contemporary China’, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 6 – 7 January, 2004. It has been updated for publication in Religion, State & Society.

Guanyu wuguo shihuizhuyi shiqi zongjiao wenti de jiben guandian he jiben zhengci (The Basic Policy and Standpoint our Country should have on Religious Questions during this Period of Socialism), Zhongfa no. 19, 1982. The Zhongfa (centrally issued) rubric denotes that this is the 19th policy document issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in the year 1982. When it was issued it carried the jimi (institutional secret) classification as a classified document available only to a restricted readership. Since the mid-1980s it has been declassified and is available to all. It is commonly known as Document No. 19 and is available in most of the government-published books regarding religion. There is an English translation in CitationMacInnis, 1989.

The Chinese authorities regard Catholicism and Protestantism as two distinct religions. These two branches of the Christian faith are of course closer than the Chinese authorities' definition would imply, but in this paper I use the Chinese authorities' terminology. ‘Christians’ means ‘Protestants’, and these two terms are interchangeable in this paper. ‘Catholics’ means ‘Roman Catholics’.

In 1949 there were fewer than a million Protestants. In 1982 the government estimated that there were three million. During the past few years the Public Security Bureau has been suggesting at least 25 million, while virtually all overseas scholars would give a much higher figure. See CitationAikman, 2003, p. 7.

In December 2001 Jiang Zemin chaired a National Conference on Religious Work attended by all members of the Politburo.

This paper uses the term New Religious Movements (NRMs) as described by Eileen Barker in her authoritative volume New Religious Movements: A Practical Introduction (CitationBarker, 1999).

There are many publications presenting research on this topic. A recent comprehensive study is CitationPotter, 2003, pp. 317 – 37. For a particular study on regulations dealing with ‘evil cults’, see also CitationRichardson and Edleman, 2003, pp. 277 – 93.

A full report on this conference and the speech by Jiang were published in Renmin ribao (People's Daily), 13 December 2002.

Non-sanctioned religions are often referred to by the government as ‘evil cults’.

For details see the government's official commentary, www.china.org.cn/english/ahuanti/3represents/68735.htm.

One of the most important articles is by Ye Xiaowen (Citation2003), the director general of SARA. His article is published in a classified publication by the Academy of the CPC for internal circulation among senior cadres. The subsequent study materials from SARA are all written within the parameters established by this article.

In compliance with the government's supervision over religious matters, some religious groups in China began to change their Constitutions to reflect this political reality. For example, the China Christian Council (CCC) amended its Constitution in May 2002 to include the wording ‘This Council accepts the legal administrative authority of the State Administration of Religious Affairs …’ (Article Five of Chapter One of the revised CCC Constitution).

It is a custom in China for senior government officials to address the religious leaders at religious meetings or gatherings in order to establish the government's political parameters within which religious groups are to operate.

The new president of the China Christian Council (CCC), Rev. Cao Shengjie, has made strong remarks on this ‘foreign infiltration’ issue in the working report of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and the China Christian Council concerning the direction of the CCC in future relations with foreign religious groups (CitationCao, 2002). Similar remarks were also echoed at the national meeting of all the provincial church leaders who are responsible for foreign affairs held in Shanghai in August 2002. The content of this meeting emphasises the anti-infiltration issue, namely the need to be careful of foreign Christian groups which are trying to gain footholds in China by taking advantage of WTO accession openness.

The Public Security Bureau is in charge of monitoring and dealing with illegal religious activities. For a comprehensive picture of this area see the document issued by the Public Security Bureau (CitationPSB, 2000).

Those who would like to know more about the current status of each of these five religions in China should refer to the The China Quarterly, 174, June 2003.

Most of the data on Daoism are taken from CitationLai, 2003.

The Chinese government lists the official figures on the government's official website and in promotional materials such as the booklet China Facts and Figures freely distributed at major Chinese airports. See for example CitationCFF (2003, pp. 57 – 58).

Raoul Birnbaum has studied the issues of the training and identity of Buddhist monks in contemporary China. See CitationBirnbaum, 2003.

There are also Hui Christians. They are members of the Hui national minority whose ancestors might have been Muslims but converted to Christianity at some point. There are churches built by Hui Christians in Shangdong. Personal communication with Imam Muhammed Noorudin Yang in Hong Kong, 12 May 2003.

Dru C. Gladney is the foremost expert in this field and is the author of several volumes on Islam in China. See also CitationGladney, 2003.

See footnote 2.

For the latest government figure, see CitationCFF, 2003, p. 60. Rev. Matthew Deng Fucun of the TSMP/CCC told a reporter in the USA in March 2003 that there were at least 25 million Protestant Christians in China.

CitationAikman, 2003, p. 7, suggests a combined figure of Christians and Catholics of 80 million. I estimate a conservative figure of around 35 – 40 million. The head count of Christians in China raises methodological issues for practical reasons. Many of those who belong to non-registered Christian groups simply do not have reliable statistics to collect, nor is it feasible in the current political climate for them to do so. As for the officially released figures, they are often low figures provided for political purposes and in almost all cases on the extremely conservative (deflated) side.

See www.china21.org for some of the cases in which Christians are arrested for refusing to register.

See many such cases recorded in CitationHunter and Chan, 1993, and CitationYamamori and Chan, 2000.

There was a mission movement in the 1940s among some faith-mission groups in China that advocated a similar mission orientation. In recent years this mission orientation has reappeared among Christians in China, especially among non-registered communities.

This is a common speculation among scholars of world Christianity. See for example CitationJenkins, 2002.

Personal communication with Anthony S.K. Lam, senior researcher at the Holy Spirit Study Center, Hong Kong, 10 December 2003.

This is a conservative figure from CitationMadsen, 2003 and does not include those who are studying overseas.

Fr Dionisi Pozdnyayev is perhaps one of the most authoritative experts on the Orthodox Church in China (CitationPozdnyayev, 1998). He has travelled extensively in China ministering to the needs of the Orthodox community. He is also the Russian Orthodox priest in charge of the newly reestablished Russian Orthodox parish of St Paul and St Peter in Hong Kong, which ceased to function in 1970.

Personal communication with the priest Gregory Zhu, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China, April 1997.

Personal communication with the director and staff of the RAB of Heilongjiang Province, in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China, April 1997.

Several personal communications with the priest Dionisi Pozdnyayev, Hong Kong, March and November 2003.

The official position of the Chinese government and of Chinese academics has been that the Orthodox Church in China will eventually disappear when it has no functioning priest. However, the resilience of the Chinese Orthodox in preserving their faith and tradition, the continuous growth of this community, the increasing number of Russian Orthodox expatriates in China and the intervention of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church have all contributed to the continuous development of this community despite the lack of a government-recognised priest.

I was told that Chinese nationals who are Mormons have been joining the Mormon expatriates in Beijing for worship with the full knowledge and approval of the Beijing Public Security Bureau. This is a rare case of Chinese nationals being allowed to join in foreigners' religious activity with official acknowledgement. Personal communication from Tim Stranford, president of the Mormon Church in China, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, 6 October 2003.

China's legal system is based on the continental legal system with modifications from the former Soviet Union. For the official text of this article, see CitationCriminal, 1997. For a good commentary on the article see CitationLiu, 2002, pp. 1375 – 85.

See www.China21.org for the full text of these documents.

Wenzhou is a coastal city in Zhejiang Province with its own dialect incomprehensible to others. Wenzhou people are famous for their independent spirit and entrepreneurship. It was the first region to take advantage of the Reform and Open Policy to establish private enterprises. Wenzhou businessmen are not only found all over China but also scattered through most of the emerging markets in the world. In the year 2000, 98 per cent of Wenzhou GDP came from private enterprises, the highest percentage among all municipalities in China.

Eastern Lightning is one of the many pseudo-Christian sects which have developed in China. It is listed and described by the Chinese government among ‘evil cults’ on the website www.china21.org. Eastern Lightning's own site is www.voicefromthethrone.org

For an expanded treatment of this topic see Chan, Citation2004a.

I have documented several cases of religious leaders who are using legitimate means to gain more operational space for religious activities. See CitationChan, 2005.

Personal communication from Kate Westgarth, senior research officer at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who specialises in documenting these sects in China, Hong Kong,10 June 2003.

Since Spring 2003 the government has provided a special budget for SARA to establish a new division for folk religion. Regional governments have already attempted to regulate folk activities by legislative means. One recent example is the regulation issued by the Nanping Municipality of the Fijian Government: see CitationNanping, 2003.

On the current religious regulations in China see the Amity Foundation website: http://www.amityfoundation.org/ANS/Religious%20Laws.htm.

The figure of 130 million is an estimate by BBC reporter Tim Luard (CitationLuard, 2004). It is not possible to establish an accurate figure for this dynamic group of people. The government's estimate is between 100 and 150 million depending on how the migrant population is defined and the time of the year.

I have encountered numerous forms and types of folk religious practices as well as worship of regional deities by Chinese immigrants who have brought these practices from their home town or village to North America; I also visited a Yiguandao temple/altar in Bucharest, Romania, in August 2004.

Increasing attention is being paid to the missiological dimension of Chinese Christian businesspeople. See CitationChan and Yamamori, 2002.

There are many writings on this theme. One of the best-known doomsday scenarios is CitationChang, 2001.

So far, only Protestant groups are talking about the possibility of a ‘christianised’ China: for a typical example, see the website of China Ministries International (CMI): www.cmi.org.tw. Other groups, such as the Buddhists and Muslims, are far less optimistic than the Protestants.

See CitationOgilvy and Schwartz, 2000 for some of the most popular business scenarios often cited in Chinese business circles.

The USA is currently in a powerful bargaining position as far as US-China relationships are concerned, but there is already doubt about the effectiveness of current US use of religious freedom as a leverage point in foreign policy towards China. See for example CitationWong, 2001.

The Taliban, White Lotus, Yiguandao and the Taiping Rebellion are all classic examples suggesting that suppression merely strengthens the conviction of the devotees concerned that their causes are just.

There are signs that Chinese Christian businesspeople are establishing benchmarks for business conduct among their trade circles. See CitationChan and Yamamori, 2002, pp. 101 – 2.