[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN CHINA
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 18, 2004
__________
Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China
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CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
House Senate
JIM LEACH, Iowa, Chairman CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska, Co-Chairman
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming
DAVID DREIER, California SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
FRANK WOLF, Virginia PAT ROBERTS, Kansas
JOE PITTS, Pennsylvania GORDON SMITH, Oregon
SANDER LEVIN, Michigan MAX BAUCUS, Montana
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio CARL LEVIN, Michigan
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
DAVID WU, Oregon BYRON DORGAN, North Dakota
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
PAULA DOBRIANSKY, Department of State
GRANT ALDONAS, Department of Commerce
LORNE CRANER, Department of State
JAMES KELLY, Department of State
STEPHEN J. LAW, Department of Labor
John Foarde, Staff Director
David Dorman, Deputy Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS
Opening statement of Hon. James A. Leach, a U.S. Representative
from Iowa, Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on
China.......................................................... 1
Bansal, Preeta D., Chair, U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom, Washington, DC.............................. 2
Potter, Pitman B., director, The Institute of Asian Research,
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.......... 10
Fu, Bob, president, China Aid Association, Midland, TX........... 13
Kung, Joseph, M.C., president, Cardinal Kung Foundation,
Stamford, CT................................................... 17
Sangdrol, Ngawang, human rights analyst, the International
Campaign for Tibet, Washington, DC, through an interpreter,
Bhuchung Tsering............................................... 21
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements
Bansal, Preeta D................................................. 34
Potter, Pitman B................................................. 39
Fu, Bob.......................................................... 53
Kung, Joseph M.C................................................. 65
Sangdrol, Ngawang................................................ 68
Leach, Hon. James A.............................................. 71
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN CHINA
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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2004
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China
Washington, DC.
The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 10:08
a.m., in room 2255, Rayburn House Office Building,
Representative Jim Leach [Chairman of the Commission]
presiding.
Also present: Representative Joseph R. Pitts.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES A. LEACH, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE
FROM IOWA, CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON
CHINA
Chairman Leach. The Commission will come to order.
Let me just begin by observing that the Commission convenes
this morning to hear several experts who have agreed to share
with us their analysis of the intensifying government campaign
in many parts of China against religious groups, individual
believers, and practitioners. Religious freedom around the
world remains among the most important issues of concern for
most Americans, and for that reason, freedom of religion has
been a central topic in our bilateral human rights discussions
with China for many years.
Unlike Karl Marx who believed that religion was the
``opiate of the masses,'' our country's founders held that
ethical values derived from religion anteceded and anchored
political institutions. It is the class struggle implications
of Marxism, the exhortation to hate thy fellow citizen instead
of ``love thy enemy'' that stands in stark contrast with the
demand of tolerance built into our Bill of Rights.
From the American perspective, the real opiate of the 20th
and the 21st centuries would appear to be intolerance, the
instinct of hatred which becomes manifest in the individual and
unleashed in society when government fails to provide
safeguards for individual rights and fails to erect civilizing
institutions adaptable to change and accountable to the people.
Churches, religious schools, hospitals, and faith-based
charitable organizations are the examples of this type of
civilizing institution. Coupled with religious faith itself,
such institutions can be a powerful force for tolerance.
Both the Congress and the Executive Branch have long
stressed the importance of religious freedom in China. The
Senate and House have frequently passed resolutions calling on
Chinese authorities to respect the freedom of worship, belief,
and religious affiliation guaranteed by international human
rights norms.
In his first term, President Bush raised U.S. concerns
about religious freedom with the most senior Chinese leaders,
emphasizing the importance of treating peoples of faith with
fairness and dignity, freeing prisoners of conscience, and
respecting the religious and cultural traditions of the people
of Tibet.
The Chinese Constitution says that the government protects
normal religious activity, but in practice, the government and
the Communist Party require that religion be consistent with
state-defined patriotism. Official repression of religion is
particularly harsh in the Tibetan and Uighur areas, where
religious conviction and traditions may frequently be
interwoven with separatist sentiment. Chinese authorities often
see separatist sentiment as a precursor to terrorism, even when
religious practitioners express such sentiment peacefully and
advocate non-violence.
In June 2003, the Commission convened a hearing to assess
whether the rise of a new group of senior Chinese political
leaders might augur a change in government policy toward
religion. Our witnesses were not very optimistic about any such
changes, at least over the short term. We also became
interested in whether the new leadership group would encourage
the social service activities of religious groups so that
faith-based groups would take responsibility for some of the
social services that governments at all levels in China can no
longer sustain.
Roughly 18 months later, we have seen evidence of some
increased official tolerance of faith-based social service
initiatives in some places in China, but in general we have not
seen significant liberalization of Chinese Government policy
toward religion itself. Indeed, there is significant evidence
of a tightening of repressive measures in many places in China.
With these comments in mind, let me introduce our first
panel, which is a single individual panel. Our first witness is
Preeta D. Bansal. Ms. Bansal is the current chair of the U.S.
Commission on International Religious Freedom.
She is currently of-counsel to a Washington, DC law firm.
She has held positions as a fellow at the Institute of Politics
at Harvard, and she has served as solicitor general of the
State of New York.
I might say, by education background, Ms. Bansal is a
graduate of a defunct college. We will not hold that against
you. Radcliffe apparently did a leveraged buyout with Harvard.
[Laughter.] And she is also a graduate of Harvard Law School.
We welcome you, Ms. Bansal.
STATEMENT OF PREETA D. BANSAL, CHAIR, U.S. COMMISSION ON
INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Bansal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much
for holding this important hearing today, especially focusing
on this particular topic of religious freedom.
With your permission, I would like to submit full testimony
for the record.
Chairman Leach. Without objection, so ordered.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bansal appears in the
appendix.]
Ms. Bansal. The Commission on International Religious
Freedom has followed events closely in China for the past
several years. Not surprising to you and to most of the people
in this audience, the Government of China views religion,
religious adherence, religious communities, and spiritual
groups such as the Falun Gong, primarily as issues of security.
The United States should not ignore this fact, and we
should fashion policies and actions that integrate the right of
thought, conscience, religion and belief, with our security and
economic interests and our security and economic policies in
China.
Several witnesses who will follow me today are going to
talk about the situation on the ground and recent events about
the crackdown on religious adherents in China. I would like to
spend my time today talking with you a little bit about the
importance of integrating freedom of thought, conscience and
religion into a broader agenda with the Government of China,
and also about some specific policy recommendations to achieve
that end.
The Commission on International Religious Freedom views
respect for freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and
belief as a critical indicator of stable countries, stable
trading partners, stable allies, and stable regions. We think
it is no longer possible to treat human rights and freedom of
thought, conscience, religion, and belief, in particular, as
marginal, soft issues of foreign policy. The events of the past
five years in this country have tragically reminded us that we
ignore religion at our peril when we deal with countries
abroad.
Although China is somewhat sui generis when it comes to the
intersection of freedom of religion and belief with security
and economic issues, I think it is fair to say that freedom of
religion is not a side, marginal issue with respect to China,
if for no other reason than the fact that the Government of
China does not treat it as a marginal concern. Repression of
individual rights and conscience occupies a central policy of
this, and past, Chinese regimes.
China has made some impressive strides in promoting
economic freedom. In the past decade, the Chinese Government
has embraced some of the benefits of the free market, with
dramatic
results. The Chinese people undoubtedly have greater mobility,
increased property rights, and greater access to information
than they have in the past.
However, it can no longer be argued that human rights
violations are temporary tradeoffs necessary to achieve
economic development. In fact, we think the opposite is true.
Achieving the full measure of economic development depends on
improving human rights protections. Restrictions on freedom of
speech and freedom of association, for example, stifle the type
of communication needed to manage risk, root out corruption,
and address environmental health and labor safety issues. Nor
can China fully compete in a global economy when it restricts
Internet access or censors the domestic or foreign press. The
Government of China too often sees the free flow of ideas and
the ability to act on these ideas as a threat to stability and
prosperity, and not as a way to promote economic development.
Without going into great detail, which is contained in my
written testimony, I just want to say that respect for human
rights is also important for regional stability, both in China
and throughout the region. Peaceful resolution of the Taiwan
issue, for example, and the successful management of Hong Kong
under the PRC's sovereignty, in many ways, will require respect
for human rights. The human rights gap in these regions and in
these areas is a potential source of instability, particularly
in the way that China treats its citizens in Tibet and
Xinjiang, and undermines Hong Kong's political freedoms. Any
social or political meltdowns in these areas will certainly
involve Western, and other, interests.
Active attempts to control and restrict religious practice
and activities of Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims,
unregistered Protestants and Catholics, and various spiritual
movements such as the Falun Gong, for example, have only caused
more friction and social instability.
For example--and this is just one example of more that are
contained in my written testimony--religion is a key source of
identify for Tibetan and Uighur Muslims. Ongoing campaigns to
promote atheism and to control religious expression and
practice in Xinjiang and Tibet are fostering a widening
division and resentment between the Tibetan and Uighur
minorities and the Han Chinese majority.
As I mentioned at the outset, I am not going to spend a lot
of my short, precious time in this oral testimony detailing
past and current crackdowns and religious practice in China. I
would like to talk about some specific policy recommendations
that we have for better integrating religious freedom concerns
into the U.S.-China relationship.
First of all, we think that effective external pressure
requires a consistent and strong critique of China's human
rights practices based on international standards. We need
better interagency coordination of human rights issues into the
full scope of our bilateral relationship.
President Bush, other cabinet heads, and senior officials
have raised human rights and religious freedom concerns with
China's political leadership and with the Chinese people
themselves in public addresses. These are important steps that
should be continued. However, we think that Congress, and this
Commission in particular, can play a greater role in fostering
interagency dialogue and interagency communication so that the
different cabinet agencies and the different aspects of the
U.S. Government that interact with China on a range of concerns
consistently speak about human rights issues and that these are
not shunted off to the side. We think that this Commission
should play a role in making sure that all parts of the Federal
Government speak with one voice when it comes to raising human
rights issues at every turn.
Second, we think that bilateral human rights dialogues in
China should be revisited, and perhaps strengthened. This is an
opportune time to talk about those dialogues because, as we are
here today, there are presently United States representatives
in Beijing negotiating the resumption of these bilateral
dialogues. In resuming these, there are several critical
concerns that we have about the way these dialogues have been
conducted in the past that we think should be addressed.
We recently had a forum on this issue where we brought in
witnesses who are doing bilateral dialogues for a number of
countries, and we heard their concerns and suggestions for
improvement. We are now digesting those suggestions, but some
of the issues that have come up in terms of the effectiveness
of the bilateral dialogues include the lack of benchmarks. The
dialogues have had no publicly stated goals, so it has been
difficult to evaluate their effectiveness and content.
The lack of transparency is one problem. Most of the
discussions and topic items on discussion in the dialogues are
not disclosed, so it is very difficult for outside experts and
groups to evaluate what was said, what went wrong, and what was
accomplished.
A related point is the lack of consultation with outside
experts and China hands in setting the agenda.
The lack of continuity is another concern. One of the
things we heard frequently from most of the countries engaged
in bilateral dialogues was that the Chinese Government
officials participating in these dialogues constantly change
from year to year, making long-term, and even medium-term,
working relationships difficult. These concerns about the way
in which the bilateral dialogues are conducted have been
circulated for a number of years, but they have not
dramatically affected the way the U.S. Government conducts our
bilateral dialogues.
We think that Congress should require that the State
Department submit a report annually to the appropriate
congressional committee, detailing the issues discussed at the
previous year's meetings, describing the extent to which the
Government of China has made progress during the previous year.
This kind of a system was recently mandated with respect to the
bilateral dialogue with Vietnam.
The Religious Freedom Commission heard testimony recently
from participants in the U.S.-Vietnam human rights dialogue,
and we heard that the Congressional mandate was beneficial in
establishing benchmarks and measuring progress in the way that
the U.S.-Vietnam human rights dialogues proceed. So in this
way, we think that Congressional involvement in the dialogues
can provide the political capital needed to focus the dialogues
on getting important roles met and setting attainable
benchmarks.
Third, we think that the United States should continue to
work toward a resolution at the U.N. Commission on Human
Rights, and work for its passage at an appropriate and high
official level. It is essential that bilateral and multilateral
diplomacy work together to focus attention on China to improve
its human rights practices, rather than working at cross-
purposes. We fear that bilateral dialogues may have become a
substitute for multilateral actions, so the United States
should continue to seek such a resolution condemning China.
More importantly, we think that the United States should
begin this process early enough so that a sufficient momentum
can be attained so there is actually a reasonable possibility
of passage. We think the United States needs to work at the
multilateral forum as much as the bilateral dialogues in order
to build an effective coalition, and we think that needs to be
done at an appropriately high level.
Fourth, the State Department and other relevant agencies,
we think, should take the lead in coordinating with other
nations on technical cooperation and capacity building programs
in China.
In just the last decade, the United States and several
other Western nations have established successful programs for
technical assistance and cooperation, basically in the areas of
legal reform and economic capacity building. These programs are
intended to assist China in complying with its international
and human rights commitments. Fifteen different countries are
pursuing some form of rule of law, human rights, or NGO
capacity building projects, and millions and millions of
dollars and hours of labor are spent on these projects. But
there is really no coordination as to methods, goals, outcomes,
or viable partners. Just as we think that bilateral dialogues
sometimes are not effectively coordinated among the various
countries, we think that these capacity building programs can
be better coordinated and the United States really should take
the lead. We think the State Department, including USAID and
other relevant agencies, should organize regular meetings of
nations with technical cooperation programs, seeking to
coordinate various programs across disciplines and nations. It
is important to note that these kinds of technical assistance
programs are actively sought by China. Even when the bilateral
dialogue was canceled last year with China, technical support
programs were not canceled. So, the United States should take
the lead in improving and better coordinating the 15 countries'
approaches.
Fifth, we think that the United States legal reform and
rule of law programs should be calibrated to integrate
religious freedom and related human rights into their
programming goals. At the present time, the State Department
does not have a legal reform program in China that relates
directly to advancing the freedom of thought, conscience,
religion, and belief. There are obviously numerous commercial
rule of law programs, but the legal reform programs that have
trained lawyers, who now represent those
attempting to fight for their rights, in disputes that involve
property, and various other sources, provide a source for
internal pressure upon the Chinese Government to conform to
international standards. So it seems appropriate and opportune
at this time to fund legal reform programs that also integrate
the information and expertise on the freedom of thought,
conscience, religion, or belief into the other rule of law
initiatives.
Sixth, we think that the United States should engage in a
review of all foreign funding and public diplomacy programs for
China to look at ways in which freedom of thought, conscience
and religion can be integrated into our programming. The State
Department, pursuant to the International Religious Freedom
Act, should consult with the Religious Freedom Commission in
advancing these goals.
Related to some of the other lack of coordination issues
that I have talked about previously, there is a lot of
different programming out there, obviously, with China. We
think that it is time, based on what is happening on the
ground, to really focus on religious freedom and related human
rights and integrate knowledge, expertise, and information
about that within the other programming that is already going
on. It can happen through the USAID foreign aid funding, as
well as State Department public diplomacy funding.
Seventh, we think that the United States should establish
an official presence in Xinjiang and Tibet. Given that
religious freedom and human rights concerns are central to the
issues in these regions, and given the growing economic
development interests in the region, the United States should
seek to establish an official governmental presence, such as a
consulate in Lhasa, Tibet, and Urumqi, Xinjiang.
Finally, we think that the United States, and your
Commission in particular, Mr. Chairman, might consider programs
for providing incentives for businesses to promote human
rights. The last five years, obviously, have brought a
proliferation of corporate responsibility codes of conduct and
monitoring programs. These activities are certainly laudable,
and the example of John Kamm is a remarkable one, of United
States business people being effective Ambassadors for human
rights in China. But there is a problem in that the corporate
conduct codes often vary widely and they do not contain non-
discrimination provisions pertaining to religion and belief.
So, we think that some order has to be brought back to the
process, both to unite the United States business community
around similar principles, and get back to the objective of
Congress in the International Religious Freedom Act to engage
the business community, to provide positive examples of human
rights in China.
Given that conduct codes are voluntary, we think the one
area that could be thought through and developed is offering
incentives to businesses to establish innovative approaches to
promote religious freedom and related human rights in China,
and outside of the United States in general. Maybe the first
place to start is to consider extending breaks on loans,
insurance, and loan guarantees from the Export-Import Bank or
from the Asian Development Bank. The Eximbank, in particular,
is required to consider human rights in extending services to
U.S. companies.
Given that China has recently ratified the International
Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, there is an
opportunity to mesh China's international obligations with
voluntary corporate action. What is needed, again, is better
coordination across industries and business sectors to
determine best practices and viable incentives.
Mr. Chairman, given the bipartisan nature and reputation of
your Commission, including several past hearings you have held
on China's labor practices, we suggest that perhaps the CECC,
or possibly the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review
Commission, organize an international business roundtable with
leaders in order to promote fundamental freedoms, including
thought, conscience, and religion, and to incorporate those
freedoms into ideas for action. There has been much discussion
with the business communities on ways to protect labor
practices, worker safety, and environmental standards as part
of their corporate responsibility codes, but there has been, as
of yet, little effort to integrate or to understand the role of
freedom of religion and belief into those codes. We hope that
any international business roundtable would emphasize the
promotion of the right to religious freedom. Our Religious
Freedom Commission and staff could certainly assist in planning
and provide contacts for such an effort.
Mr. Chairman, no one can comfortably admit to knowing
exactly how best to strengthen human rights diplomacy in China.
This is an intractable and difficult issue, as you well know.
That is why, despite having two official visits by our
Commission canceled, literally at the last hour, due to
unacceptable conditions placed on our itinerary in China, we
remain committed to visiting China with an appropriate
invitation from the Chinese Government. We are seeking to
examine conditions firsthand, if indeed that is possible, and
to discuss policies and actions with those in China who are
responsible for issues of religion and human rights. We hope
that through honest and coordinated exchanges with the United
States and other nations, that China's leaders will soon begin
to recognize that, while prosperity and security may be playing
a part in leading to national well-being, good standing in the
community of nations will only be secured by protecting
universal human rights for every Chinese citizen. Thank you
very much.
Chairman Leach. Well, thank you. Thank you for those
constructive suggestions.
I would like to ask a couple of questions that are kind of
awkward on the issue of motivation. We know the Chinese
Government is apprehensive about religious freedom. One of the
great questions is why.
Is it a philosophical apprehension, or it is an
apprehension that is rooted in the concern that religion can be
somehow used as a force against the governing bodies,
particularly the Communist Party? There is an old Chinese
model--there are a lot of Chinese models--and there is also a
modern-day eastern European model in which the Catholic Church
certainly was instrumental--particularly in Poland, but also in
all of the eastern European states--in organizing against the
Communist Party. There is also the strange model of the Taiping
Rebellion in China, which was in the 1850s. But do you have a
sense of why it is that the Chinese are so apprehensive about
opening up on freedom?
Ms. Bansal. I think it is related, in large part, to their
concern about having any alternative center of allegiance and
power within Chinese society that cannot be completely
controlled by the Chinese Government. I think we see that, in
part, through the Chinese Government's willingness to allow
some religious activity, but only under very tight state
control. So, it seems as though the issue has evolved, so it is
not simply trying to root out religion, but it is trying to
root out any form of civil society that is not tightly
controlled by the state. It seems to be just a control issue
and a fear of independent associations of people gathering that
are outside state control.
Chairman Leach. Well, there is an internal state control
question, and then there are issues relating to China's
nationalities. For example, do you see any great distinction
between how the Tibetans are treated and how the Uighurs are
treated? What do you see as differentiation between them?
Ms. Bansal. I am not sure.
Chairman Leach. What I am getting at, is this principally a
nationalist concern or is it principally an internal control
kind of set of issues?
Ms. Bansal. I think it is probably a little bit of both. I
guess my own personal view is that it is an internal control
issue principally. There is some concern with so-called
``foreign influences'' on the people. I think there might be a
little bit of a nationalistic concern, but I personally view it
more as just a control issue.
Chairman Leach. How do you look at the treatment of Muslims
in China?
Ms. Bansal. The treatment of Muslims, especially out in the
west, is very problematic. Like the central Asian model, China
has used concerns about terrorism to justify widespread actions
that root out, really, any expressions of faith.
Chairman Leach. While not precisely religion, the Falun
Gong describe themselves as a spiritual movement. What is the
rationale for the crackdown on the Falun Gong? Is it different
than the rationale you have described for the Muslims or the
Uighurs? Is there something special about the Falun Gong that
has caused such a comprehensive reaction to those who identify
with this movement?
Ms. Bansal. Again, it is hard, obviously, to define the
motives. I am not sure the stated rationale as to the
crackdowns is that different from any other stated rationale
for crackdowns on other groups. I just do not know the answer
to that.
Chairman Leach. Well, thank you very much. I apologize. We
have several other members that have committed to coming, and I
had hoped they would be here to follow on with questions. But
we may want to submit some questions in writing. Is that all
right with you?
Ms. Bansal. Please do. Yes.
Chairman Leach. Fine.
Ms. Bansal. Thank you.
Chairman Leach. Thank you very much for that thoughtful
testimony.
Our second panel is composed of Professor Pitman B. Potter.
Professor Potter is director of the Institute of Asian Research
at the University of British Columbia [UBC]. He is also
professor of law and director of Chinese Legal Studies at UBC's
Faculty of Law. Professor Potter was educated partly in this
town at George Washington University, and holds a law degree
from the University of Washington.
In addition, we have Reverend Bob Fu. Is Reverend Fu here?
You might come and sit up here as well, Reverend Fu. Pastor Bob
Fu is the president of the China Aid Association, which is an
evangelical NGO focusing on persecuted Christians in China.
Pastor Fu was involved in the pro-democracy movement in China
as a student demonstrator, then turned to embrace Christ and
His teachings in the early 1990s.
The third panelist--and I apologize for the pronunciations
here--is Ngawang Sangdrol of Garu Nunnery, who was born in 1977
and entered the nunnery at a young age. She was detained in
1992 and imprisoned for peacefully demonstrating against the
Chinese occupation of Tibet. Both she and her late father
served overlapping terms in the Drapchi prison from 1992 to
1999 for their individual demonstrations.
The final witness is Joseph M.C. Kung. Joseph Kung is
president of the Cardinal Kung Foundation located in Stamford,
CT. The Foundation seeks to carry on the work of the late
Ignatius Cardinal Kung Pin-mei by promoting Catholicism in
China through prayer, financial support, and other appropriate
projects. Mr. Kung came to the United States from China in
1955.
I welcome each and all of you.
Unless you have made a prearranged agreement, I will go in
the order of introduction. Is that all right with you? [No
response].
So, we will begin with Professor Potter. Welcome, from
Canada.
STATEMENT OF PITMAN B. POTTER, DIRECTOR, THE INSTITUTE OF ASIAN
RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH
COLUMBIA, VANCOUVER, BC, CANADA
Mr. Potter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am honored to be
here, and I thank the Commission for the invitation.
My topic is to address the issue of the regulation of
religion in China, and this draws on my paper that was
published in the China Quarterly last July on the regulation of
religion in China, and also based on updates on my work both in
Canada, and also in China, over the past year. What I would
like to do is provide a bit of analytical context for
understanding the conditions of religious regulation in China.
We are all aware of the intensity of the religious revival that
has been going on in China for some years, but I think it is
also important to recognize the importance of broader social
changes in China that present numerous challenges for the
government.
I think it is fair to say that the current president and
the new policies of the current government are very attentive
to issues of social wellbeing and social welfare, but they are
equally committed to issues of social and public security. That
balance has been very difficult for them, and that is one of
the reasons why religion is seen as, in part, a bit of a
tradeoff in that area. I think it is also important to
recognize the extent to which some features of civil society
are emerging from China. I think the contrasts between the
China of today and the China of even five years ago are quite
remarkable and should be taken into account when we are
thinking about religious behavior.
Finally, regime legitimacy is a critical challenge for the
current government. They are very aware of it and are taking
steps in terms of social policy to try to deal with that issue.
So I think it is useful to bear those contexts in mind. I think
it is also important to understand the regime's perspectives on
social regulation, and also to understand issues of
institutional capacity related to the control of religion.
In sum, what I would like to say in these remarks--and I
will try to keep them brief--is that China is a state in
transition. That transition is not complete and we do not have
firm evidence or understanding of where it is going. But it is
a state in transition, and that needs to be borne in mind when
we look at institutional responses to social change, religion,
and otherwise.
Second, I think we should be looking for opportunities to
invite China to take its own legal system seriously. China has
enacted a range of laws and regulations that recognize the
principle of freedom of belief. They distinguish between
freedom of belief and freedom of behavior, and the freedom of
behavior question is largely dealt with in areas of public
security, criminal law, and so on. But even in those areas,
there are procedural rules that should be taken seriously and
we should be inviting the Chinese to take their own system
seriously.
I think it is a useful exercise to look at incidents of
repression of religious behavior in China over the past number
of years, and look at those in terms of what China's own legal
system requires. I think if we do that, most of the time we
will find that the rules that are being violated are the rules
that China has set for itself. I think that this approach is
more useful than taking standards derived from Washington,
Ottawa, or London and saying, ``these are the international
norms with which China must comply.''
I think if we look through the local regulations on
regulation of religious behavior in China, I think if we look
through the white papers that have been issued by the Chinese
Government, I think if we look through the law recently revised
on autonomy of local minority areas, in terms of text, those
laws are broadly comparable to international standards. The
difficulty is in the enforcement process. This is where, it
seems to me, a useful way to go about it is to say, ``here are
rules that China has set for itself, and it is in the
enforcement of those rules that China should be invited to
improve its compliance,'' rather than saying, ``we have a set
of standards here in Washington, or in Ottawa, or elsewhere.''
I did want to say a word or two about the ideological
underpinnings for Party policy on religion in China. As many
know, laws in China proceed basically from Party policy. The
Party, through the United Front Work Department, the so-called
Tongzhong Bu, has significant responsibility for the Party on
religion, and therefore for regulations and laws that proceed
from them. So, the ideological underpinnings are important.
And the first aspect of that--and I hope this responds, in
part, to your earlier question about why the Chinese Government
is apprehensive about religion--is an ideology of Socialist
transformation. Now, these terms mean something in China. They
are not just ideological verbiage that is tossed out without
meaning. They have specific meaning. When we think about
Socialist transformation in China, it is about building
ideological orthodoxy around Party and state priorities of
developing the economy and developing the society. There is
significant attention placed on the need for social stability.
Now, we could get into a discussion about whether the objective
of social stability trumps, if you will, other human rights
issues, and there is open debate about that in the
international scholarly community and in the international
policy community. But China has articulated some positions on
that, and I think it is useful to understand those and to hold
them to them, if you will.
Through this process of Socialist transformation,
significant attention is paid to political control, as the
previous witness noted. I think it is very important to
recognize that this applies not simply to religion. If we think
about approaches to independent labor unions, if we look at
approaches to other independent groups, there is a concern with
ideological heterodoxy, on one hand, and organizations that are
not subject to state and Party control. Religion is just one
example. On the other hand, this is tied to a developmental
ethic of Socialist transformation, and I think it is useful to
bear that in mind.
A second ideological underpinning, I think, is that there
is resistance to foreign domination. This is articulated in
many laws and regulations about religion in China.
A third dimension is the modernity question. Religion,
especially the folk religions which are actually among the most
prominent in China and get very little attention in the
international human rights literature, is seen as backward and
sort of an embarrassing feudal remnant, if you will, that is
seen as antithetical to the state's pursuit of modernity. But
because these do not tend to be organized in a political way,
and because they tend to be organized around family and kinship
lines, they are not seen as much of a challenge and they are
not as much of a target of government action.
A fourth ideological underpinning of behavioral policy
approach has to do with Han-minority relations. This is an
issue of policy, but it also informs politics and policies on
religion in the minority nationality areas of Xinjiang and
Tibet. I think those kinds of factors can be understood to be
at play in virtually all of China's policies, laws and
regulations, and actions on religion.
I would like to then turn to two last points in my
presentation, and I think the opportunity for questions and
answers will be most valuable. China's regulation of religion
is really aimed at two objectives. The first is control or
suppression of competing ideologies. The second is control or
suppression of organized alternatives to the Party-State. I
think that it is helpful to see this not as the singling out of
religion, but rather as the inclusion of religion among targets
of campaigns to ensure ideological orthodoxy and sociopolitical
conformity.
If we look at the government's response to the riots
recently in Zhongmou County in Henan between the Hui minority
and local Han Chinese, this suggests that a police and public
order approach is used very often where issues are of general
ethnic or sectarian conflict rather than issues of organized
competition.
I think it is very useful to contrast, for example, the
response to that social unrest to questions about the
regulation of religion as an organized alternative to state
orthodoxy in areas such as the coastal areas of Shanghai and so
on, or even in interior areas of Xinjiang and Tibet.
The last point I would like to make is that the regulation
of religion in China, as I have said in my paper, poses a very
significant challenge for regime legitimacy. The regime, over
the past 10 years, has established what some have called a zone
of indifference, essentially a tradeoff of autonomy for
political loyalty. The regulation of religion raises the
prospect that that tradeoff will be violated, because many of
those who are participating in religion in China are
politically loyal, and yet their religious behavior is
regulated to an extent that many consider objectionable.
Now, this is not so much the case in Xinjiang and Tibet,
but it is more the case in the coastal areas which are really
the challenge for legitimacy. That issue can be resolved by the
regime by reference to its own legal system.
This brings me back to the point I started with, which is
that I think that the discussion of regulation of religion in
China, and human rights more generally, can usefully be shifted
from a standpoint which can tend to be parochial in the sense
of reflecting the personal views of those in Europe, Canada, or
the United States, or what have you, to a sense that China has
enacted rules that reflect its understanding of international
obligations, those rules are entrenched in the legal system,
and we should be inviting China to take that legal system
seriously and to adhere to the rules that it set itself for the
regulation of religion.
I would be happy to answer questions that you have, Mr.
Chairman, but I do not want to take time that should be
allocated to the other panelists. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Potter appears in the
appendix.]
Chairman Leach. Well, thank you very much for that
thoughtful testimony. Reverend Fu.
STATEMENT OF BOB FU, PRESIDENT, CHINA AID ASSOCIATION, MIDLAND,
TX
Reverend Fu. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Co-Chairman, and
honorable Commission members, for giving me the privilege and
honor of being here today.
My expertise has been the Protestant house churches of
China. I would like to really thank President Bush for
highlighting this important issue of religious freedom
manifested both in his public remarks and private
conversations. I applaud the effort of Members of Congress,
especially from this Commission, and particularly Congressman
Wolf, whose request made today's hearing possible. All of these
efforts have produced fruit in one way or another. At least
after President Bush took office in 2001, all of the diplomats
from China's Foreign Ministry were required to study about
religion, especially Christianity, so you will not be surprised
to hear a few quotes from the Holy Bible from the mouths of the
Chinese Communist Party officials when we meet with them.
Mr. Chairman, the condition of religious persecution in
China, overall, has been deteriorating, particularly since
2002. Though it is difficult to give an exact number, without
including Falun Gong practitioners, over 20,000 members of
underground religious groups have been arrested, detained,
kidnapped, or are under house arrest since 2002. Hundreds of
churches and homes have been destroyed. Many of the family
members of those arrested and detained--for example, the
prominent Chinese house church leader Zhang Rongliang--have
been put on wanted lists, and their family members have had to
flee their homes.
Among those persecuted are Protestant house church groups.
One known case is the South China Church, which has about
100,000 members. They had over 6,000 members arrested,
detained, and fined, since 2001. I actually just received a
list of their names, their arrests, and which Public Security
Bureau Office executed the raid, and also how much they were
fined, and where they are imprisoned. It was this thick, the
names from this group alone. Sixty-three were formally
sentenced from one year to life in prison, and many of the
arrested believers, especially women, were tortured, raped, or
sexually abused during their interrogations. We have
depositions in written form, and hundreds of other written
interviews with those who were tortured.
One would expect a better start once the new leadership
took
office in 2003, but what has happened does not match this
expectation. Thus, within the first nine months of this year we
have recorded over 400 arrests of house church pastors. Just
within the month of September, 13 pastors were formally sent to
re-education through labor camps in Henan Province alone. We
have all the documents on their arrest papers. One of these
pastors, Pastor Ping Xingsheng, has lost consciousness three
times since his arrest on August 6th because of repeated
beatings by his interrogators.
On June 18, a Christian woman, Mrs. Jiang Zongxiu, a 32-
year-old from Chongqing City, was beaten to death just simply
because she was found distributing Bibles and Christian tracts
in the marketplace. We have her photos. Yesterday, we published
some of the profiles of these Christian prisoners in the
Washington Times. We also had an interview of her family
members, including her four-year-old son.
I wish we had the equipment so I could show this video
today. On September 11 of this year, Pastor Cai Zhuohua, a
Beijing house church leader ministering to six churches, was
kidnapped in Beijing for his involvement in printing Bibles and
a house church magazine called Ai Yan, in which there are
articles about President Bush's faith, and other internal house
church testimonies. Now both Pastor Cai and his wife, Mrs. Xiao
Yunfei, could face an extremely harsh sentence. I was told that
they could be sentenced up to life in prison, and their case
was labeled as the most serious case of foreign religious
infiltration since the founding of the People's Republic. It
was already reported in the local newspaper about the pastor
and his wife.
Mr. Chairman, I know some would argue that what I have
mentioned are maybe just some local events in particular areas,
disproportionately. I wish I could believe that. In reality,
despite a
so-called ``paradigm shift'' rhetoric by the Chinese Government
and the ``wishful thinking'' by some foreign companies with
interests in China, the evidence proves the contrary.
Let me present to you just two cases of evidence out of the
numerous documents China Aid has obtained through disheartened
Chinese officials. Though we have not uncovered the full text,
through at least two local government documents, we now know
that sometime in the beginning of 2002, the Chinese Communist
Party's Central Committee issued a secret document coded
``Zhongfa No. 3, 2002,'' and titled, ``Decision on Reinforcing
the Work of Religion by the Central Committee of CCP.'' Again,
through the wording of the local government documents deemed to
implement this secret document, it calls for government
officials at every level to launch an all-out war against any
unregistered religious group. I want to note that it seems that
there has been a concerted campaign to target particularly
underground house churches and Catholic churches. In Chinese,
it is called ``Zhuangxiang Douzheng,'' which means ``special
struggle'' against. Harsh tactics, like against the Falun Gong
practitioners, were adopted, such as coerced political study at
concentration camps, and mental transformation through re-
education through hard labor.
The other document we just released yesterday in the Senate
building is a secret document we obtained from a currently high
ranking Communist Party official who is very unhappy with the
repressive Party policy toward religious groups in China. In
our press package today, we attached the original copy. This is
the document deemed ``secret.'' It is a document from the
highest levels of Chinese Government that we have ever been
able to obtain. This document, entitled, ``Notice on Further
Strengthening Marxist Atheism Research, Propaganda and
Education,'' dated May 27, 2004, is a notice named ``Zhong Xuan
Fa [2004] No. 13,'' issued jointly by the Department of
Propaganda of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist
Party, the Office of the Central Steering Committee on
Spiritual Civilization Construction, the Communist Party School
of the Central Committee of the CPC, and Ministry of Education,
as well as the China Academy of Social Science, and is
classified as a ``secret document.''
It is addressed to the Department of Personnel, Department
of Propaganda, and the Office of Spiritual Civilization
Construction, the Communist Party School, and the Department of
Education of all provinces, autonomous regions, and
metropolitan areas, the Communist Party Committee of all
departments, ministries, and commissions of the Communist Party
and the state organs, and the general Department of Political
Affairs of the People's Liberation Army. Copies of the document
were submitted to members and alternate members of the
Politburo of the Central Committee, Secretary of the
Secretariat of the Central Committee, Premier and Vice Premier,
and the State Counselors of the State Council.
This secret notice was issued in order to ``further boost
Marxist atheism research, propaganda, and education.'' It calls
for the government to keep tight control and hold on all
national education, media communications, research on social
sciences, spiritual civilization construction activities of the
people, the training conducted by the Communist Party School,
and administrative institutions at different levels, and
others. Particularly, it specifically demands that Communist
Party School and administrative institutions in the western
border areas with multiethnic groups and religions to
``increase the proportion of Marxist atheism propaganda and
educational targeting local leaders.'' It urges Marxist atheism
propaganda and education to be integrated into all sectors of
society, through all the country at all levels. It says all
sufficient measures shall be taken to ``ban all uncivilized
conduct in spreading superstitions in order to cause people's
minds to be educated, spirits
enriched, their state of thought improved.'' As a result of
this document, this lady who was actually beaten to death, on
her sentence paper, she was sentenced to 15 days of
administrative detention. It says her crime was ``suspicion of
spreading superstition and disturbing social order.''
Mr. Chairman, in this document it also strongly asks all
the media and government officials to ``firmly ban all illegal
publications which disseminate superstitions and evil
teachings.'' This policy seems to be a direct reference
regarding the recent campaign on closing Web sites, arresting
individuals, and banning publications with dissident voices, as
Pastor Cai has experienced on September 11.
Third, in this document regarding the academic exchange of
conducting research on religion with foreigners, this notice
calls for ``the relevant regulations of the state to be
strictly followed.'' It calls ``the procedure on approving and
recording shall be made sound,'' which means more scrutiny will
be imposed on foreign exchange programs on religious studies.
As a result of this policy, I was told that in many parts of
China, all the school students, particularly elementary and
high school students, are mandated to sign a pledge to engage
in the so-called ``anti-cult belief atheism campaign.'' How can
you claim that you have freedom of religious belief while you
are mandating all citizens to believe atheism and label others
as an evil cult?
Fourth, though the document repeated its old policy to so-
called ``fully implement the Party's policy on freedom of
religious belief, respect people's freedom to believe religion
or not to believe religion,'' yet it calls the atheistic
officials to ``make distinction between religion and
superstition,'' which inevitably, of course, is going to cause
arbitrary classification on religious groups.
In addition to continuing to raise the issue of religious
persecution in high-level bilateral talks, I have four specific
proposals on how the United States can help achieve the goals
of religious freedom in China.
Number one, the U.S. Government can compile a list of
religious persecutors in China and make it public record, and
include such information in the annual report by the IRF and
the DHRL Office. Also, the possibility should be explored of
holding such perpetrators accountable in legal venues upon
entering the United States. This will encourage more humane
treatment by officials toward those who are arrested.
Number two, with the 2008 Beijing Olympics approaching,
this government should encourage the U.S. business community to
actively link their financial sponsorship and investments to
China with the issue of religious freedom. U.S. firms should be
discouraged from investing in those provinces and cities with
severe religious persecution. The Members of Congress whose
districts have business interests in China can raise the same
concern through their Chinese counterpart officials.
Third, the Administration and Congress should urge the
European Union not to lift its arms embargo on China unless
substantial progress is made on religious freedom in China.
Fourth, the Administration and Congress should actively
urge the Chinese Government to abide by its international
obligation to protect the refugees from North Korea who are
helped actively by the underground Chinese house churches. Many
of them, as you noted, just last week, 62 of these refugees
were forced to return and sent back to North Korea, and we
still do not know their fate.
Above all, I think millions of caring, loving, ordinary
Americans can make a huge difference through their constant
prayers, letter campaigns, and numerous visits, as well as
embracing Chinese religious refugees when they enter into the
United States for freedom of worship.
In conclusion, the overall situation of religious freedom
in China has been worsening since 2002. Nationwide campaigns
against unregistered religious groups, especially underground
Protestant and Catholic groups, are continuing as we speak.
Thank you all.
Chairman Leach. Thank you, Reverend Fu.
[The prepared statement of Reverend Fu appears in the
appendix.]
Chairman Leach. Mr. Kung.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH M.C. KUNG, PRESIDENT, CARDINAL KUNG
FOUNDATION, STAMFORD, CT
Mr. Kung. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I want to
thank the Commission for inviting me to come over here to share
with you some of the issues on the persecution of the Roman
Catholic Church in China.
Mr. Chairman, I regret to inform you that I do not have any
good news for you today. The arrests and atrocities that I
reported to you two years ago continued unabated during the
past two years. For instance, churches are still being
destroyed. Random arrests of religious and other faithful are
still being made. A Roman Catholic Church was demolished by the
Chinese Government on June 21, 2003, in Liu Gou Village in
Hebei. Since 1999, for instance, 27 churches have been
destroyed in the archdiocese of Fuzhou in Fujian Province. And
Bishop Peter Fan, who was the Bishop of Baoding in Hebei for
approximately 41 years, was pronounced dead in jail on April
13, 1992. He was tortured to death at the age of 85.
Unfortunately, very unfortunately, history was repeated
again. Once again, Bishop John Gao, 76 years old, the Bishop of
Yantai in Shandong Province, died in an unknown prison in
northern China in August 2004 after five years in prison. We
need to find out what caused his death. Bishop Su Zhimin and
Bishop An Shuxin are still missing. We still do not know if
they are now dead or alive. Bishop Su has been arrested at
least five times and has spent approximately 28 years in prison
thus far. He was last arrested on October 8, 1997, and was seen
only once when he was accidentally discovered on November 15,
2003, while hospitalized in a Baoding hospital. Once the
Chinese Government realized that Bishop Su was discovered, he
was taken away immediately without any trace. Bishop An was
arrested in May 1996 and was only seen once when he was allowed
to visit his mother a few years ago. He, too, has not been seen
since.
Underground Roman Catholic bishops are routinely rounded up
during the major feast days such as Christmas or Easter, or
even during a visit by certain foreign personnel. They are
routinely taken away forcibly to a hotel for a few days in
order to be separated from their congregations so that they
cannot celebrate the Holy Mass during the important feast days,
or they could not meet with these foreign visitors. Often
adding insult to injury, the bishops are forced to pay for the
hotel and the meal expenses, including for those government
officials who watched over them. This could amount to a very
large sum of money that the bishops simply cannot afford.
Besides Bishop Su and Bishop An, many other bishops have
been arrested. We have a prisoner list attached here in my
testimony that will give you some idea that almost every one of
the underground Roman Catholic bishops is either arrested and
in jail, or under house arrest, or under strict surveillance,
or in hiding.
The violent and widespread arrests of underground Roman
Catholic religious and faithful continue unabated. On August
the 6th of this year, eight priests and two seminarians were
arrested in Hebei Province while they were attending a
religious retreat. Approximately 20 police vehicles and a large
number of security personnel conducted a house-to-house search
in order to arrest these priests and seminarians. The Vatican
issued a very strong denunciation of religious repression in
China because of these
arrests.
On May 16 of this year, two priests, Father Lu Genjun and
Father Cheng Xiaoli, were arrested in Hebei just before they
were to start classes for natural family planning and moral
theology courses. A dozen priests and seminarians were
attending a religious retreat on October 20, 2003, in a very
small village in Hebei. They were all arrested.
On July 1, 2003, five priests were arrested on their way to
visit another priest, Father Lu Genjun, who was released from
labor camp after serving there for three years. Another priest,
Father Lu Xiaozhou, was arrested on June 16, 2003, when he was
preparing to administer the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick
to a dying Catholic. These are just a few examples of the
arrests since my testimony two years ago.
Sometimes a religious is arrested for very flimsy reasons.
The government official would then ask for a ``fine,'' the
amount of which could be negotiated, in order to release the
prisoner. Often, the ``fine'' is paid quietly, without any
receipt, and the religious is released. Those incidents already
have been reported to me a number of times. They are, of
course, without any written evidence.
A priest was arrested in Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province
because he printed religious hymns. He was arrested in 1999 and
sentenced in 2000 to six years in prison, with a fine of RMB
270,000, equivalent to approximately $33,750 U.S. dollars,
because he printed some religious hymns.
Bishops and other religious continue to be forced to attend
a government-sponsored religious conference to propagate the
``three autonomies'' principles of the Patriotic Association,
thereby forcing, or attempting to force, the underground church
personnel to join the Patriotic Association by threats or by
treats. The three autonomies which I mentioned are ``self-
apostolate, self-finance, and self-administer.'' The catechism
is not allowed to be taught to children under 16 years old.
Underground seminaries are considered illegal and are not
allowed to be established.
Upon learning that I was coming here to testify to this
Commission, an underground bishop called me and requested me to
give you two messages. He wished his name to be confidential,
and I promised him.
The first request from the bishop: He said, ``since 1949
when the Communists took over China, literally tens of
thousands of Roman Catholic bishops, priests, and other
faithful have been arrested. They were put in jail for 10, 20,
30, or even 40 years. Many of them died in jail. One of them
was Bishop Joseph Fan Xueyan--whom I mentioned before. Many of
them were released after a very, very long period. Some of
those released, such as my uncle, Ignatius Cardinal Kung, have
since died. Some of them are still living. It does not matter
to the government if they are dead or still living. They are
still considered criminals because their criminal charges were
never erased by the government.''
This bishop in China respectfully requested this Commission
to convey the plea to the Administration that, while
negotiating with the Chinese Government for religious freedom,
the U.S. Government propose that these prisoners, both living
and dead, be officially and posthumously exonerated of the so-
called crimes of which the Chinese Government falsely accused
them five decades ago. In doing so, the reputations of those
living and dead religious prisoners of conscience can be
restored in China. Those who are still living can at least once
again enjoy equal treatment in society.
The second request: The people of China love and yearn for
true freedom of religion. Again, the bishop wonders if the U.S.
Government could continue to negotiate with the Chinese
Government so that (1) the faithful in China do not have to
fear that they could get arrested during their religious
activities; (2) do not have to fear that their churches will be
destroyed after they labored so hard to build them; and (3) all
those imprisoned religious and other faithful would be
released. The bishop believes that the freedom that President
Bush has committed to promote all over the world during his
election campaign has to include religious freedom. This
Chinese underground bishop, therefore, hopes that, through
direct requests from President Bush to the highest authority of
the Chinese Government, true religious freedom might be granted
to the Chinese people. The bishop wants the highest authority
in China to know about these atrocious instances of persecution
of people of religious faith in the hopes that, having realized
that there are these atrocities, the government might be able
to wake up and to correct and eliminate this persecution.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kung appears in the
appendix.]
Chairman Leach. Thank you, Mr. Kung.
Let me, before turning to our next witness, state as
carefully as I can, the U.S. Congress is committed to the
values of American freedom. To have excellent relations with
another country, one expects not exactly the same systems, but
the same respect for basic human values.
Professor Potter is correct that the Chinese Government has
made certain changes in law that are progressive, but if they
are not implemented, the progressivity lacks meaning. It is
unconscionable to hold anyone in prison anywhere in the world
for religious faith. It is only conscionable to release such
prisoners and to clear their records, and there is no other
position that a civilized human being on this planet can take.
Your request from your underground bishop is one that will be
transferred to the Executive Branch.
Mr. Kung. Thank you.
Chairman Leach. It is not only a conscience-oriented
request, it is a common sense request. When people are
persecuted for nothing else than their faith, that is not a
civil offense in any kind of setting and should not be
considered such, and names should be cleared, and very
uniquely, your bishop has requested, dead or alive. I think
that is a valid request, too.
We, today in this country, are struggling with some
terrible crimes that have occurred in the last century, for
example, relating to the death of Abraham Lincoln, and we are
clearing the names of some people that were thought associated.
This is over a century later. Their families have come and said
the evidence was not there, but the crime was so large that we
felt compelled, at a given time in our society, to have a broad
sweep of the law. There is a reason for the notion of looking
back at people who may have died as martyrs, and that is worthy
of note.
I will make one other comment, because of the sadness of
the anonymity of some of the prison settings. A Harvard
philosopher named Hannah Arendt wrote one of the great
philosophical tracts of the 20th century, a book called ``The
Origins of Totalitarianism.'' One of the points she made in
noting certain commonalities, basically, between the Soviet
Communist system and the Fascist system of Germany, was that
people were rounded up without charges, and in the German case,
actually given numbers, and then no notice is given of their
death. So the movement toward anonymity is a movement toward
taking the human out of the human consciousness. It is a reason
why individuals should be looked at as individuals and why
people have to be respectful.
Now, in this regard Pastor Fu has mentioned he has a list.
Lists are important in life because they respect other lives. I
want to make it clear, and let me just read very precisely,
this Commission is putting forth a prisoner database and it is
now available for any of the public to query. It is accessible
through our Web site, www.cecc.gov. As of earlier this week,
the prisoner data base contained about 3,500 individual case
records pertaining to political and religious prisoners. We
expect the number of case records to grow substantially over
the coming months as we import additional data into the data
base. We have worked with your organization, and we will
continue to, Reverend Fu, in terms of certain religious
circumstances. More than 1,600 of our current case records have
one or more aspects that connect the prisoner in some way to
religious belief or practice, and about 200 of these prisoners
are thought to still be in detention or sentenced to prison.
With respect to the Falun Gong spiritual movement, we have
more than 300 case records and expect to add more as we develop
more information. I would just say that we are trying to work
with all of the various organizations in this regard, but the
key is that anonymity be ended and that there be individual
accountability.
I am very appreciative of your testimony, sir, and
appreciative of the message you bring from the anonymous bishop
in China.
Mr. Kung. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Leach. Thank you.
Now I would like to turn, as our final witness, to Ngawang
Sangdrol. I understand your interpreter is Bhuchung Tsering. Is
that correct, sir?
Mr. Tsering. Yes.
Chairman Leach. We appreciate your assistance as well.
Sister.
STATEMENT OF NGAWANG SANGDROL, HUMAN RIGHTS ANALYST, THE
INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR TIBET, WASHINGTON, DC, THROUGH AN
INTERPRETER, BHUCHUNG TSERING
Ms. Sangdrol. Mr. Chairman, I would like to begin by
seeking permission to speak in Tibetan, because I am right now
in the process of learning English.
Chairman Leach. Of course.
Ms. Sangdrol. On behalf of the International Campaign for
Tibet, and on my own behalf, I would like to thank the
Commission for inviting me to testify about religious freedom
in Tibet.
I have submitted the full text of my statement for the
record of the Commission, and I would like to summarize it now.
The Tibetan struggle is the struggle for our Nation and for the
right of the Tibetan people to preserve and promote our
identity, religion and culture.
In Tibet, religion became the target of destruction mainly
because our religion and culture are what makes Tibetans
different from the Chinese. The International Campaign for
Tibet recently has come up with a report on the religious
persecution in Tibet. So long as the Tibetan people have a
unique religion and culture, there is no way to turn it back
into Chinese.
In regard to China's general policies on religious freedom
in Tibet, hundreds of my compatriots displayed their
disagreement, mainly in a peaceful way, and have been
imprisoned. The reason why I have been imprisoned was for
participating in demonstrations from the age of 13 because of
the denial of our basic rights, including the rights of
religious freedom by the Chinese authorities. Not only that, no
Tibetan can tolerate the denigration that the Chinese
authorities have been committing against our spiritual and
political leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Although I have been in prison for over 11 years in the
dreaded Drapchi prison because of my participation in the
demonstrations, I have been fortunate in that international
community, including the United States, both the Congress and
the Administration, have consistently raised my case to the
Chinese leadership.
By the grace of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan
people, and by the support of the American leadership, today I
am enjoying my freedom. While I value my freedom, I am
continuously reminded of the plight of my fellow Tibetans,
particularly those in prison. After arriving in the United
States, I was told about the many rules and regulations of the
Chinese system which guarantees rights for people, including
those in prison, and I was surprised to learn about these
things. Not only did my fellow prisoners and myself not enjoy
such rights, none of us knew about the existence of those
rights.
In your Commission's report for 2004, you have clearly
mentioned about the existence of different rules within the
Chinese constitution, including laws like the Law of Regional
National
Autonomy, which guarantee rights, including religious and other
freedoms, but these are not implemented in practice. This is an
accurate reflection of the situation.
For example, I recently heard that Chinese officials have
said that there is no formal ban on the Tibetan people
possessing and displaying photos of His Holiness the Dalai
Lama, and that these Tibetans voluntarily do not want to
display His Holiness' photos. Although I have been out of Tibet
for a year and a half, what I know for certain is that if there
were no direct or indirect political pressure from the Chinese
authorities, almost all Tibetans in Tibet would be displaying
portraits of the Dalai Lama.
Since this Commission has been specifically established to
monitor the situation in China and provide appropriate policy
recommendations for the U.S. Government, I would like to urge
you to consider the following points.
The first, is the case of a Tibetan lama, Tenzin Deleg
Rimpoche, whose case is extremely urgent. There is every
possibility that the Chinese Government will implement the
death sentence that has been passed on him after completion of
the suspended sentence, and therefore I urge the U.S.
Government to intervene in the case of this innocent Tibetan
lama so he is saved from execution.
Second, the issue of the Panchen Lama is of utmost
importance to the Tibetan people. We do not have any solid
information about the whereabouts or well-being of the eleventh
Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima. The United States should
urge the Chinese Government to allow an independent monitor to
verify that the Panchen Lama is fine and that he is getting his
religious education.
The issue of Tibetan political prisoners is very much close
to my heart. I would urge the U.S. Government to do everything
possible so that the Chinese Government will release all
political prisoners.
Not only that, the Chinese Government should be urged to
restore all the rights of all the Tibetan political prisoners
who have been released from prison. I have heard that many of
these individuals continue to face persecution, even outside of
prison.
To provide a lasting solution to the issue of religious
freedom, we need to find a way to have a political solution to
the Tibetan issue. I would urge the U.S. Government to be
proactive in urging the Chinese Government to begin substantive
talks with the representatives of His Holiness the Dalai Lama
so that a negotiated solution can be found.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the U.S. Government
and the people for the important role you have been playing to
highlight the Tibetan issue and for supporting His Holiness the
Dalai Lama in finding a just solution to the Tibetan problem.
Thank you so much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Sangdrol appears in the
appendix.]
Chairman Leach. Well, thank you very much for that very
thoughtful testimony. We are impressed with your personal
traumas that you have gone through in your life that have
brought you here, so we are very appreciative of what you said.
In terms of questions, I would like to basically frame a
question for you, Professor Potter. You pointed out that
Chinese law has moved to some degree in a progressive direction
and we ought to be asking that the Chinese adhere to their own
law.
Reverend Fu has pointed out that he has evidence of what he
described as ``secret'' directives of the Communist Party. So
the question is: is the Party above the law, and should our
direction be to say, ``Can a political party be above the law,
and can you have two sets of government rules and directives,
one that is formally legal and another that is operational
directives? '' Do you see this contrast and is this a
bedeviling circumstance?
Mr. Potter. You touch on what is probably the most
fundamental question about legal reform in China. If I may, I
would like to just address that in general terms, and then we
can address the specific question of religion.
Both the Chinese Communist Party and the government have
accepted that the legal system should govern the behavior of
individual Party members. Indeed, a recent document--and I
cannot cite it for you, but I got it when I was in China--had
to do with discipline within the Party. It essentially
protected, or purported to protect, Party members from abuses
of law by Party superiors. The theme behind the document was
that Party members are not above the law. But there is a more
fundamental question, which is, ``Is the Party, as an
organization, above the law? '' I think it is fair to say at
the moment that the answer to that question is yes.
The Party has not accepted the notion that it, as a
politically leading organization, is subject to the same legal
rules that govern the rest of society. It is still the vanguard
party. It is still the four basic principles that inform the
constitution and include reverence for Party leadership. So,
the Party, as a leading political organization, remains, in a
sense, above the law, although it has, a matter of policy
choice, committed itself to operating through legal mechanisms,
which then in turn bind Party members to adherence with the
legal rules that are enacted.
I think the reason that this is worth paying some attention
to is that the view of the Party has undergone significant
change over the last number of years to impose more and more
legal restrictions on Party members. Much of the human rights
abuse that goes on in China is actually abuse by individual
officials who do hold themselves above the law. That has now
been officially repudiated.
The key question, though, is the institutional capacity of
both the state legal enforcement organs and the Party's own
discipline system to really implement this in practice. But my
thinking on this is also that, as foreign countries, as foreign
scholars, as foreign communities engaged with China, we are
hoping to create conditions that will be improved for the
Chinese people, we need to again invite China to enforce and
adhere to the laws that they have set for themselves. So if
they set laws that say Party members, Party officials must
comply with the laws in carrying out policies, that is a
message which is very hard for authorities in China to deny.
They will say, ``we are doing it,'' and we might say, ``well,
let us get a dialogue about how that is actually taking
place.'' How are these laws being interpreted? How are they
being enforced? What is really the record of performance with
China's own rules? I think that is a constructive dialogue that
can take place, and really ought to take place.
I think it is one that, in the long run--and I am not
talking really long run, but even in the more medium term, can
result in actual changes where corruption, the abuse of power
by Party officials, can be curtailed through foreign
observation, monitoring, and
encouragement of China to enforce the rules that it has already
enacted.
Now, with regard to the religious question, in particular,
it is a glass is half full/half empty sort of question. The
fact that the Party Organization Department is compelled to
begin a campaign of training on atheism tells us that religious
belief has become a very important issue in China's society.
The Party still holds to the rule that Party members are
not supposed to participate in religion, even though the
empirical record is abundantly clear that many Chinese
officials are, in fact, people of faith. So this, on the on the
optimistic side, reflects the changes in the society that I
mentioned in my earlier remarks. The reaction to that is an
acknowledgement of those changes and an attempt to do something
about it, but to a very large extent it is kept within the
Party's organization.
Now, where it spills out is in the area of education. This
is another very tricky area. The constitutional provisions on
freedom of religious belief, the various local regulations, and
this is echoed also in the recently revised law on autonomy in
minority areas, hold that freedom of religious belief may not
interfere with the state education system, so we saw in this
Party document an effort to ensure that the state education
system still adheres to Marxist atheism as an official policy.
But I think it is important to see this as a process of
transition. There is an ideological conflict going on here. The
fact that is going on at all attests to the depth of religious
belief in China, and that shows the changes in the society that
are happening. Those are important changes that are not going
to go away, despite what Beijing does.
That gets to the point I mentioned before of institutional
capacity. There are limits to what Beijing can control at the
local level, despite issuing edicts. That is a positive thing
sometimes, but also a negative thing many times.
Chairman Leach. Is there any sense that Marxism is alien as
any outside creed could be to traditional Chinese history and
culture? The reason I raise this is that there is an
understandable angst in China, as you have indicated, about
someone from Ottawa or Washington saying you should have
precisely our values. But one would think the angst would be
even greater about Marx, who, after all, was a German, living
in England, operating philosophically through Moscow. I cannot
think of a more alien tradition than Marxism.
Mr. Potter. Absolutely. This is one reason why China has
struggled, the Chinese Communist Party has struggled, really
since the 1930s to articulate a Chinese application of Marxism.
And whether we look at Mao Zedong's application of Marxism to
China, if we look at Deng Xiaoping's reference to ``socialism
with Chinese characteristics,'' whether we look at Jiang
Zemin's Sange Daibiao, the ``Three Represents,'' all of these
are efforts to put Chinese cultural characteristics onto what,
as you say, is an imported theory.
Now, the reason Marxism was imported, is of course that
there was a lot of looking abroad in the 10s, 20s, and the May
4th movement, and so on to look for foreign solutions to
China's problems, and Marxism was seen as one of those. But, as
you point out, there is an inherent tension between a foreign
ideology and Chinese culture, and this has been one of the most
central challenges for the Chinese Communist Party in
formulating and governing ideology. However, therein also lies
opportunity for China to develop as a society that recognizes
individual rights, that recognizes rights of faith, rights of
belief, because many of those rights are inherent in the
Chinese tradition. The view that we often hear, that individual
rights and individualism are alien to Chinese culture, is
simply not true. There are Chinese philosophical traditions
that are imbedded in individualism, and even Confucianism has
many components that laud individual initiative and individual
integrity.
So, there is much within Chinese culture that can embrace
freedom of faith, freedom of religion, and so on. So in a
sense, the movement away from Marxism into a Chinese version of
that creates many, many opportunities for freedom of religion.
But, as I suggested before, they are in a transition and they
are worried about social unrest. They are worried about
maintaining their ideological orthodoxy. They are worried about
keeping their organizational control. So, religion touches on
all of those, and moreover
addresses that very fundamental legitimacy question that I
mentioned before, which is why it is so sensitive.
But if I may, just on one last point, I think it is very
useful to distinguish, for example, that the Chinese
Government's behavior toward Falun Gong, on the one hand, and
their behavior toward many other qigong practitioner groups and
organizations, and the difference really has to do with the
politicization of Falun Gong, or the perceived, shall we say,
politicization of Falun Gong behavior. The challenge that Falun
Gong poses is that it is imbedded in a Chinese traditional
cultural way of life. It is a qigong practice, which is very
deeply traditional. But once it takes on a layer of
ideological opposition, of ideological heterodoxy, of
organizational heterodoxy, then it becomes a threat to the
government and the government reacted as it did.
So, I think it is useful to remember these distinctions
when we are looking at the treatment of religion, whether it is
Islam in Xinjiang, or Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet, or Islam in
the rest of the China. I mean, the Hui Muslims, the Islamic
Chinese, are ethnically Chinese--indistinguishable from other
Chinese. So, we have to separate out the way these are treated
and try to differentiate between management of what is a local
problem of social transition and social change from an
ideological issue, which, as we suggest, is largely imported.
I would not want to be taken to suggest that China's
treatment of the people that have been arrested and have been
described by this panel by anything other than intolerable. But
the question is: intolerable according to what standards? My
sense is that it is more constructive to think of it as
intolerable against China's own standards, legal, cultural,
traditional rather than according to standards that we might
set here that we might earnestly believe in, but I think I am
more comfortable with the internal critique of the word.
Chairman Leach. Before turning to Congressman Pitts, and I
will have more questions, but I do want to ask this one.
Reverend Fu has raised the secret directives issue. Does
Chinese scholarship outside of China have access to many secret
directives, and should these not be published, particularly in
contrast with law? Reverend Fu cited several statements from
the directive, but I do not know if you have the full
directive. I do not know what exists and what does not exist.
Reverend Fu. We have the full directive.
Chairman Leach. You do have the full directive?
Reverend Fu. The latest one.
Chairman Leach. The latest one.
Reverend Fu. It was distributed in May 2004. May 28.
Chairman Leach. I see. Good. Is this submitted as part of
the record? May we have a copy of it?
Reverend Fu. Yes.
Chairman Leach. Are there other directives that you are
aware of, Professor Potter, Reverend Fu, or Mr. Kung? Yes, sir?
Mr. Kung. Way back, seven years ago in January 1997, the
Cardinal Kung Foundation released a secret document similar to
what Mr. Fu has released. To put it simply, the document said
that they wanted to eradicate the underground Roman Catholic
Church in China. In that particular town, Donglai in Hebei,
where the document originated, they had all kinds of slogans on
big wall posts for propaganda.
The news went through the New York Times, and the bureau
chief at that time was Mr. Tyler in Beijing. He read my press
release and he was half believing and half not believing. He
called me and said he was going to investigate. So, he went. He
went to that particular town, Donglai, a little town in Hebei,
to find out if it was true that there was a secret document
with all the wall postings and so forth. He found everything
that I described in the press release. He investigated so much
that he got himself arrested. His photo films were all
confiscated. There was one roll of film that probably survived.
He went back to Beijing, called me, and said, ``Joe, watch the
New York Times article this coming Sunday.'' What an article!
On January 26, 1997, the New York Times referenced this secret
document in an article entitled ``Catholics in China: Back to
the Underground'' with a large picture showing the slogan on
the wall posting. It was right there on the lower part of the
front page on that Sunday's New York Times, and it carried over
to other pages, detailing descriptions of the secret document
and Mr. Tyler's investigation as well as the suffering of the
persecuted Roman Catholic Church in China.
Then, just about a couple of years ago on February 11,
2002, the Freedom House also released seven secret documents.
These documents provided irrefutable evidence that China is
determined to use extreme force to eradicate all underground
Churches that refused to register with the government.
While I am on this topic, with your permission, sir, if I
may make some observations on what the professor was talking
about. I think we have to realize that the laws in China are
not only made for their own local consumption, but also are
designed in some way to gain legitimacy in the international
world so that people will be led, or misled, to believe that
China has laws to guarantee religious freedom, and so forth, in
order to give China legitimacy.
As for the ongoing persecution, not all persecutions were
caused by an individual abusing his power. Many persecution
cases actually are clearly defined in court under the new cult
Law.
The underground Roman Catholic Church is now considered a
cult; therefore, priests who were ordained secretly by the
bishops of the underground Roman Catholic Church are liable to
have a three-year labor camp sentence once they are found.
Also, there are many reasons for religious persecutions in
China. One reason, I believe very strongly, for the ongoing
persecution, be it of the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant
church, or of Muslims, is that there is a very serious
misconception on the part of the Chinese Government that the
majority of religious believers are not patriotic, and that
they do not love China. That is very wrong. I dare to say that
many religious believers, including those underground, love
China. They are very patriotic. They only wish that China would
give them a chance to practice their religion freely. Thank
you.
Chairman Leach. Thank you.
I want to turn at this point to Congressman Pitts, who is
the Congress' leading spokesperson on so many issues of
religious freedom. Representative Pitts.
Representative Pitts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Professor Potter, a question for you. Do the government
policies toward religion vary from region to region, from
province to province, from government level to government
level? Can you elaborate? Are there good provinces, bad
provinces? How do we identify good to try to reward the good,
isolate the bad? Do you have any recommendations? Is this all
top down, is it local government, is it state, or what?
Mr. Potter. In theory, because China portrays itself as a
unitary state, local regulations must be consistent and adhere
to regulations that come down from above. So, for example,
there are central regulations on the management of religious
sites. Those regulations are then replicated at the local
level, for example, in Shanghai or other areas. So there is, I
would say, an informal amount of leeway for adding new
provisions at local levels that take local conditions into
account, so you will see those, for example, in Xinjiang or in
Tibet. I am more familiar with the Xinjiang situation.
I think the differences really lie in the area of
implementation, because these regulations are purposefully
designed to allow a certain amount of interpretation and
discretion by local officials. One of the interesting issues
that is worth studying, and I have only really begun to do
that, is local enforcement more draconian or less draconian
than central edicts?
In some instances, local officials, because they are more
imbedded in the local circumstances--and in many cases I think
it is important to bear in mind, in Xinjiang and Tibet, for
example, many local officials are members of the local minority
nationality and have links to that nationality. That also
should make us remember that the minority nationalities are not
uniform blocs. They have all the sorts of social and personal
divisions that other social groups have. But in any event, in
many cases the regulations at the local level are interpreted
more loosely because of that affinity.
In some cases, however, they could be interpreted more
severely because of the phenomenon that Han officials in local
minority areas often face problems of frustration and
alienation, and all of the kind of personal issues that tend to
separate them from local people, and therefore they are, in
some cases, more draconian in their interpretation.
So, I am sorry to say there is not a hard-and-fast rule. I
do think it is very useful in the dialogue with China and in
studying conditions in China to acknowledge the potential for
differentiation at the local level in terms of interpretation.
But it has to be done carefully because the theory of the
unitary state does not really admit to the possibility of local
variation, even though local variation is very much a reality.
Representative Pitts. Pastor Fu, would you like to comment
on that?
Reverend Fu. I agree with the assessment of Professor
Potter. I wanted to just pick up a little bit on the law and
the secret document. Now, according to the record I received,
all 30 provinces and major cities have passed their religious
regulations or management of religion types of laws. But it
seems there is systematic thinking that the Chinese Government
actually has been engaging in a sort of double talk. On the one
hand, you have these laws passed, and they are supposed to make
the local government adhere to these regulations. On the other
hand, they kept issuing these secret documents in order to
further crack down. The significance of this document, as a
former Professor of the Chinese Communist Party School, it
would not surprise me if they only proposed the Party members
to believe atheism. That is their policy. One thing that needs
to be noticed is now they require atheism education to be
taught across the board in all the sectors, according to the
document. All sectors of society, at all levels. It is not only
within the Party, or it is not only restricted to the
educational system. Of course, it has already started to be
implemented in different areas; in education, first, and in
other sectors as well.
It is not only through the teachers teaching in the
classroom, but also all kinds of mediums are required to do
this campaign. So you would see this kind of double-talk. On
the international level, they might say, ``oh, we are a country
transitioning into rule by law.'' By that definition, they want
to differentiate between rule of law and rule by law. They are
engaging in the rule by law, through which law is simply a
useful tool to regulate, limit, and control any dissident
groups including religious groups. But, on the other hand, they
are proposing to make all religions compatible with Socialism.
This is a tool to make religion compatible with Socialism.
Thank you.
Representative Pitts. Could you elaborate on how the
unregistered house churches in China are organized? What kind
of a structure do they have? There are registered house
churches, and then there are unregistered house churches,
correct?
Reverend Fu. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Representative Pitts. How dangerous is it for a Chinese
citizen to worship in an unregistered house church? In some
areas they are treated better than other areas, in some
provinces. Can you talk about the house church movement a
little bit?
Reverend Fu. Yes. The number of house church members is
estimated at about 80 million overall nationwide. In terms of
formal organization, there is not formal organization. If they
even started one, they might be immediately smashed down. But
there is a loose fellowship type of different groups of the
house church movement and their leaderships meet together
constantly. Of course, sometimes they use other means of
communication, like cell phones, to communicate with each
other. Sometimes they can hold some sort of joint meetings. As
a result of these joint meetings, as you might know, in 1998,
they issued a joint statement of their confession of faith.
They issued a joint attitude toward the registered churches and
the Chinese Government. What they asked, on appeal, is just to
have a chance to dialogue with the Chinese Government, and even
with the registered churches.
Regarding the internal sort of talk, as the Professor
referred, I think that the majority of the Chinese house
churches prefer the internal talk and they were just forced to
be in the underground. They want to be registered, but if they
are registered, after they are registered, or as a condition
for registration, if their doctrine is subject to scrutiny by
the atheistic officials, then that, to any religious believers,
is unacceptable.
If you accept registration, there the restriction states
clearly that you are not allowed to teach religion to those who
are under 18 years old. As a matter of fact, in yesterday's
Washington Times, we placed this ad. This shows a 72-year-old
pastor from Chongqing City, and he was sentenced to four years,
in 2002, just because he simply sent his granddaughter to a
Sunday school teaching/training session. Just recently, his
daughter visited him and found he was beaten and was crippled.
Both of his legs were broken, and just because he was accused
of shaming the Communist Party when he led 50 of his fellow
inmates in his labor camp to believe in God. We have other
documented records on that. So, how could you encourage or even
let the underground churches dare to attempt to register?
Representative Pitts. All right. I have one more question.
Chairman Leach. Please. Yes.
Representative Pitts. Mr. Kung, can you give us a sense of
how the underground priests and the bishops live in China, and
their relationship with the registered churches, and the
Catholic Patriotic Association? Is there any contact or
relationship between underground Catholics and those affiliated
with the Patriotic Association and government-selected Catholic
religious leaders? How do they view them?
Mr. Kung. The underground Roman Catholic Church has a
population of approximately 12 million people. The national
church, also called the Patriotic Association, or official
church, or open church, only has four million people. So, we
are about anywhere between twice or three times larger than the
national Church.
Approximately 15 years ago, the underground bishops, in
order to evangelize more effectively, decided not to hide
underground. They decided to come above ground. So, they openly
called all the underground bishops together in one place and
organized a bishops' conference, just like the United States
bishops' conference. The Chinese Communist government knew
every bit about the decision of organizing the Bishops'
conference by the underground bishops in that particular place.
Unfortunately--very unfortunately--after they finished
creating the underground conference, on their way back to their
own dioceses, five underground bishops were arrested and three
of them died in jail. So, that is the price that they have paid
to organize the underground church.
Presently, the underground Roman Catholic Church has its
own dioceses: approximately 50 of them. Many of these dioceses
are vacant, because of the death of their bishops due to their
old age or prolonged confinement. The remaining bishops are
very united.
The underground bishops are all appointed by the Pope
himself. This is the major difference from the bishops of the
Patriotic Association who were all appointed--with the
exception of one, I believe--by the Chinese Government. They
have their own dioceses.
With the exceptions of social calls or friendships, the
Patriotic Association has separate liturgical and sacramental
services. They have their own church services.
As a matter of fact, the representative of the Vatican
residing in Hong Kong, Monsignor Nugent, just issued China
guidelines in July 2004 to all Chinese bishops: (1) confirming
that the China guidelines issued by Cardinal Tomko in 1988 are
still valid. In the 1988 guidelines, the Roman Catholic Church
in China and throughout the world must not have ``communication
in sacris'' with those religious under the Patriotic
Association in public, (2) confirming that the Patriotic
Association has the characteristic of being in schism, and (3)
detailing nine conditions governing the relations between the
Roman Catholic Church in China and the Patriotic
Association.
To answer your question, the Sacramental services of the
Roman Catholic Church in China and the Patriotic Association
are totally separate from each other.
Representative Pitts. Thank you.
Finally, Ms. Sangdrol, how do young people learn about the
teachings of Buddha and about Buddhist scriptures?
Ms. Sangdrol. In terms of a formal system, young Tibetans
do not have any opportunities to learn the doctrine of Buddha.
But since we Tibetans have grown up in a sort of religious
society, we do take this opportunity informally. But in a
formal sense, they do not have an opportunity to study
Buddhism.
Representative Pitts. So do they learn it at home from
their parents?
Ms. Sangdrol. Yes, it is mostly at home. Given my own
experience, at a young age my parents taught me the tenets of
Buddhism, and then later on sent me to the nunnery. But once in
the nunnery, I did not really have an opportunity to study.
Today, things have even become worse because of procedures like
the ``patriotic reeducation'' courses that all Tibetans have to
take. Because of this, any action by Tibetans, even though they
are not political, are deemed as political and they are termed
as separatists.
Representative Pitts. So, in your opinion, how precarious
is the survival of Tibetan Buddhism in China?
Ms. Sangdrol. Yes, the risk is very great. The very basis
of the Tibetan Buddhist educational system is controlled by the
Party and the Chinese Government. So in the monasteries, the
administration, everything is decided by the government.
The monks or the nuns have to have the prerequisite of
being
patriotic. All the religious tenets have to be subservient to
the government, and therefore there is this danger when people
are denied their religious process.
Many of the learned lamas in Tibet are mainly persecuted
and are in prison. You can take the case of Tenzin Deleg
Rimpoche, who is now under a death sentence.
Representative Pitts. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Reverend Fu. Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Leach. Yes, of course.
Reverend Fu. I want to ask permission from the chairman to
submit my written testimony. May I submit this partial list of
prisoners to the CECC?
Chairman Leach. First, let me say that all statements will
be taken into the record. We will assume what you said is
summarized.
Reverend Fu. Thank you.
Chairman Leach. We would be delighted to get your partial
list.
[The list appears in the appendix.]
Chairman Leach. We also would like a copy of your secret
document, and we will put that in the record as well.
Reverend Fu. Yes. Thank you.
[The document appears in the appendix.]
Chairman Leach. Let me just conclude by saying that part of
the Commission's work has been to move as deliberately as
possible in the direction of the Commission's records becoming
part of what I have described as a ``virtual academy.'' By
that, I mean we have a prisoner data base, which is now
established and which will be expanded upon. People in this
room that have particular ties outside of the Commission are
welcome to submit circumstances of individual cases to the
Commission for consideration.
In addition, hearing records are designed to be put up on a
Web site for scholars, as well as for people from around the
country, around the world, including China, to look at. So,
while we have a few people in this room, we are hopeful that
the message gets sent out to a substantially larger
constituency of interested people.
I want to thank all of you for bringing such professional
and committed expertise to this Commission. We honor your work,
and we honor your life commitments. Thank you all.
The Commission is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m. the hearing was concluded.]
A P P E N D I X
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Prepared Statements
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Prepared Statement of Preeta D. Bansal
NOVEMBER 18, 2004
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this important and timely
hearing and for inviting the Commission to present testimony. With your
permission, I would like to submit my full testimony for the record.
The Commission on International Religious Freedom has followed
events in China closely for the past several years. As is widely
documented by the Commission and numerous other sources, the Chinese
government continues to be responsible for pervasive and serious human
rights violations. These abuses transgress China's international
obligations and often clearly contradict China's own constitution.
The government of China views religion, religious adherents,
religious communities, and spiritual groups like the Falun Gong
primarily as issues of security. The United States should not ignore
this fact, and it should fashion policies and actions that integrate
the right of thought, conscience, religion and belief with security and
economic interests.
I will not be able to discuss in detail the current crackdown on
the freedom of religion or belief in China. There are several other
witnesses here today who will address this aspect of the current
situation.
However, I would like to make some general comments about the
importance of advancing human rights and in particular the right to
freedom of thought, conscience and religion both as an important
principle on its own and as critical to protecting U.S. security and
economic interests in China. I will then suggest several areas where
U.S. policy could have an impact on the long-term human rights
situation in China.
the importance of fully integrating promotion of freedom of thought,
conscience, and religion or belief into the u.s.-china policy agenda
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, of
which I am the Chair, views respect for the freedom of thought,
conscience, religion, and belief as a critical indicator of stable
countries, stable trading partners, stable allies, and stable regions.
The freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief is
universal in its importance and applicability. It is the freedom to
assert an individual conscience or identity without fear, and is a
foundational right of the post-World War II system of international
human rights.
It is no longer possible to treat human rights, and freedom of
thought, conscience, religion, and belief in particular, as marginal
``soft'' issues of foreign policy. The events of the past 5 years have
tragically reminded us that we ignore religion at our peril. Indeed, we
cannot understand the global conflicts of the world without taking the
role of religion seriously. The past 50 years of history alone show
that most of the conflicts of the world--the Middle East, the Southern
Sahara, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and South Asia--have occurred in
places where the world's great religions intersect. These conflicts
were not, and are not, explicitly religious wars. But religious matters
in these conflicts because it shapes world views and perceptions of
people--makes them live compassionately, at best, or focuses anger, at
worst.
Promoting religious freedom and related human rights abroad is
therefore vital to U.S. foreign policy and to our strategic, as well as
our humanitarian interests. Where governments protect religious
freedom, and citizens value it, religious persecution and religiously
related violence often find little appeal, and other fundamental human
rights, the rule of law and democracy are accorded greater value. When
observed, freedom of religion or belief is one of the linchpins of
stable and productive societies. When denied, generations of hatred and
societal instability may be sown.
Although China is somewhat sui generis when it comes to the
intersection of freedom of thought, conscience and religion with
security and economic issues, I think it is fair to say that freedom of
religion and belief are not side, marginal issues with respect to
China--if for no other reason than that the government of China does
not treat these freedoms as side or marginal concerns. Repression of
individual rights of conscience occupies a central policy of this and
past Chinese regimes.
In the past several years, there has been a deep imbalance in the
U.S.-China relationship. Security and trade relationships are moving
forward at an often-dramatic pace. In these areas, we are building
partnerships based on mutual interests.
Yet, the U.S. does not have an effective Chinese government partner
in the area of human rights. It is clear that from the Chinese
perspective, U.S. concerns regarding human rights abuses should remain
peripheral to improving ties on security and trade.
To acquiesce to this dichotomy would be shortsighted. It is crucial
to U.S. and international interests that China respects individual
liberties and international standards of human rights and understands
that by doing so, it will become a more stable, secure, and prosperous
country.
China has made some impressive strides in promoting economic
freedom. In the past decade, the Chinese government has embraced some
of the benefits of the free market with dramatic results. The Chinese
people now have greater mobility, increased property rights, and access
to information than they had in the past.
These are not small advances. We all hope they augur a future were
China and its people can experience an open society and even greater
prosperity.
However, China's rapid modernization makes it all the more apparent
that continued prosperity can only occur when the government honors the
political and social freedoms enshrined in its Constitution. And the
endorsement China's leadership receives from business executives for
its economic policies does not justify the withholding of world
criticism for its repressive human rights policies.
It can no longer be argued that human rights violations are a
temporary tradeoff to achieve economic development. In fact, the
opposite is true. Achieving the full measure of economic development
depends on improving human rights protections. Restrictions on freedom
of speech and freedom of association stifle the type of communication
needed to manage risk, root out corruption, and address environmental,
health, and labor safety issues. Nor can China compete fully in a
globalized economy when it restricts Internet access or censors the
domestic or foreign press.
China too often sees the free flow of ideas--and the ability to act
on new ideas--as a threat to stability and prosperity and not as a way
to promote stable economic and social development.
Respect for human rights is also important for regional stability
and prosperity, both in China and throughout the region. Such respect
is a critical element in any peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue
and the successful management of Hong Kong under the PRC's sovereignty.
The human rights gap is a potential source of instability--particularly
in the way China treats its citizens in Tibet and Xinjiang and
undermines Hong Kong's political freedoms. Any social or political
meltdowns in any of these areas will certainly involve Western and
other interests.
China's repressive policies on religion, in particular, contribute
to tensions and conflict between the state and significant portions of
China's population. They unnecessarily turn people of faith into
enemies of the state. Given how quickly religion and individual
conscience are growing in China in every sector, the Chinese government
cannot continue to control or discriminate against its citizens based
on their expressions of thought, conscience, religion, or belief.
Active attempts to control and restrict the religious practice and
activities of Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims, unregistered
Protestants and Catholics, various spiritual movements such as the
Falun Gong, as well as some folk religions in rural China, have only
caused more friction and social instability.
For example, religion is a key source of identity for Tibetans and
Uighur Muslims. Ongoing campaigns to promote atheism and to control
religious expression and practice in Xinjiang and Tibet are fostering a
widening division and resentment between the Tibetan and Uighur
minorities and the Han Chinese majority. This division is a source of
instability and does not contribute to China's goal of fostering unity
between China's nationalities. Such division makes marginalized
minority peoples more likely to reject the policies of the Chinese
government and to rebel against policies that they feel are repressive
of their economic livelihood and social integrity.
The link between social instability and religious freedom can also
be seen in the recent riots and crackdowns on Hui Muslims in Henan
Province. The Hui Muslims were always thought to be peaceful and fully
integrated into Chinese society, so the recent riots raise some
interesting questions. Though it is unclear exactly what sparked the
violence--it is clear that even long-standing social and economic
tensions can lead to religiously related divisions in the current
environment.
Nonetheless, the Chinese leadership still cannot accept greater
individual freedom as a path to long-range stability.
In ways that are well documented, the Chinese government continues
to regulate and restrict religious growth to prevent the rise of groups
or individuals who could gain the loyalty of large numbers of the
Chinese people. Religious belief and practice is tolerated in China,
but only if it exists within the boundaries of government-sanctioned
organizations, government-approved theology, and registered places of
worship. Though even in approved venues--such as among China's Muslims
there are still active efforts of control.
But these efforts at control have not worked and are often
counterproductive. Religious belief and practice of individual
conscience have grown dramatically--in fact exploded in many sectors of
society. The Chinese government admits now that the spiritual
aspirations of its citizens cannot be completely stamped out.
Much has changed in China the past 15 years. But much has also
remained the same. What has changed is often exciting and promising.
What has remained the same is troubling and acts as a barrier to
improved bilateral relations and as a drag on China's international
prestige.
China aspires to a position of leadership in the community of
nations. But the severe violations of freedom of religion or belief we
currently are witnessing are incompatible with the international
position to which China aspires. If China is to become an open society
and one trusted as a leader of the international community, it must
respect the rights of thought, conscience and belief for all of its
people. The U.S. should support China's transition and aspirations in a
way that are both credible and consistent with international human
rights standards.
As I mentioned at the outset, I will not spend my time detailing
past and current crackdowns on spiritual practice in China. Several
witnesses following me will describe in detail how the situation seems
to have worsened on the ground in the past year.
For the short time remaining, I would like to highlight several
policy recommendations.
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
The best way to promote respect for religious freedom and related
human rights in China--and therefore construct a durable Sino-American
relationship--is to speak with one voice with respect to all U.S.
interests in China.
Promotion of security, economic, and human rights interests cannot
be compartmentalized, but rather should be integrated to more
accurately reflect their interdependence--because progress in one area
supports the others, whereas lack of success on human rights impedes
the progress on others.
(1) Better interagency coordination of human rights concerns into the
broad scope of bilateral relations
Acccordingly, effective, external pressure requires a strong,
consistent critique of China's human rights practices based on
international standards. U.S. officials at all levels from the
President on down, should continually reiterate China's obligation to
respect human rights and the importance of this issue to the entire
fabric of the bilateral relationship.
President Bush, other cabinet heads, and senior officials have
raised human rights and religious freedom issues with China's political
leadership and with the Chinese people themselves in public addresses.
These are important steps and should be continued.
However, given the often conflicting interests presented by
competing cabinet agencies and delegations discussing economic,
security, humanitarian, and human rights concerns in China, there is
need to better coordinate efforts to ensure that all U.S. Government
agencies that deal with China are fully aware of, and speak
consistently about, the direct relevance of human rights to their work
so that they can advance human rights in ways that are appropriate to
their particular responsibilities and those of the Chinese with whom
they interact. We must, quite simply, as a government speak with one
voice if our concerns in this area are to be properly conveyed and
sufficiently understood. We need effective interagency coordination of
our relationship with China in order to achieve that.
(2) Strengthening Bilateral Human Rights Dialogues with China
Better coordination of U.S. human rights diplomacy could also be
furthered by strengthening the U.S.-China bilateral human rights
dialogues. This is an opportune time to talk about this subject, as
there are presently U.S. representatives in Beijing negotiating the
resumption of the bilateral dialogues.
However, in now resuming the bilateral human rights dialogues,
there are several critical concerns that need to be addressed about the
dialogues--both about their effectiveness and their quality. These
concerns include:
The lack of benchmarks: The dialogues have had no
publicly stated goals so it has been difficult to evaluate a
dialogue's effectiveness and content.
The lack of transparency: Most of the discussions on
agenda and topics for the dialogue are not disclosed.
Accordingly, there is no way for outside experts and groups to
evaluate what was said, what went wrong, or what was
accomplished.
The lack of consultation with outside experts:
Relatedly, despite their deep
expertise, NGOs and other experts are often not consulted when
the U.S. Government sets its dialogue agendas and plans its
strategies.
The lack of continuity: The identity of Chinese
government officials who participate in the dialogues
constantly change, thus making follow-through and meaningful
longer-term discussion difficult.
These concerns have been circulating for several years, but have
not dramatically affected the way that the U.S. Government conducts its
bilateral human rights dialogue. One way to ensure that the need for
benchmarks, transparency, coordination and consultation are taken
seriously is for Congress to mandate an annual report to assess the
previous year's U.S.-China bilateral human rights dialogues.
The Congress should require that the State Department submit a
report to the appropriate congressional committee detailing the issues
discussed at the previous year's meetings and describing to what extent
the Government of China has made progress during the previous year on a
series of issues specified by the Congress.
Congress has already mandated such a report for the bilateral
dialogue with Vietnam (Sec. 702 of PL 107-228). The Commission heard
testimony recently from participants in the U.S.-Vietnam human rights
dialogue that the Congressional mandate was beneficial in establishing
benchmarks and measuring progress in the U.S.-Vietnam human rights
dialogues.
In this way, Congressional involvement with the human rights
dialogues would provide the political capital needed to focus the U.S.-
China dialogue on the important goals of setting benchmarks, seeking
transparency, and getting concrete results from the dialogue process.
(3) Advance a resolution at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and
work for its passage at an appropriate and high official level
We also believe that bilateral human rights dialogues should be
linked to multilateral resolutions at the U.N. Commission on Human
Rights (UNCHR).
It is essential that bilateral and multilateral diplomacy work
together to focus attention on China to improve its human rights
practices, rather than working at cross purposes or allowing the
Chinese government to play one country off of the other. Yet, we fear
that a proliferation of separate bilateral dialogues may have become a
substitute for multilateral monitoring of China's human rights record.
The U.S. should continue to seek a resolution condemning China as
one of its highest priorities for its participation at the U.N.
Commission on Human Rights next spring. It is important to offer a
resolution even if it looks like it will not pass. However, in the last
several years, efforts to pass a resolution were often started too late
in the process to gain sufficient support.
The U.S. must work year-round on a resolution in order to build an
effective coalition and high-level government officials should be
invested in seeking support for the resolution. In the past several
years, the decision to offer a UNCHR resolution was made in the months
immediately preceding the Commission's annual meeting. This is not
enough time to build an effective coalition with those who might
support it.
With China's ratification of the International Covenant on Social,
Economic, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and its acceding to the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the
nation has become increasingly involved in the international human
rights system. By working year-round with international human rights
bodies, the United States can help produce the type of multinational
critiques that may command attention in China.
(4) The State Department and other relevant agencies should coordinate
with other nations on technical cooperation and capacity
building programs in China
Within the last decade, the United States and several other Western
nations have established successful programs for technical assistance
and cooperation in the areas of legal reform and economic and social
capacity building. These programs are intended to assist China in
complying with its international human rights commitments and provide
human rights training for Chinese officials working at the national and
local levels.
Fifteen different countries are pursuing some form of rule-of-law,
human rights, or NGO capacity building projects. Millions of dollars
and millions of hours of labour are spent on these projects, but there
has been little or no coordination on methods, goals, outcomes, or
viable partners.
The State Department, including USAID and other relevant agencies,
should organize regular meetings of nations with technical cooperation
programs with China--seeking to coordinate the various programs across
disciplines and nations and to evaluate the success and failures and
share best practices and new approaches from across the globe.
These programs are often actively sought by China. Technical
support programs were not canceled by China even though they disbanded
discussion with the U.S. on human rights in April. The U.S. should take
the lead to improve and better coordinate approaches that will advance
religious freedom and related human rights in China and reach out to
those within China seeking internal reform.
(5) U.S. legal reform and rule of law programs need to be calibrated to
ADVANCE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND RELATED HUMAN RIGHTS
At the present time, the State Department does not have a legal
reform program in China that relates directly to the advancing the
freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief.
There are numerous commercial rule-of-law programs. It is important
to note that some legal reform programs have trained lawyers who now
represent those attempting to fight for their rights in disputes
involving property, pensions, environmental protections, and medical
malpractice. Such cases provide a significant source of internal
pressure upon the Chinese government to conform to international
standards.
Thus, it seems this is an opportune time to fund legal reform
programs that integrate the right to freedom of religion or belief--and
related rights of expression,
association, and a fair trial--with other rule-of-law initiatives.
The Commission recommends that rule-of-law programs with direct
relevance to the protection of human rights and religious freedom
should be funded. Such programs should be carried out through
cooperation between governmental and private institutions, such as bar
associations, law schools, judicial training centers, and other civil
society groups.
The U.S. Government should fund these programs if the efforts are
to be taken seriously by the Chinese government. And, the programs must
have U.S. Government support in order to maintain the type of long-term
sustainability necessary to make an impact on the Chinese legal system.
(6) Review all U.S. foreign aid funding and public diplomacy programs
for China to include the promotion and protection of religious
freedom. The State Department should consult the Commission in
advancing these goals as is required in IRFA
There is a need to review all State Department and USAID foreign
aid funding for China to determine whether religious freedom components
are included in democracy, human rights, economic development, and
rule-of-law programming under the new Joint Strategic Plan.
Specifically, more information is needed on specific opportunities to
promote and protect the freedom of religion and belief through U.S.
foreign aid funding.
There is also a need to review all State Department public
diplomacy programs for China. There is a growing recognition of the
need to counter anti-Americanism worldwide, and that need exists in
China as well. Public diplomacy and exchange programs need to be
reviewed in an effort to promote more positive understanding of
religious freedom and related human rights among a broad cross-section
of Chinese society. The International Visitor's Program, and other
publicly supported
exchange programs, should actively seek exchanges between a diverse
segment of Chinese government officials and academic experts and U.S.
scholars, experts and representatives of religious communities
regarding the relationship between religion and the state, the role of
private charity in addressing social needs, the role of religion in
society, and international standards relating to the right to freedom
of thought, conscience and religion and belief.
The International Religious Freedom Act requires that the State
Department consult with the Ambassador-at-Large for International
Religious Freedom and the Commission on ways to integrate religious
freedom into U.S. foreign aid programs and public diplomacy. The
Commission stands ready to consult with the State Department at any
time on these timely projects.
(7) Establish an official presence in Xinjiang and Tibet
Given that religious freedom and human rights concerns are central
to the issues of contention in Tibet and Xinjiang, and given the
growing economic development interests in these regions, the U.S.
should seek to establish an official U.S. Government presence, such as
a consulate, in Lhasa, Tibet and Urumqi, Xinjiang.
(8) Provide Incentives for Businesses to Promote Human Rights
The last five years have brought a proliferation of corporate
responsibility codes of conduct and monitoring programs. These
activities are certainly laudable. In the example of John Kamm we have
found that U.S. business people can be effective Ambassadors in
promoting fundamental human rights in China. But corporate conduct
codes often vary widely and many do not contain non-discrimination
clauses pertaining to religion and belief. In addition, there are few
incentives for corporations to act on the codes' provisions in any
meaningful way.
Some order has to be brought back to the process both to unite the
U.S. business community around similar principles and get back to the
objective of Congress--in several pieces of legislation including the
International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA)--to engage the
business community to provide positive examples of human rights in
China.
Given that conduct codes are voluntary, one area that needs more
thought and development is how to offer incentives to businesses to
establish innovative approaches to promote religious freedom and
related human rights outside the United States. Maybe the first place
to start is to consider extending breaks on loans, insurance, and loan
guarantees from the Export/Import Bank or the Asian Development Bank.
The Export/Import Bank in particular is required to consider human
rights in extending services to U.S. companies.
Given that China has recently ratified the International Covenant
on Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights there is an opportunity to
mesh China's international obligations with voluntary corporate action.
What is needed is better coordination across industries and business
sectors to determine best practices and viable incentives.
Mr. Chairman, given the bipartisan nature and reputation of this
committee--including several past hearings on China's labor practices--
I suggest that the CECC (or possibly the U.S.-China Economic and
Security Review Commission) organize an international business
roundtable whereby leaders could compare ideas and offer
recommendations for action for promoting fundamental freedoms including
thought, conscience, and religion.
While there has been much discussion on ways to protect labor
practices, worker safety and environmental standards as part of
corporate responsibility codes for China, there has been of yet little
effort to integrate the protection of freedom of religion or belief
into them. We hope that any international business roundtable gathered
to discuss human rights and corporate codes would emphasize the
promotion of this fundamental right. The Commission and its staff could
assist in planning the roundtable and would make of our contacts
available for such an effort.
CONCLUSION
Mr. Chairman, no one can comfortably admit to knowing exactly how
best to strengthen human rights diplomacy with China. That is why,
despite having two planned Commission visits canceled because of
unacceptable conditions on the Commission's itinerary being imposed
literally at the last hour, we remain committed to traveling to China
with an appropriate invitation from the Chinese government. We are
seeking to examine conditions first-hand, if indeed that is possible,
and to discuss policies and actions with those in the Chinese
government who are responsible for issues of religion and human rights.
We hope that through honest and coordinated exchanges with the U.S.
and other nations, China's leaders will recognize that while prosperity
and security may lead to national well-being, good standing in the
community of nations will only be secured by protecting universal human
rights for every Chinese citizen.
______
Prepared Statement of Pitman B. Potter
NOVEMBER 18, 2004
Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China\1\
Abstract--This article examines the regulation of religion in China, in
the context of changing social expectations and resulting dilemmas of
regime legitimacy. The post-Mao government has permitted limited
freedom of religious belief, subject to legal and regulatory
restrictions on religious behaviour. However, this distinction between
belief and behaviour poses challenges for the regime's efforts to
maintain political control while preserving an image of tolerance aimed
at building legitimacy. By examining the regulation of religion in the
context of patterns of compliance and resistance in religious conduct,
the article attempts to explain how efforts to control religion raise
challenges for regime legitimacy.
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\1\ The research for this article was made possible by a strategic
grant on Globalization and Social Cohesion in Asia from the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), for which I
am grateful. I would like also to thank Meera Bawa, a graduate student
and law student at UBC for her research assistance.
The relationship between religion and state power in China has long
been
contested. Dynastic relations with religious organizations and doctrine
included
attempts to capture legitimacy through sponsorship of ritual, while
folk religions continued to thrive in local society despite ongoing
attempts at official control.\2\ In addition, religion was a
significant source of resistance to imperial rule, often in the form of
secret societies attempting to remain aloof from official control,\3\
as well as through peasant uprisings inspired by religious devotion.\4\
During the Maoist period, programmes of socialist transformation
challenged the social bases for traditional Chinese folk religions,
while policies of political monopoly attacked those limited examples of
organized religion that could be identified and targeted.\5\
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\2\ See generally Stephen Feuchtwang, ``School-temple and city
god,'' in Arthur P. Wolf (ed.), Studies in Chinese Society (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1978), pp. 103-130; C.K. Yang, Religion in
Chinese Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961).
\3\ See e.g. David Ownby, Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in mid-
Qing China: The Formation of a Tradition (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1996).
\4\ See generally, Elizabeth J. Perry, Challenging the Mandate of
Heaven: Social Protest and State Power in China (Armonk NY: M.E.
Sharpe, 2001) and Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China, 1845-1945
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980); Susan Naquin, Millenarian
Rebellion in China: The Eight Trigrams Uprising of 1813 (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1976).
\5\ See generally, Rennselaer W. Lee III, ``General aspects of
Chinese communist religious policy, with Soviet comparisons,'' The
China Quarterly, No. 19 (1964), pp. 161-173.
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In post-Mao China, the regime adopted a somewhat more tolerant
perspective on religion.\6\ As a component of a new approach to
building regime legitimacy,\7\ the government accepted a tradeoff of
broader social and economic autonomy in exchange for continued
political loyalty. Thus, beginning in the 1980s, a ``zone of
indifference'' \8\ into which the government chose not to intervene was
cautiously expanded in areas of social and economic relations. While
the government's concession of socio-economic autonomy was not
enforceable through formal institutions or processes, it remained an
important source of popular support that could not easily be repudiated
except in response to perceived political disloyalty by the citizenry.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ See generally Liu Peng, ``Church and state relations in China:
characteristics and trends,'' Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 5,
No. 11 (1996), pp. 69-79; Donald E. MacInnis, Religion in China Today:
Policy and Practice (Maryknoll NY: Orbis, 1989); Chang Chi-p'eng, ``The
CCP's policy toward religion,'' Issues & Studies, Vol. 19, No. 5
(September 1983), pp. 55-70.
\7\ See generally Pitman B. Potter, ``Riding the tiger--legitimacy
and legal culture in post-Mao China,'' The China Quarterly, No. 138
(1994), pp. 325-358.
\8\ Tang Tsou, The Cultural Revolution and Post-Mao Reforms: A
Historical Perspective (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), p.
18.
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This tension between autonomy and loyalty is particularly evident
in the area of religion. While China's expanding participation in the
world economy has seen increased international criticism on human
rights grounds of policies aimed at controlling religious practices,\9\
the importance of the regulation of religion rests primarily on
domestic factors of authority and legitimacy. Religion represents a
fault line of sorts in the regime's effort to build legitimacy through
social policy. As a rich array of religious belief systems re-
emerges,\10\ the regime faces continued challenges of maintaining
sufficient authority to ensure political control while still presenting
a broad image of tolerance. This article examines the regulation of
religion in China in the context of these dimensions of legitimacy and
political authority.
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\9\ See e.g. Human Rights Watch/Asia, China: State Control of
Religion (1997), Human Rights Watch/Asia, Continuing Religious
Repression in China (1993), US State Department Bureau of Democracy,
Human Rights and Labor, ``China country report on human rights
practices, 2000'' (23 February 2001).
\10\ See generally, Chan Kim-Kwong and Alan Hunter, ``Religion and
society in mainland China in the 1990s,'' Issues & Studies, Vol. 30,
No. 8 (August 1994), pp. 52-68; Julia Ching, ``Is there religious
freedom in China?'' America, Vol. 162, No. 22 (9 June 1990), pp. 566-
570.
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REGULATION OF RELIGION: MAINTAINING THE BALANCE BETWEEN AUTONOMY AND
LOYALTY
As with many features of social regulation in China, the regulation
of religion proceeds essentially from the policy dictates of the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which are then expressed and enforced in
part through law and administrative regulation. Dissemination and
enforcement of Party policies on religion is the responsibility of an
intersecting network of Party and governmental organizations.\11\ Prior
to his retirement following the 16th National CCP Congress, Politburo
Standing Committee member Li Ruihuan had particular responsibility for
religious affairs, while Politburo member in charge of propaganda Ding
Guangen also played an important role.\12\ The Party's United Front
Work Department is charged with detailed policy formulation and
enforcement, subject to general Party policy directives.\13\ The State
Council's Religious Affairs Bureau has responsibility for regulatory
initiatives and supervision aimed at implementing Party policy.\14\
Public Security departments have taken broad responsibility to enforce
regulations controlling religious activities, and have participated
actively in suppression campaigns.
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\11\ See generally, Human Rights Watch/Asia, China: State Control
of Religion (1997), ch. 3; Maclnnis, Religion in China Today, pp. 1-5.
\12\ See ``Li Ruihuan meets religious leaders,'' Beijing Xinhua
Domestic Service 31 January 2000, in FBIS Daily Report- China (FBIS-
CHI-2000-0201) 1 February 2000. In the official Xinhua report on the
National Work Conference on Religion, 10-12 December 2001, Li Ruihuan
was listed just after Li Peng and Zhu Rongji and ahead of Hu Jintao
among the leaders attending. See ``Quanguo zongjiao gongzuo huiyi zai
jing juxing'' (``National work conference on religion convenes in
Beijing'') Renmin Wang (People's Net) (electronic service) (12 December
2001). Ding Guangen was listed first among the chairs of the Work
Conference.
\13\ UFWD Director Wang Zhaoguo's public statements on united front
work regarding religion have echoed the central tenets of Party policy
on issues of Party and state guidance of religion and the need for
religions to adapt to the needs of socialism. See e.g. ``Wang Zhaoguo
on PRC united front work,'' Beijing Xinhua Domestic Service, 8 January
2000, in FBIS-CHI-2000-0110, 11 January 2000.
\14\ See e.g. Ye Xiaowen, ``China's current religious question:
once again an inquiry into the five characteristics of religion'' (22
March 1996), Appendix X in Human Rights Watch/Asia, China: State
Control of Religion (1997), pp. 116-144.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Party policy. Party policy on religion over the past 20 years has
reflected a marked departure from the repressive policies of the Maoist
period. The Third Plenum of the 11th CCP Central Committee in 1978
supported conclusions about the decline of class struggle.\15\ This led
in turn to gradual acceptance of broader diversity of social and
economic practices, including a relaxation of Party policy on religion.
The official summary of CCP policy on religion issued in 1982 as
``Document 19'' stated the basic policy as one of respect for and
protection of the freedom of religious belief, pending such future time
when religion itself will disappear.\16\ While recognizing that
religious belief was a private matter, and acknowledging that coercion
to prevent religious belief would be counterproductive,\17\ Party
policy nevertheless privileged the freedom not to believe in religion.
It also recognized only five religions, Buddhism, Daoism, Islam,
Catholicism and Protestantism, in an effort to exclude folk religions,
superstition and cults from the bounds of protection.\18\ The Party was
also committed to unremitting propaganda to support atheism, and to
using its control over the educational system to marginalize religious
belief.\19\ Document 19 prohibited grants of ``feudal privileges'' to
religious organizations and otherwise limited their capacity to
recruit, proselytize and raise funds. Education of clergy and
administration of religious organizations and buildings aimed to ensure
that
religious leaders remained loyal to principles of Party leadership,
socialism, and national and ethnic unity. Document 19 also prohibited
Party members from believing in or participating in religion.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ See ``Zhongguo gongchandang di shiyi jie zhongyang weiyuanhui
di san ci quanti huiyi gongbao'' (``Communique of the Third Plenum of
the Eleventh CCP Central Committee''), Hongqi (Red Flag), No. 1 (1979),
pp. 14-21.
\16\ See ``Guanyu woguo shehuizhuyi shiqi zongjiao wenti de jiben
guandian he jiben zhengce'' (``Basic viewpoints and policies on
religious issues during our country's socialist period'') (31 March
1982), in Xu Yucheng, Zongjiao zhengce faluishi dawen (Responses to
Questions about Knowledge of Law and Policy on Religion) (Beijing:
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Press, 1997), pp. 287-305, at p.
292. An English translation appears as ``Document 19,'' Appendix 2 in
Mickey Spiegel, ``Freedom of religion in China'' (Washington, London
and Brussels: Human Rights Watch/Asia, 1992), pp. 33-45. For discussion
of circumstances surrounding the issue of Document 19, see Luo Guangwu,
Xin Zhongguo zongjiao gongzuo da shi yaojian (Outline of Major Events
in Religious Work in the New China) (Beijing: Chinese culture (huawen)
press, 2001), pp. 298-304.
\17\ Herein perhaps lay a recognition of the limits of CCP policies
that under Mao attempted to repress local religious practices and
traditions. See generally, Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz and Mark
Selden, Chinese Village, Socialist State (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1991), esp. pp. 234-35, 268-270. Also see Stephan Feuchtwang,
``Religion as resistance,'' in Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark Selden
(eds.), Chinese Society: Change Conflict and Resistance (London:
Routledge, 2000), pp. 161-177.
\18\ Ibid. Also Maclnnis, Religion in China Today, pp. 385-410. For
parallels to religious policies under the Qing, see Ownby, Brotherhoods
and Secret Societies; Naquin, Millenarian Rebellion in China.
\19\ See generally, Mac1nnis, Religion in China Today, pp. 411-19.
\20\ ``Basic view points and policies,'' pp. 299-301.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the early 1980s signalled an important phase of
liberalization in comparison to previous periods, the Party remained
concerned primarily with enforcing social control, under the rubric of
the dictatorship of the proletariat and the central role of Party
leadership in the process of socialist modernization.\21\ Significant
social unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang in 1988-89,\22\ coupled with the
nation-wide crisis created by the 1989 democracy movement, posed
particular challenges. In 1991, the CCP Central Committee/State
Council's ``Document No. 6'' expressed the regime's policy response
that attempted to co-opt religious adherents while also repressing
challenges to Party power.\23\ Document No. 6 emphasized increased
regulatory control over all religious activities: ``Implementing
administration of religious affairs is aimed at bringing religious
activities within the bounds of law, regulation, and policy, but not to
interfere with normal religious activities or the internal affairs of
religious organizations.'' \24\ While the reference to non-interference
seemed benign, the qualification that this extended only to ``normal''
activities suggested an overarching purpose to confine religion to the
limits of law and policy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ See Preamble to the 1982 Constitution of the PRC (Beijing: Law
Publishers, 1986).
\22\ On Tibet, see Melvyn Goldstein, ``Tibet, China and the United
States: reflections on the Tibet question,'' Atlantic Council
Occasional Paper (April 1995), pp. 38-48. On Xinjiang, see Felix K.
Chang, ``China's Central Asian power and problems,'' Orbis, Vol. 41,
No. 3 (Summer 1997), pp. 401-426.
\23\ ``Guanyu jinyibu zuohao zongjiao gongzuo ruogan wenti de
tongzhi'' extracted in Luo Guangwu, pp. 434--37. English text appears
as ``Document 6: CCP Central Committee/State Council, circular on some
problems concerning further improving work on religion'' (5 February
1991), Appendix 1 in Spiegel, ``Freedom of Religion in China,'' pp. 27-
32.
\24\ See Ibid. pp. 435-36. Also see Chan Kim-Kwong and Alan Hunter,
``New light on religious policy in the PRC,'' Issues & Studies, Vol.
31, No. 2 (February 1995), pp. 21-36.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Document No. 6 grew out of the State Council's National Work
Conference on Religion on 5-9 December 1990, at which there was
relatively frank discussion on the number of religious adherents in
China and a recognition of the need for limited tolerance.\25\
Following Li Peng's exhortation to ensure strict enforcement of Party
policy and state law on control of religion, Jiang Zemin took a more
relaxed tack, calling for a united front approach that included
tolerant management of religious organizations, policies on religion
that were suited to broader programmes of reform and opening up, and a
recognition that religion ``affects the masses of a billion people''
(shejidao qian baiwan qunzhong) and that resolution of issues of
religion would have significance for national stability, ethnic unity
and the promotion of socialist culture. In anticipation of the issuance
of Document No. 6, Jiang called the five leaders of national religious
organizations to Zhongnanhai for a briefing, emphasizing the balance
between limited tolerance of religious activities that conformed to
Party policy, and repression of heterodoxy.\26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ For discussion of the work conference, see Luo Guangwu, pp.
428-1132.
\26\ Ibid. pp. 432-34.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Document No. 6 claimed to protect freedom of religious belief,
while requiring
believers to comply with imperatives of Party leadership, social
stability and social interests. The document reiterated provisions of
the 1982 Document No. 19, on the right not to believe in religion.
Document No. 6 directed public security organs to take forceful
measures to curb those who use religious activities to ``engage in
disruptive activities,'' ``stir up trouble, endanger public safety, and
weaken the unification of the country and national unity,'' or
``collude with hostile forces outside the country to endanger China's
security.'' Apart from their utility in justifying restrictions on
religious activities in Tibet and Xinjiang and prohibitions against
Christian practitioners from Taiwan,\27\ these provisions also limited
proselytization, recruitment, fund-raising and other activities in
support of organized religion.\28\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\ With increased (albeit indirect) travel between Taiwan and the
mainland in the 1980s, the links between Taiwan relations and religious
affairs became a matter of particular concern. See Religious Affairs
Bureau and Taiwan Affairs Office, ``Institutional secret, national
edict on religion'' (guo zhongfa), No. 128 (13 November 1989), in Chan
and Hunter, ``New light on religious policy in the PRC,'' pp. 21-36 at
pp. 30-31.
\28\ Spiegel, ``Freedom of religion in China,'' pp. 8-13.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite efforts at official control, a religious revival in China
gathered significant momentum through the 1990s.\29\ The Party's policy
response recognized five basic characteristics of religion that had
been identified and formalized by the CCP's United Front Work
Department in the late 1950s and then reiterated in 1989.\30\ These
stressed the long-term character of religion and its mass base,
national and international aspects, and complexity. The long-term
character of religion militated in favour of patient persistence in
Party policies of co-optation and control. The mass character served as
a cautionary note that the Party could not easily ignore or control the
some 100 million people believed to participate in religion. The links
between religion and national and international questions called for
attention to the interplay between ethnicity in such areas as Tibet and
Xinjiang and the imported religions of Buddhism and Islam. The
complexity of religion was seen to require careful analysis of the
processes of popular belief as a prerequisite for effective policy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\ See generally, Jaime Florcruz et al., ``Inside China's search
for its soul,'' Time, Vol. 15, No. 14 (4 October 1999), pp. 68-72; Adam
Brookes and Susan V. Lawrence, ``Gods and demons,'' Far Eastern
Economic Review, 13 May 1999, pp. 38-40; Arthur Waldron, ``Religious
revivals in Communist China,'' Orbis, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Spring 1998), pp.
323-332; Donald MacInnis, ``From suppression to repression: religion in
China today,'' Current History, Vol. 95 (September 1996), pp. 284-89;
Matt Forney, ``God's country,'' Far Eastern Economic Review, 6 June
1996, pp. 46-48.
\30\ Ye Xiaowen ``China's current religious question: once again an
inquiry into the five characteristics of religion'' (22 March 1996), in
Human Rights Watch/Asia, China: State Control of Religion (1997), pp.
116-144 at pp. 117-18.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the face of these conditions, Party authorities on religion
focused on strengthening administration of religious affairs according
to law, and on actively guiding religions to enable them to adapt to
socialist society.\31\ While the educational function of Party policy
represented a method of indirect control over clergy and believers,\32\
administration according to law imposed criminal and administrative
sanctions for religious activities used to ``oppose the Party and the
socialist system, undermine the unification of the country, social
stability and national unity, or infringe on the legitimate interests
of the state. . . .'' \33\ Party policy was less tolerant of local
sects seeking broader autonomy from the Party and the government,\34\
while also urging vigilance against infiltration of China by hostile
foreign elements under the guise of religion. The United States was
portrayed as particularly interested in using religion to subvert
China.\35\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\31\ See Luo Shuze, ``Some hot issues in our work on religion''
(June 1996) in Human Rights Watch/Asia, China: State Control of
Religion (1997), pp. 65-70
\32\ Ibid. pp. 68-70.
\33\ Ibid. p. 68. Also see Mickey Spiegel, ``Control `according to
law': restrictions in religion,'' China Rights Forum, Spring 1998, pp.
22-27.
\34\ Luo Shuze, ``Some hot issues in our work on religion,'' at pp.
66--67
\35\ Ibid. p. 65. This continues to be a focus of official policy
statements on religion. See ``US report on religious freedom seen as
`power politics','' Beijing Xinhua English Service, 11 December 1999,
in FBIS-CHI-1999-1210, 13 December 1999; ``PRC refutes charges on
religious affairs,'' Beijing Xinhua English Service, 8 December 1999,
in FBIS-CHI-19991208, 9 December 1999.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The State Council's 1997 ``White Paper on Freedom of Religious
Belief in China'' reiterated the point that ``religion should be
adapted to the society where it is prevalent'' and the religions must
``conduct their activities within the sphere prescribed by law and
adapt to social and cultural progress.'' \36\ Pursuant to these
principles, the government remained committed to punishing those
religions and religious
believers who ``are a serious danger to the normal life and productive
activities of the people'' or who ``severely endanger the society and
the public interest.'' \37\ The coercive themes were reiterated at the
United Front Work Department's national work conference in late
December 1999 by Director Wang Zhaoguo: ``We must comprehensively and
correctly implement the Party's religious policy, strengthen
administration of religious affairs according to law, and actively
guide religions to adapt to socialist society.'' \38\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ ``Freedom of religious belief in China'' (hereafter ``1997
White Paper'') in White Papers of the Chinese Government, 1996-1999
(Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2000), pp. 227-257 at pp. 246-47.
\37\ Ibid. p. 247.
\38\ ``Wang Zhaoguo on PRC united front work,'' Beijing Xinhua
Domestic Service, 8 January 2000, in FBIS-CHI-2000-0110, 11 January
2000.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This theme was reinforced in RAB Director Ye Xiaowen's October
2000 essay on theory and policy.\39\ Ye called for cadres to adhere to
the ``three sentences'' (san ju hua) of Jiang Zemin extolling the need
to enforce Party policies on religion, strengthen management of
religion according to law, and actively lead the adaptation of religion
and socialism.\40\ Ye also reiterated four principles articulated
during Jiang Zemin's July 1998 inspection tour of Xinjiang, namely the
freedom to believe or not believe in religion, non-interference in
religious activities, separation of politics from religion, and the
interdependence between rights and obligations associated with
religious activities. Ye cautioned cadres on the need for tolerance of
approved religious activities in accordance with law, although he also
urged punishment of violations. For Ye, the key to managing popular
religious activity seemed to lie in educating the younger generations
in historical materialism and atheism, rather than in coercion and
repression of practitioners.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\39\ Ye Xiaowen, ``Dui zongjiao lilun he zhengce yaodian de fensi
he guilei'' (``Analysing and classifying the main points of religious
theory and policy''), in Luo Guangwu, pp. 1-8.
\40\ These had been articulated in Ye's 14 March 1996 Renmin ribao
editorial, which in turn harkened back to Jiang Zemin's 7 November 1993
speech to a national united front work conference. See Luo Guangwu, pp.
528-29, 465-68.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite the violent repression campaign against the falun gong in
2000-2001, Party policy continued to sound a theme of cautious
accommodation with religion in general, under the theme of adaptation
between religion and socialism. In his speech to the December 2001
National Work Conference on Religious Affairs, Jiang Zemin called once
again for adaptation between religion and socialism.\41\ The conference
was intended originally to summarize the results of the campaign
against the falun gong and to provide instructions for further action.
However, by the time the meeting was held, policy consensus on
repression of the falun gong had apparently progressed to the point
where there was little left to discuss. As a result, the conference was
used as an opportunity to summarize official policies. Jiang's speech
instructed officials to adhere to policies on religious freedom,
refrain from using administrative force to eliminate religion and
accept that religion would be an integral part of Chinese society for a
long time. These conciliatory elements were echoed in an influential
article by Deputy Director of the State Council Office for Economic
Restructuring Pan Yue, who is also an important official in the CCP's
youth wing.\42\ Pan suggested that the Party drop its long-standing
prohibition of religious figures joining the Party and recognize that
religion ``has psychological, cultural and moral functions, as well as
numerous uses, such as services and public welfare.'' Pan called for
the Party to ``abandon the policy of consistently suppressing and
controlling religion and adopt [a policy] of unity and guidance and
take advantage of the unifying power and appeal of religion to serve
the CCP regime.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ ``Jiang Zemin, Zhu Rongji address religious work conference,
other leaders take part,'' Beijing Xinhua Domestic Service, 12 December
2001 in FBIS-CHI-2001-1212, 19 December 2001.
\42\ ``Report says CCP plans to allow religious figures to join
Party,'' Hong Kong Sing Tao Jih Pao (internet version), in FBIS-CHI-
2001-1224, 26 December 2001.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
However, the December 2001 work conference also expressed the more
conventional aspects of policies on control of religion. Jiang Zemin
called for the Party and state to guide religion to conform to the
needs of socialism, and to prevent religious adherents from interfering
with the socialist system, the interests of the state and the
requirements of social progress. Religious adherents were admonished to
love the motherland, support the socialist system and the leadership of
the Party, and obey the laws and policies of the state. The basic
principles articulated in Document 19 of 1991 remain key to ensuring
that religious activities would not thwart the goals of Party
leadership and socialism. Zhu Rongji's remarks to the December 2001
meeting focused on the need for effective administration of the
regulatory system for religion, particularly in rural and minority
areas.\43\ The theme of control was
reiterated in Tibet Daily's 13 December commentary on a Central
Committee outline concerning implementing citizens' moral construction,
which focused on ``strengthening unity with the broad masses of people
who do not believe in religion,'' supporting ``normal and orderly
religious activities'' and strengthening Party leadership.\44\ In
addition, Politburo Politics and Law Chair Luo Gan's speech on tasks
for 2002, given just prior to the work conference, stressed the need
for suppression of disruptive religious activity.\45\ Thus, despite
recent suggestions about liberalization, the discourse of control
remains strong.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\43\ ``Jiang Zemin, Zhu Rongji address religious work conference.''
\44\ See ``Xizang ribao commentator views implementation `outline'
on ethics building, Tibet's religious policy,'' Xizang ribao (Tibet
Daily), 13 December 2001, in FBIS Doc. ID CPP20011217000175, 17
December 2001.
\45\ See ``China's Luo Gan outlines tasks of political legal work
in 2002,'' Beijing Xinhua Domestic Service, 4 December 2001, in FBIS-
CHI-2001-1204, 7 December 2001.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Provision of Chinese law. The State Council's 1997 White Paper
reiterated the distinction between religious belief which the state
purports to protect, and ``illegal and criminal activities being
carried out under the banner of religion.'' \46\ The distinction is
made according to CCP policies, as expressed in the provisions of the
Constitution and specific laws and regulations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\46\ ``1997 White Paper,'' p. 247.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Constitution of the PRC represents a formal articulation of
Party policy. As Peng Zhen, then Vice-Chair of the Committee to Revise
the Constitution, pointed out in 1980, ``the Party leads the people in
enacting the law and leads the people in observing the law'' (dang
lingdao renmin zhiding falu, ye lingdao renmin zunshou falu).\47\ This
edict remains a bulwark of the Party's approach to law making.\48\
During the post-Mao period, policies of limited tolerance for religion
were reflected in the provisions of Article 36 of the 1982
Constitution:\49\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\47\ See e.g. Peng Zhen. ``Guanyu difang ren-da changweihui de
gongzuo'' (``On the work of local people's Congress standing
committees'') (18 April 1980). In Peng Zhen wenxuan (Collected Works of
Peng Zhen) (Beijing: People's Press, 1991), pp. 383-391 at p. 389.
\48\ See e.g. Wu Fumin, ``Zou yifa zhiguo lu'' (``Walking the road
of ruling the country by law''), in Fazhi ribao (Legal System Daily),
19 April 2000, pp. 1-2; Zhang Zhiming, Cong minzhu xin lu dao yifa
zhiguo (From the New Road of Democracy to Ruling the Country According
to Law) (Nanchang: Jiangxi Higher Education Press, 2000); Tian Jiyun
(ed.), Zhongguo gaige kaifang yu minzhu fazhi jianshe (China's Reform
and Opening Up and Construction of Democracy and the Legal System)
(Beijing: China Democracy and Legal System Press, 2000), p. 412.
\49\ PRC Constitution (1982) (Beijing: Publishing House of Law,
1986). The provisions of Article 36 were retained in the constitutional
amendments of 1988, 1993 and 1999.
Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of
religious belief.
No state organ, public organization or individual may compel
citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion: nor
may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do
not believe in any religion.
The state protects normal religious activities. No one may
make use of religion to engage in activities that disrupt
public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with
the educational system of the state.
Religious bodies and religious affairs are not subject to any
foreign domination.
In explaining the meaning of Constitutional provisions on religious
freedom, Peng Zhen noted that from a political perspective the common
elements of patriotism and adherence to socialism bind those who
believe in religion and those who do not.\50\ This underscored the
imperative of submission to party-state control as a condition for
enjoyment of religious freedom. Protection of freedom of religion was
qualified as well by provisions of the PRC Constitution Article 33
conditioning the exercise of citizens' rights on their performance of
duties: ``Every citizen enjoys the rights and at the same time must
perform the duties prescribed by the Constitution and the law.'' \51\
As explained by Peng Zhen, these duties included upholding the Four
Basic Principles,\52\ which impose a duty to uphold the socialist road,
the dictatorship of the proletariat, leadership of the Party, and
Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought.\53\ Thus, the freedom granted
religious belief remained conditional not only on compliance with law
and regulation, but more fundamentally on submission to the policies
and edicts of the party-state.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\50\ Peng Zhen, ``Guanyu Zhonghua rennin gongheguo xianfa xiugai
cao'an de shuoming'' (``Explanation of the draft revisions to the
Constitution of the PRC''), in Peng Zhen, Lun xin shiqi de shehui
minzhu yu fazhi jianshe (On Building Socialist Democracy and Legal
System During the New Period) (Beijing: Central Archives Press, 1989),
pp. 100-115 at p. 109.
\51\ PRC Constitution (1982). This provision was retained in the
1988, 1993 and 1999 amendments.
\52\ Peng Zhen, ``Guanyu Zhonghua renmin gongheguo xianfa xiugai
cao'an de shuoming'' (``Explanation of the draft revisions to the
Constitution of the PRC''), in Renmin ribao (People's Daily), 6
December 1982.
\53\ Deng Xiaoping, ``Jianchi si xiang jiben yuanze'' (``Uphold the
four basic principles''), in Deng Xiaoping wenxuan: yijiugiwu--yijiu
ba'er (Collected Works of Deng Xiaoping: 1975-1982) (Beijing: People's
Press, 1983), pp. 144-170 at pp. 150-51.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Constitution provides authority for specific legislation on the
matter of religion. As yet, there is no comprehensive law on religion,
although the principle of freedom of religious belief is articulated
with qualifications in a number of specific laws.\54\ Thus, the Law on
Autonomy in Nationality Regions (1984, 2001) allows in Article 11 for
freedom of religious belief, subject to qualifications against harm to
social order, personal health and state education. The General
Principles of Civil Law (1986) provides in Article 75 for protection of
personal property including cultural items and in Article 77 for
protection of property of religious organizations. The Law on Elections
to National and Local People's Congresses (1986) provides in Article 3
for the right to stand for election regardless of religious belief, as
does the Organization Law on the Village Committees (1987) in Article
9. The Education Law (1995) Article 9 prohibits discrimination in
educational opportunity based on religion, although Article 8 provides
that religion may not interfere with the state educational system. The
Labour Law (1995) Article 12 prohibits discrimination in
employment based on religion. The revised Criminal Law of the PRC
(1997) provides in Article 251 for punishment of state personnel who
unlawfully deprive citizens of their freedom of religious belief. As
with the Constitutional provisions, these laws confine the scope of
protection to the matter of religious belief, as qualified by
requirements that religious practices not conflict with the state's
political authority.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\54\ ``1997 White Paper,'' pp. 230, 232.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Authorized by the Constitution and informed by CCP policies,
China's regulatory provisions on religion include measures of general
application as well as edicts that apply to specific conduct or
beliefs. Regulatory restrictions extend to places of worship, which
must be formally registered and undergo annual inspections, and may not
be used for activities that ``harm national unity, the solidarity of
ethnic groups, social stability or the physical health of citizens, or
obstruct the educational system.\55\ Religious education academies must
implement CCP policy and submit to Party leadership, and their
curricula, programmes and personnel are subject to approval by the
Religious Affairs Bureau.\56\ The officially approved curricula
incorporate state policy into religious instruction.\57\ Activities
such as recruiting believers among primary and secondary school
students, propagating religious ideology in school, establishing
illegal (that is, not properly approved and registered) religious
schools and enrolling young people, and traveling abroad to attend
seminary are considered in violation of the provision that religion may
not obstruct state
education.\58\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\55\ ``Guowuyuan guanyu zongjiao huodong changsuo guanli tiaoli''
(``State Council regulations regarding the management of places of
religious activities'') (31 January 1994), in Xu Yucheng, Respect to
Questions, pp. 308-310. English text of these measures, along with
``Registration procedures for venues for religious activities'' (1 May
1994); ``Method for annual inspection of places of religious activity''
(29 July 1996), appear in Human Rights Watch Asia, China: State Control
of Religion (1997), pp. 106-108, 109-111, 112-14, respectively.
\56\ See e.g. Religious Affairs Bureau of the State Council,
``Comments on enhancing the world of religious academies'' (15 January
1988), in Chan and Hunter, ``New light on religious policy in the
PRC,'' at pp. 29-30.
\57\ See for example, ``Excerpts from questions and answers on the
patriotic education program in monasteries'' (25 May 1997), in Human
Rights Watch Asia, China: State Control of Religion (1997), pp. 100-
103, where monastery students are required to master government policy
attacking the Dalai Lama.
\58\ ``Notice on the prevention of some places using religious
activities to hinder school education'' (26 November 1991), in Human
Rights Watch/Asia, Freedom of Religion in China (1992), pp. 68-70. For
further controls over students sent abroad for religious education, see
Religious Affairs Bureau of the State Council, ``Comments on the
Protestant Church sending of students overseas'' (21 May 1990), in Chan
and Hunter, ``New light on religious policy in the PRC,'' pp. 31-32.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Religious activities by foreigners are also subject to control.
This derives in part from the conflicted history of China's relations
with foreign missionaries, who are portrayed as instruments of
imperialism. In addition, the government strives for control over
religion by insulating religious practitioners and activities from
their overseas counterparts.\59\ Evangelical Christians from the United
States and Korea have been cited as examples of foreign religious
interests interfering with China's independence and autonomy in
managing religious affairs, and building up anti-motherland, anti-
government forces.\60\ Religious broadcasts, internet information, and
literature and materials brought into China from abroad are subject to
special inspection and confiscation.\61\ Foreigners are generally
prohibited from proselytizing, recruiting candidates to go abroad for
instruction, and bringing to China religious materials that endanger
the public interest.\62\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\59\ See generally, ``Fourteen points from Christians in the
People's Republic of China to Christians abroad'' in MacInnis, Religion
in China Today, pp. 61-70.
\60\ ``Vigilance against infiltration by religious forces from
abroad'' (15 March 1991), in Human Rights Watch/Asia, Freedom of
Religion in China (1992), pp. 52-54. Also see Human Rights Watch/Asia,
China: State Control of Religion (1997), pp. 33-36.
\61\ See Religious Affairs Department of the State Council and the
Ministry of Public Security, ``Notification on stopping and dealing
with those who use Christianity to conduct illegal activities'' (18
October 1988); Religious Affairs Office, ``Comments on handling
religious publications that enter our borders'' (16 June 1990), in Chan
and Hunter, ``New light on religious policy in the PRC,'' pp. 30 and
32, respectively. On internet controls, see ``Computer information
network and internet security, protection and management regulations''
(30 December 1997) (author's copy).
\62\ ``Guowuyuan guanyu Zhonghua renmin gongheguo jingnei waiguoren
zongjiao huodong guanli guiding'' (``State Council regulations on the
management of religious activities of foreigners in the PRC'') (31
January 1994), in Xu Yucheng, Responses to Questions, pp. 306-307.
English text appears in Human Rights Watch/Asia, China: State Control
of Religion (1997), pp. 104-105.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Religious Affairs Bureaus of China's provinces and major cities
are empowered to issue local regulations on the control of
religion.\63\ These generally echo the tenets of central edicts.\64\
The Regulations of the Shanghai Religious Affairs Bureau (1996), for
example, mirror provisions of national regulations on the authority of
the government to maintain lawful supervision over religious affairs,
including registration and supervision of religious organizations,
religious personnel, places of worship, and religious activities,
education and property.\65\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\63\ See generally, Richard Madsen and James Tong (eds.), ``Local
religious policy in China, 1980-1997,'' in Chinese Law and Government,
Vol. 33, No. 3 May/June 2000, containing regulations from Guangdong,
Fujian, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Shandong, Hebei, Henan, Qinghai, Xinjiang
and Yunnan. Also see, ``Regulations from the Shanghai Religious Affairs
Bureau'' (30 November 1995), in Human Rights Watch/Asia, China: State
Control of Religion (1997), pp. 90-99; ``Provisional regulations for
the registration and management of places of religious activity in
Fujian province,'' in Human Rights Watch/Asia, Continuing Religious
Repression in China (1993), pp. 50-54
\64\ Richard Madsen, ``Editor's introduction,'' in Richard Madsen
and James Tong (eds.), ``Local religious policy in China, 1980-1997,''
in Chinese Law and Government, Vol. 33, No. 3 (May/June 2000), pp. 5-
11.
\653\ ``Regulations from the Shanghai Religious Affairs Bureau''
(30 November 1995), in Human Rights Watch/Asia, China: State Control of
Religion (1997), pp. 90-99.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Particular regulatory provisions are also aimed at specific
religions. Mindful of the overlap between religious belief and ethnic
tension, the government regulates religious activities of minority
nationalities in Tibet and Xinjiang closely to ensure repression of
nationalist separatism.\66\ Echoing Constitutional provisions and Party
policy, the Law on Autonomy in Nationality Regions (1984) provides in
Article 11 that ``normal'' religious activities are protected, but
prohibits use of religion to ``disrupt social order, the health of
citizens, or interfere with the educational system of the state.'' In
Tibet, regulation of religion aims at control of a religious revival in
Buddhism and at political questions surrounding the authority of the
Dalai Lama.\67\ Reacting to an outbreak of anti-Chinese unrest in 1988-
89, the government imposed martial law and stepped up efforts at
securing political control.\68\ Following the Dalai Lama's demurral to
China's offer of negotiations, government regulation of religion in
Tibet since 1994 has focused on a political agenda of attacking
elements associated with the Dalai Lama.\69\ Among the many measures
taken in this
campaign are control over education curricula to subordinate religion,
refusal of
negotiations with the Dalai Lama and the ban against display or
possession of his photograph, the re-education and in some cases
dismissal of monks over their loyalty to the Dalai Lama,\70\ and the
subversion of the Dalai Lama's selection of a new Panchen Lama.\71\
Expulsion of nuns and the demolition of Buddhist institutes and
monasteries reflect on ongoing commitment to ensuring control over
religious education and instruction in Tibetan Buddhism.\72\ The
government's commitment to controlling those who challenge it was
evident as well in efforts to persuade India to return the Karmapa
Lama, whose flight from Lhasa shocked Beijing in early 2000.\73\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\66\ See T. Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of
Modern Tibet Since 1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999);
International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (ed.), Torture
in Tibet 1949-1999 (Copenhagen: IRCT, 1999); P. Wing, L. and J. Sims,
``Human rights in Tibet: an emerging foreign policy issue,'' Harvard
Human Rights Journal, Vol. 5 (1992), pp. 193-203. Also see Melvyn
Goldstein and Matthew T. Kapstein (eds.), Buddhism in Contemporary
Tibet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). Cf. A. Rosett,
``Legal structures for special treatment of minorities in the People's
Republic of China,'' Notre Dame Law Review, Vol. 66, No. 5 (1991), pp.
1503-28.
\67\ See generally Goldstein and Kapstein, Buddhism in Contemporary
Tibet; Maclnnis, Religion in China Today, pp. 184-203.
\68\ See generally, Solomon M. Karmel, ``Ethnic tension and the
struggle for order: China's policies in Tibet,'' Pacific Affairs, Vol.
68, No. 4 (Winter 1995-96), pp. 485-508. Also see Amnesty
International, People's Republic of China: Repression in Tibet, 1987-
1992 (1992).
\69\ See generally, Human Rights Watch/Asia, China: State Control
of Religion (1997), pp. 43-50.
\70\ For an example, see ``Education for ethnic minorities:
diversity neglected in stress on manufactured unity,'' China Rights
Forum, Summer 2001, pp. 12-15; ``Excerpts from questions and answers on
the patriotic education program in monasteries'' (25 May 1997), in
Human Rights Watch/Asia, China: State Control of Religion (1997), pp.
100-103.
\71\ Also see Hollis Liao, ``The case of the two Panchen Lamas--a
religious or political issue?'' Issues & Studies, Vol. 31, No. 12
(December 1995), pp. 115-17; Jonathan Mirsky, ``A Lamas' who's who,''
in New York Review of Books, 27 April 2000, p. 15.
\72\ Tibet Information Network, ``Serthar teacher now in Chengdu:
new information on expulsions of nuns at Buddhist institute'' (8
November 2001); ``China-Tibetan monk,'' Associated Press Wire Service
(27 September 1991).
\73\ ``PRC spokesman on asylum in India for Karmapa Lama,'' Agence
France Presse HK, 11 January 2000, in FBIS-CHI-2000-0111, 12 January
2000.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regulation of Islam in Xinjiang also appears to reflect conclusions
about convergence between religion and nationalism.\74\ Heavy emphasis
is placed on prohibitions against using religion to oppose CCP
leadership and the socialist system, or to engage in activities that
split the motherland or destroy unity among nationalities.\75\
Religious activities are not permitted to interfere with state
administration, religious activities and personnel must remain within
the localities where they are registered, and religious teaching and
the distribution of religious materials is closely controlled.
Education and training of religious personnel is permitted only by
approved patriotic religious groups, while people in charge of
scripture classes must support the leadership of the Party and the
socialist system, and safeguard unity of all nationalities and
unification of the motherland. Human rights reporting on Xinjiang
provides many examples of harassment and repression of Islamic
teachers, mosques, schools and practitioners who might contribute to
secessionist sentiment.\76\ Recently, Beijing has used the US-led war
against terrorism to justify repression of Islamic activities in
Xinjiang, through a concerted campaign of arrests and executions of
alleged separatists.\77\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\74\ See MacInnis, Religion in China Today, pp. 248-254. Also see
Dru Gladney, Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People's
Republic (Cambridge MA: Harvard Council on East Asian Studies, 1991);
He Yanji, ``Adapting Islam to socialism in Xinjiang,'' in Luo Zhufeng
(ed.), Religion Under Socialism in China (trans. MacInnis and Zheng)
(Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1991), pp. 224-231.
\75\ ``Provisional regulations on the administration of religious
activities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region'' (1990), in Human
Rights Watch/Asia, Freedom of Religion in China (1992), pp. 64-65.
\76\ See generally, Human Rights Watch/Asia, China: State Control
of Religion (1997), pp. 39-42; Amnesty International, People's Republic
of China: Secret Violence, Human Rights Violations in Xinjiang (1992).
\77\ See Information Office of PRC State Council, ``East Turkistan
terrorist forces cannot get away with impunity,'' Beijing Xinhua
English Service, 21 January 2002, in FBIS-CHI2002-01-21, 21 January
2002. Also see Willy Wo-Lap Lam, ``Terrorism fight used to target China
secessionists,'' CNN e-mail newsletter (23 October 2001); ``China
claims `big victory' over separatists in Xinjiang,'' Agence France
Presse (25 October 2001); Craig S. Smith, ``China, in harsh crackdown,
executes Muslim separatists,'' New York Times, 16 December 2001.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Chinese regulatory framework gives special attention to
Christianity. This is in part because of an historiography that links
Christian missionary work with imperialism, and to fears of
international subversion through religion.\78\ The growth in popularity
of Christianity during the post-Mao period has driven new efforts at
control.\79\ Catholic churches are primarily under the authority of the
Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the Chinese Conference of
Catholic Bishops, while Protestants are subject to the ``Three Self'
patriotic movement and the China Christian Council.\80\ With its longer
history of missionary activity in China and more formalized hierarchy
of clergy professing exclusive loyalty to the Vatican, the Catholic
Church has posed particular problems for the CCP regime.\81\ The
government has devoted particular efforts to control over Catholic
clergy and their activities. Those associated with the underground
church who refuse to renounce the authority of the Vatican have
regularly been singled out for criminal prosecution and repression.\82\
Regulations issued in 1989 called for stepping up control over the
Catholic Church, primarily through increased education and
indoctrination of state-approved clergy, strengthening the
organizational authority of the Catholic Patriotic Association,
repression of ``Catholic Underground Forces,'' and strengthening Party
leadership.\83\ Tensions with the Catholic Church have been compounded,
by the Vatican's diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, although
normalization of relations with the mainland remains a possibility,
driven by a combination of liberalization and political realism.\84\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\78\ See e.g. Luo Shuze, ``Some hot issues in our work on
religion,'' pp. 65-66.
\79\ See e.g. discussion of the ``Notice on preventing and clearing
up the use of Christianity to carry out crimes and illegal activities''
(Guanyu zhizhi liyong jidujiao jinxing weifa weifa huodong de tongzhi)
issued October 1988 by Religious Affairs Bureau and Public Security
Bureau, in Luo Guangwu, pp. 391-393. Also see Simon Elegant, ``The
great divide,'' Far Eastern Economic Review, 6 June 1996, p. 53; Betty
L. Wong, ``A paper tiger? An examination of the International Religious
Freedom Act's impact on Christianity in China,'' Hastings International
and Comparative Law Review, Vol. 24 (2001), p. 539.
\80\ See generally, MacInnis, Religion in China Today, pp. 263-67,
313-18; Human Rights Watch/Asia, China: State Control of Religion
(1997), pp. 13-16. On the ``Three-Self' movement during the Maoist
period, see Wallace C. Merwin and Francis P. Jones, Documents of the
Three-Self Movement (New York: National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the USA, 1963).
\81\ See generally, Richard Madsen, China's Catholics: Tragedy and
Hope in an Emerging Civil Society (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1998). Also see Freidman et al., Chinese Village, Socialist
State, p. 234.
\82\ See e.g. ``What we learned from the trial of the case of the
Zhu Hongsheng counterrevolutionary clique,'' in Human Rights Watch/
Asia, Continuing Religious Repression in China (1993), pp. 41-47.
\83\ CCP United Front Work Department and State Council Religious
Affairs Bureau, ``Circular on stepping up control over the Catholic
Church to meet the new situation'' (24 February 1988), in Human Rights
Watch/Asia, Freedom of Religion in China (1992), pp. 46-51.
\84\ See Melinda Liu and Katharine Hesse, ``A blessing for China,''
Newsweek, 11 June 2001, pp. 27-31.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Protestant Church has reportedly received less attention,
partly because of its autonomy from the Vatican.\85\ However, the
relative fluidity of Protestant organizational structures, particularly
the role of lay clergy, has made it harder for the government to
control, leading for calls to repress Protestant evangelical activities
under the guise of controlling illegal ``sects'' (xiejiao).\86\ The
charter for the ``Three Self'' movement underscores its submission to
Party leadership, support for the authority of the state and the
socialist motherland, and obedience to the Constitution, laws,
regulations and policies of the state.\87\ The charter for the China
Christian Council is less effusive in its support for Party leadership,
but still expresses compliance with the party-state through a
commitment to manage its churches according to China's constitutions,
laws, regulations and policies.\88\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\85\ Hon S. Chan, ``Christianity in post-Mao mainland China,''
Issues & Studies, Vol. 29, No. 3 (September 1993), pp. 106-132, at p.
124.
\86\ See John Pomfret, ``China church chief said to protest in
prison,'' International Herald Tribune, 7-8 December 2002, p. 2; Li
Shixiong and Xiqiu (Bob) Fu, ``Religion and national security in China:
secret documents from China's security sector'' (New York: Committee on
Investigation of Persecution of Religious Freedom in China, 2002);
Amnesty International, ``Urgent action update: death penalty/fear of
imminent execution/torture and ill-treatment,'' 5 February 2002, and
``Urgent action update: death penalty/fear of imminent execution,'' 4
January 2002. For earlier documentation, see ``A report on the
development of Christian sects in China,'' Human Rights Watch/Asia,
Freedom of Religion in China (1992), p. 76.
\87\ ``Constitution of the National Committee of the Three Self
Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches of China'' (2 January
1997), in Pik-wan Wong, Wing-ning Pang and James Tong (eds.), ``The
Three-Self churches and `freedom' of religion in China, 1980-1997,''
Chinese Law and Government, Vol. 33, No. 6 (November/December 2000),
pp. 37-39.
\88\ ``Constitution of the China Christian Council'' (1 January
1997), in ibid. pp. 39-42. For discussion of the link between
compliance with the Chinese constitution and submission to Party
leadership, see nn. 71,72 and accompanying text.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The attack on illegal sects also extends to the now-famous falun
gong movement, which is not considered a religion and thus is not
covered by the policies of limited tolerance articulated in Document 19
of 1982. Initially the government appeared to focus on the movement's
challenge to state orthodoxy as the main grounds for suppression.\89\
Shocked by the group's organized peaceful protest in front of
Zhongnanhai in April 1999, the regime was alarmed further by the
prospect of widespread falun gong membership among officials and Party
members.\90\ Although the government claimed in July that sufficient
legal grounds already existed for banning falun gong,\91\ in October
1999 special additional measures were enacted by the NPC Standing
Committee outlawing heretical sects and activities.\92\ The measures
attacked activities that ``under the guise of religion, qigong or other
name disrupt social order or harm the people's lives, financial
security and economic development.'' While examples of murder, rape and
swindling were listed as among the criminal activities at which the
measure was aimed, particular emphasis was given to harming enforcement
of laws and regulations, causing public disturbance, and disrupting
public order. Thus, the target was in essence non-compliance with
established norms of political loyalty, as official interpretations
focused particularly on sectarian activity that ``destroyed normal
social order and stability.'' \93\ Reflecting the government's concern
with the apparent international reach of falun gong, the law
provided particularly heavy penalties for cases involving contacts
among falun gong followers in different provinces or abroad. The
measures were used as well to attack other groups who allegedly
threaten Communist Party rule.\94\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\89\ Elizabeth J. Perry, ``Challenging the mandate of heaven:
popular protest in modern China,'' in Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 33,
No. 2 (2001), pp. 163-180.
\90\ See Ming Xia and Shiping Hua (guest eds.), ``The battle
between the Chinese government and the falun gong,'' Chinese Law and
Government, Vol. 32, No. 5 (September/October 1999), especially
documents 1-4 and 13, focusing on forbidding falun gong membership by
Party members, non-Party members subject to the United Front Work
Department, and state functionaries, and Communist Youth League
members.
\91\ Document 11: ``Laws exist for the banning of falun gong,'' in
ibid. pp. 43-45.
\92\ ``Quanguo renmin daibiao dahui changwu weiyuanhui guanyu qudi
xiejiao zuzhi, fangfan he chengzhi xiejiao huodong de jueding''
(``Decision of the NPC Standing Committee on outlawing heretical
organizations and guarding against and punishing heretical
activities'') (30 October 1999), in State Council Legal System Office
(ed.), Zhonghua renmin gongheguo xin fagui huibian -1999 no. 4
(Compilation of New Laws and Regulations of the PRC -1999 no. 4)
(Beijing: Law Publishers, 1999), p. 148. Also see ``NPC Standing
Committee issues anti-cult law'' and ``More on China issues anti-cult
law,'' Beijing Xinhua English Service, 30 October 1999, in FBIS-CHI-
1999-1030, 20 November 1999.
\93\ ``China passes law to `smash' falun gong, other cults,''
Agence France Presse HK, 30 October 1999, in FBIS-CHI-1999-1030, 20
November 1999.
\94\ See Human Rights Watch, HRW World Report 2000: China, February
2000; Human Rights Watch, ``China uses `rule of law' to justify falun
gong crackdown,'' 9 November 1999.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the new measures were enforced vigorously in concert with an
intense propaganda campaign,\95\ the leadership remained concerned over
its inability to eradicate the group.\96\ More recently, the government
has linked falun gong with Tibetan and Xinjiang separatists as threats
to Communist Party leadership and the stability of China.\97\ In
addition, the campaign against falun gong has become internationalized
because of the US residence of its leader Li Hongzhi, and is thus
intertwined with the US and international concerns over China's human
rights record.\98\ Arrests of foreign citizen practitioners of falun
gong has further complicated the international relations aspect of the
issue,\99\ and stern warnings from Beijing that falun gong activities
would not be permitted in Hong Kong raised delicate questions about
Hong Kong's autonomy.\100\ Official fears that socio-economic impacts
of China's accession to the WTO may bolster falun gong's popularity
reflect further the government's appreciation of the international
dimensions of the movement.\101\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\95\ See e.g. installments in ``Shenru the pi `Falun Gong' xiejiao
benzhi'' (``Basics of deepening the exposure and criticism of `falun
gong' heresy''), Fazhi ribao (Legal System Daily), 3-7 February 2001.
\96\ ``Experts say PRC's leadership `increasingly alarmed' by falun
gong's strength,'' Agence France Presse HK, 22 January 2001, in FBIS-
CHI-2001-0122, 23 January 2001.
\97\ Human Rights Watch, ``Dangerous meditation: China's campaign
against falun gong'' (2002). Also see ``Wei Jianxing, Luo Gan Address
Conference on Public Security, Judicial Work,'' Beijing Xinhua Domestic
Service, 2 December 2000, in FBIS-CHI-2000-1202, 13 December 2000.
\98\ See generally, Sarah Lubman, ``A Chinese battle on US soil:
persecuted group's campaign catches politicians in the middle,'' San
Jose Mercury News, 23 December 2001, p. 1A.
\99\ John Pomfret, ``China holds 40 foreign falun gong protesters:
use of Westerners marks new tactic,'' Washington Post, 15 February
2002, p. A26.
\100\ See generally, ``'Roundup': falun gong urged to abide by Hong
Kong law,'' Hong Kong China News Service (Hong Kong Zhongguo tongxun
she), 11 December 1999, in FBIS-CHI-1999-1211, 11 December 2001, and
``Editorial views PRC comments against falun gong activities in Hong
Kong,'' Hong Kong Mail, 31 January 2001, in FBIS-CHI-20010131, 31
January 2001.
\101\ See ``China's Luo Gan outlines tasks of political legal work
in 2002,'' Beijing Xinhua Domestic Service, 4 December 2001, in FBIS-
CHI-2001-1204, 7 December 2001.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ensuring political loyalty: compliance and the challenge of legitimacy
The regulation of religion in China depends on compliance, not only
to support enforcement but also as a basis for building political
legitimacy. As changing socio-economic conditions limit the state's
capacity to use force or political favouritism, compliance will depend
increasingly on voluntary acceptance of regime norms legitimated
through popular acceptance of the tradeoff of autonomy for loyalty.
Yet, to the extent that its enforcement of policies on control of
religion appears to contradict the accepted balance between autonomy
and loyalty, the regime may undermine its own legitimacy more broadly.
Changing conditions of compliance. Accelerated efforts to build a
market economy in China during the late 1990s have challenged the
regime's ability to maintain a balance between socio-economic autonomy
and political loyalty. While Party affiliation remains important, the
day-to-day livelihood of members of society has come to depend less on
political patronage and more on job skills, entrepreneurialism and
material accumulation.\102\ Although it has meted out harsh repression
against public dissent, the Chinese state seems to mirror the classic
``strong society/weak state'' paradigm,\103\ as it appears unable to
prevent increased public cynicism and quiet resistance.\104\ This
dilemma extends to its efforts to control ever-expanding religious
activity, which not only reveals the resilience of religious belief but
also suggests limits to the state's capacity to control religious
behaviour.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\102\ Merle Goldman and Roderick MacFarquhar, ``Dynamic economy,
declining party-state,'' in Goldman and MacFarquhar (eds.), The Paradox
of China's Post-Mao Reforms (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1999) pp. 3-29.
\103\ Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1988).
\104\ Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark Selden, ``Introduction: reform
and resistance in contemporary China,'' in Perry and Selden (eds.),
Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance (London: Routledge,
2000), pp. 1-19.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Made possible by the regime's grant of broader social autonomy, the
increase in religious activity in China reveals patterns of compliance
and resistance regarding norms of political loyalty. Patterns of
compliance are evident in participation in religions that are formally
registered with the Religious Affairs Bureau, such as strong public
attendance at patriotic Christian churches,\105\ Buddhist and Daoist
temples,\106\ and mosques.\107\ Similarly, participation in family
centred folk religion expresses norms of compliance to the extent that
open conflict with political authority is avoided. These models of
compliance-based religious activities appear as a public norm for
religious behaviour in China that is tolerated by the regime.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\105\ ``Chinese Christians flock to official, underground
churches,'' Agence France Presse HK, 25 December 2000, in FBIS-CHI-
2000-1225, 27 December 2000.
\106\ ``PRC refutes charges on religious affairs,'' Beijing Xinhua
English Service, 8 December 1999, in FBIS-CHI-1999-1208, 8 December
1999. Also see China Daily, 18 December 2002, p. 1.
\107\ China Daily, 12 December 2002, p. 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Patterns of resistance in religious behaviour are also evident,
however. The
audacity of falun gong practitioners in public displays of resistance
has gained significant attention within China and internationally.\108\
In Tibet, government crackdowns have politicized religious activities
that are viewed locally as matters of
national identity.\109\ By its efforts to control or even suppress
religious activities in Tibet, the government has set in motion forces
of resistance that bring together the interrelated but quite distinct
dynamics of national identity and nationalism. Resistance has included
open demonstrations against Chinese, combined with underground efforts
to promote independent education in Tibetan Buddhism and loyalty to the
Dalai Lama, all of which present serious challenges to the Chinese
government. In Xinjiang, Islam presents a fundamental challenge, due to
the combination of religious resistance to political authority and
ethnic resistance to Han-dominated imperialism.\110\ While separatists
have been emboldened by the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan and though
Islamic revivalism is certainly in evidence,\111\ most unrest in
Xinjiang appears to be the result of Uyghur ethnic hostility to Chinese
policies of Han migration and subordination of local language and
culture, rather than the product of Islam per se.\112\ And though
tensions reportedly exist in Xinjiang between Sunni and Shi'ite
(particularly Wahhabist) Muslims, these have not yet diminished
resistance to Han dominance.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\108\ For discussion, see Richard Madsen, ``Understanding falun
gong,'' Current History, September 2000, pp. 243117; Elizabeth J.
Perry, ``Challenging the mandate of heaven: popular protest in modern
China,'' Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 33, No. 2 (2001), pp. 163-180.
\109\ See generally, Elliot Sperling, ``Statement before US Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific
Affairs'' (13 June 2000), Human Rights Watch.
\110\ See generally, Dru Gladney, ``Internal colonialism and
China's Uyghur Muslim minority,'' Regional Issues (Leiden University
Newsletter, 25 November 1988).
\111\ See Raphael Israeli, ``A new wave of Muslim revivalism in
mainland China,'' Issues & Studies, Vol. 33, No. 3 (March 1997), pp.
21-41.
\112\ See generally, Nicolas Becquelin, ``Xinjiang in the
nineties,'' The China Journal, No. 44 (July 2000), pp. 65-91, Felix
Chang, ``China's Central Asian power and problems: fresh perspectives
on East Asia's future,'' Orbis, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Summer 1997), pp. 401-
426; Sean L. Yom, ``Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang,'' Self Determination
Conflict Profile (2001); Colin Mackerras, ``The minorities:
achievements and problems in the economy, national integration and
foreign relations,'' China Review 1998, pp. 281-311
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unofficial Christian churches also reflect a dynamic of resistance.
While Christianity offers perhaps a more salient example of foreign
influence, it has become increasingly sinicized through the inclusion
of features of folk religion and traditional cultural forms, thus
making its expression of resistance all the more threatening to the
regime.\113\ The underground Catholic Church has been portrayed as
particularly threatening to CCP policies of political control, although
the Protestant house church movement is potentially a greater threat.
The house churches are described by local and foreign observers as both
larger and more deeply entrenched in Chinese society than the patriotic
Christian churches associated with norms of compliance.\114\ Moreover,
the informal and decentralized processes for naming Church leaders
defies the government's formalistic approach to control through
registration and bureaucratic supervision. Periodic efforts to raid
house church services and to imprison house church leaders have
received little public attention, but are seen by many as an
unwarranted intrusion in social affairs. Yet the house church movement
continues to swell, such that the numbers of adherents is viewed as at
least double the population in the patriotic registered Christian
churches.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\113\ Stephan Feuchtwang, ``Religion as resistance,'' in Perry and
Selden, Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance, pp. 161-177
at p. 167.
\114\ See e.g. ``China shuts down, blows up churches, temples in
religious crackdown,'' Agence France Presse HK, 12 December 2000, in
FBIS-CHI-2000-1212, 14 December 2000; ``Chinese Christians flock to
official, underground churches,'' Agence France Presse HK, 25 December
2000, in FBIS-CHI-2000-1225, 27 December 2000.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The challenges to legitimacy. Changing conditions of compliance
with government controls on religion pose problems for the regime's
effort to build legitimacy for its regulatory efforts and for its
political position generally. In light of the increasing numbers of
religious believers in China, building legitimacy for government
policies on religion will require compliance from. believers
themselves. Thus, the regime differentiates between religious
practitioners engaged in compliance and resistance, through legal and
regulatory provisions distinguishing ``normal'' from heretical
religious practices. The regime's underlying imperative of stifling
heterodoxy is evident in the fact that its targets tend to be sects
within the recognized religions whose activities challenge Party and
state authority.\115\ At the December 2001 national work conference on
religion, for example, senior leaders distinguished between ``normal''
religious activities and heretical conduct associated with sects.\116\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\115\ See e.g., Luo Shuze, ``Some hot issues in our work on
religion;'' ``Regulations from the Shanghai Religious Affairs Bureau,''
Articles 3-5.
\116\ ``Jiang Zemin, Zhu Rongji address religious work
conference.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
These efforts are consistent with the regime's historical practices
of identifying and enforcing norms of social conformity by denigrating
and attacking nonconformists. Regulation of religion in China is used
not only to control religious practices but also to express the
boundaries of tolerance and repression so as to isolate resistance and
privilege communities loyal to the party-state. Thus, the government
promises tolerance for the compliant and repression for the resistant.
Yet the effectiveness of these policies depends on a normative
consensus around both the content of policy and law and the processes
of enforcement.\117\ As suggested by Lyman Miller in the context of the
scientific community, when members of Chinese society owe their loyalty
to norms more powerful than those articulated by the Chinese
government, regime legitimacy becomes a critical problem.\118\ Just as
scientists, owe a higher loyalty to the norms of science, so too do
religious believers owe a higher loyalty to their own religious norms
that may force a choice between loyalty to the regime and faithfulness
to belief. To the extent that policies on regulation of religion
require a degree of subservience that is inconsistent with religious
conviction, compliance will be elusive. And if enforcement of these
policies can be achieved only through repression, the distinction
between compliance and resistance may fade as religious believers find
compliance unworkable and are driven even further underground.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\117\ See generally, Felix Scharpf, ``Interdependence and
democratic legitimation,'' in Susan J. Pharr and Robert D. Putnam
(eds.), Disaffected Democracies: What's Troubling the Trilateral
Countries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).
\118\ Lyman Miller, Science and Dissent in Post-Mao China (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1996).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A more fundamental dimension of legitimation concerns members of
society at large, who view the religious question as emblematic of
other elements of social policy where the grant of socio-economic
autonomy is a key condition for continued political subservience. The
regime's handling of religion serves notice to the general populace
about the contours of the tradeoff of autonomy and loyalty, and thus
has implications for regime legitimacy more broadly. In this process
the regime faces challenges of history, socio-economic change and
bureaucracy. The challenge of history limits perceptions of and
responses to current conditions, particularly concerning the
relationship between religion and social stability.\119\ The historical
record suggests that dynastic weakness and instability tended to arise
not from tolerance of pluralism and diversity, but rather from the
government's inability to respond to socio-economic change. In the late
Qing, for example, the court failed to respond effectively to the
emergence of the private sector as a locus of power, and was thereby
unable to protect its own political authority.\120\ National unity
during earlier dynasties was supported by transportation and logistics
networks, currency policies, and market systems, rather than
suppression of intellectual dissent.\121\ Nevertheless, the historical
myth that diversity in social relations and religious belief undermines
the strength of the regime continues to inform Communist Party policy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\119\ W.J.F. Jenner, The Tyranny of History: The Roots of China's
Crisis (London: Penguin, 1992), pp. 193-201.
\120\ See Susan Mann Jones and Philip A. Kuhn, ``Dynastic decline
and the roots of rebellion,'' in John K. Fairbank (ed.), The Cambridge
History of China: Volume 10--Late Ch'ing 1800-1911 Part I (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 107-162.
\121\ See generally, Mark Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past: A
Social and Economic Interpretation (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1973).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The link between religion and legitimacy is also evident in regime
responses to socio-economic change, particularly economic dislocation
brought on by the market reforms and the impact of globalization.\122\
While the many informal networks and social safety nets already
available in China will help cushion the shock, religion provides an
important source of comfort for the dispossessed. This both reflects
and contributes to the declining power of traditional ideological bases
for regime legitimacy. As regime goals change from social well-being to
market facilitation, regime legitimacy will depend increasingly on the
delivery of public goods and services.\123\ With economic reform,
however, the Chinese state has become a vehicle for socio-economic
inequality--facilitating economic opportunity for a few privileged
individuals and groups, while deploying the mechanisms of repression to
keep the rest of society in check.\124\ In the face of its inability to
protect public welfare, official repression of those outlets in
religion to which increasing numbers of people resort will be likely to
contribute to the regime's legitimacy deficit.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\122\ See e.g. Dorothy Solinger, ``The cost of China's entry into
WTO,'' Asian Wall Street Journal, 4 January 2002.
\123\ See generally, Nikolas Rose, ``Governing liberty,'' in
Richard V. Ericson and Nico Stehr (eds.), Governing Modern Societies
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), pp. 141-175.
\124\ See generally, Michael A. Santoro, Profits and Principles:
Global Capitalism and Human Rights in China (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 2000; Michael Dutton, Streetlife China (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998). The remarkable effort by Peking University's
China Centre for Economic Research to support research and policymaking
in this area reflects recognition of the depth of the problem of
economic inequality and the as-yet insufficient resources for resolving
it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, the bureaucratic culture of the Chinese regulatory regime
also poses problems for legitimacy. In the context of gradual social
liberalization, which the regime has fostered, bureaucratic control of
religion is seen by many as intruding on intensely personal
matters.\125\ The potential for popular alienation is compounded as the
policy and regulatory frameworks by which the party-state defines and
implements the parameters for accepted religious conduct remain
relatively impervious to public scrutiny. The resilience of
bureaucratic behaviour generally continues to entrench the habitual
practices of state control mechanisms associated with Party policy on
religion, undermining further their effectiveness in responding to
changing social and spiritual needs. These needs include both religion
as solace for socio-economic dislocation, and generalized expectations
about social autonomy. So far, we search in vain for a parallel in
China to what is described as the ``European exception'' where the
church and state were driven by the challenge of heresy to transcend
their institutional and ideological limitations and respond effectively
to changing socio-economic conditions.\126\ In the wake of bureaucratic
stagnation in China, response to change remains problematic and
legitimacy continues to decline.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\125\ Richard Madsen, China's Catholics: Tragedy and Hope in an
Emerging Civil Society (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1998), p. 108.
\126\ See Mihaly Vajda, ``East-Central European perspectives,'' in
John Keane (ed.), Civil Society and the State (London: Verso Press,
1988), pp. 333-360 at p. 346.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONCLUSION
The Chinese government's policies and practices on religion offer a
useful example of the dilemmas of regulation of social relations
generally. Through its policies
supporting graduate liberalization of socioeconomic relations, the
party-state has created rising expectations about popular autonomy.
While the regime faces the imperative of repressing aspects of socio-
economic change that threaten its political authority, it must still
present a general image of tolerance for increased autonomy among the
populace at large. Maintaining this balance is particularly critical in
the area of religion, which is both a highly personal and internalized
system of norms for belief and behaviour, and a response to regime
failures to provide well-being for its citizens. Regulation of religion
reflects Party policies granting limited autonomy for accepted
practices while attempting to repress activities that challenge
political orthodoxy. Legitimacy remains a key ingredient, not only as a
basis for effective government regulation of religion but also as a
product of such regulation to the extent that it can acquire popular
support for official preferences on the balance between autonomy and
loyalty. The regime's ability to sustain legitimacy both for and
through its regulation of religion remains uncertain however, as the
utility and
effectiveness of control remain contested.
______
Prepared Statement of Bob Fu
NOVEMBER 18, 2004
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Co-chairman and honorable Commission
members, for giving me the privilege and the honor of being here today.
My expertise has been the Protestant house churches of China. I would
like to thank President Bush for highlighting this important issue of
religious freedom manifested both in his public remarks and private
conversations. I applaud the effort from some Members of Congress
especially Congressman Wolf, whose request made today's hearing
possible. All these efforts have produced fruit in one way or another.
At least after President Bush took office in 2001, all the diplomats
from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs were required to study
religion, especially Christianity. So you would not be surprised to
hear a few quotes from the Holy Bible from the mouths of Chinese
Communist Party officials when you meet with them.
Mr. Chairman, Co-Chairman and members of this commission, the
condition of religious persecution in China overall has been
deteriorating particularly since the year 2002. Though it's difficult
to give an exact number, without including Falun Gong practitioners,
20,000 plus members of underground religious groups have been arrested,
or detained, kidnapped or under house arrest. Hundreds of churches and
homes have been destroyed. Many of the family members of those
arrested, detained, for example Zhang Rongliang, have been put on
wanted lists and have had to flee their homes. Among those persecuted
Protestant house church groups, one known as the South China Church,
had over 6000 members arrested, detained, fined, 63 were formally
sentenced from one year to life in prison. Many of the arrested
believers, especially women, were tortured, raped, or sexually abused
during their interrogations. One would expect a better start once the
new leadership took office in 2003. What has happened doesn't match
this expectation. Just within the first 9 months of this year we have
recorded over 400 arrests of house church pastors. Just within the
month of September, 13 pastors were formally sent to re-education
through labor in Henan Province alone. One of these pastors, Pastor
Ping Xinsheng, has lost consciousness three times since his arrest on
August 6 because of repeated beatings by his interrogators. On June 18,
a Christian woman, Mrs. Jiang Zongxiu from Chongqing City was beaten to
death just simply because she was found distributing Bibles and
Christian tracts in the market place. On September 11, Pastor Cai
Zhuohua, a Beijing house church leader ministering to six churches, was
kidnapped in Beijing for his involvement in printing Bibles and a house
church magazine called ``Ai Yan.'' Now both pastor Cai and his wife,
Mrs. Xiao Yunfei could face and extremely harsh sentence.
Mr. Chairman, I know some would argue that what I have mentioned
may be just local events in particular areas disproportionately. I wish
I could believe that. In reality, despite so-called ``paradigm shift''
rhetoric by the Chinese government and ``wishful thinking'' by foreign
companies with business interest in China, the evidence proves the
contrary. Let me present to you just two pieces of evidence out of
numerous documents China Aid has obtained through disheartened Chinese
officials.
Though we haven't uncovered the full text, through at least two
local government documents, we now know that sometime in the beginning
of 2002, the CCP Central Committee issued a secret document coded
``Zhongfu [2002] No. 3'' and titled ``Decision on Re-enforcing the work
on Religion by the Central Committee of CCP.'' Again through the
wording of local government documents deemed to implement this secret
document, it calls for government officials at every level to launch an
all out war against any unregistered religious group. I want to note
that it seems there as been a concerted campaign to target particularly
underground house churches and Catholic churches. In many areas, such
as Zhejiang, Henan, Hebei, and Shandong we have obtained official
documents showing that special campaigns were launched aiming
specifically at the previously mentioned Christian groups. In Chinese
it is called ``Zhuanxiang Dong Zheng'' which means ``special
struggle.'' Harsh tactics against Falun Gong practitioners were adopted
such as coerced political study at concentration camps, mental
transformation and re-education through hard labor.
The other document we released yesterday is a secret document we
obtained from a currently high ranking Communist Party official who is
very unhappy with the repressive party policy toward religious groups
in China. It is a document from the highest level of Chinese government
that we have ever been able to obtain. This document, entitled ``Notice
on Further Strengthening Marxist Atheism Research, Propaganda and
Education'' dated May 27, 2004, is a notice named ``Zhong Xuan Fa
[2004] No.13'' issued jointly by the Department of Propaganda of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Department
of Propaganda of the Central Committee of the CPC, the Office of the
Central Steering Committee on Spiritual Civilization Construction, the
Communist Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC and Ministry
of Education as well as China Academy of
Social Science and it is classified as a ``secret document.'' It is
addressed to the
Department of Personnel, the Department of Propaganda, the Office of
Spiritual Civilization Construction, and the Communist Party School of
the Communist Party Committee, and the Department of Education of all
provinces, autonomous regions and metropolises, the Communist Party
Committee of all departments, ministries and commissions of the
Communist Party and the state organs, and the General Department of
Political Affairs of the People's Liberation Army. Copies of the
document were to be submitted to members and alternate members of the
Politburo of the Central Committee, Secretary of the Secretariat of the
Central Committee, Premier, Vice Premier and State Counselors of the
State Council. It was copied to the General Office of the Central
Committee, the General Office of the State Council and distributed by
the Secretariat of the General Office of the Department of Propaganda
of the Central Committee on May 28, 2004. This secret document was
distributed with only 750 copies in total.
1. This secret notice is issued in order to ``further boost
Marxist atheism research, propaganda, and education.'' It
reflects a new assessment from the top Party leaders in light
of ``the new situation to target the cultic organization of
`Falun Gong' and various pseudo-sciences and superstitions, and
the new trend toward Western `hostile forces' attempting to
`westernize' and `disintegrate' China in the name of
religion.'' It calls for the government to keep a tight hold on
all national education, media communications, research on
social sciences, spiritual civilization construction activities
of the people, the trainings conducted by the Communist Party
School and administrative institutions at different levels, and
others. Particular attention shall be centered on the Party
cadres and juveniles so that ``. . . fatuity and superstition
are opposed, and evil teachings and heterodox are boycotted.''
It specifically demands the Communist Party School and
administrative institutions in western and border regions with
multi ethnic groups and religions to ``increase the proportion
of Marxist atheism propaganda and education targeting local
leaders.'' It urges Marxist atheism propaganda and education to
be integrated into all sectors of society throughout the
country in all levels. All efficient measures shall be taken to
``ban all uncivilized conduct in spreading superstitions'' in
order to cause `peoples' minds to be educated, spirits
enriched, their state of thought improved.''
2. It paid special attention to the role of mass media. It
calls to all the broadcasting, TV, newspapers, and magazines
and asks them to develop their respective advantages to
earnestly publicize Marxist atheism. Particularly, regarding
the Internet, it instructs the key websites to strengthen their
``management over online comments and make the Internet a new
tool to conduct Marxist atheism propaganda and education.'' It
strongly asks all the media and government officials to
``firmly ban all illegal publications which disseminate
superstitions and evil teachings.'' This policy seems to be a
direct reference regarding the recent campaign on closing
websites, arresting individuals and banning publications with
dissident voices.
3. Regarding the academic exchange of conducting research on
religion with foreigners, this notice calls for ``the relevant
regulations of the state to be strictly followed.'' It calls
``the procedure on approving and recording shall be made
sound'' which means more scrutiny will be posed for foreign
exchange program on religious studies.
4. Though the document repeated its old policy to ``fully
implement the party's policy on freedom of religious belief,
respect people's freedom to believe religion or not to believe
religion'' yet it calls the atheistic officials to ``make
distinction between religion and superstition'' which are
inevitably going to cause arbitrary classification on religious
groups.
In addition to continuing to raise the issue of religious
persecution in high level bilateral talks I have four specific
proposals on how the US can help achieve the goals of religious freedom
in China.
1. The U.S. Government can compile a list of religious
persecutors in China and make it public record includes such
information as the annual report by the IRF and DRL Office.
Also the possibility should be explored of holding such
perpetrators accountable in legal venues upon entering the
United States. This will encourage more humane treatment by
officials toward those who are
arrested.
2. With the 2008 Beijing Olympics approaching, this
government should encourage the U.S. business community to
actively link their financial sponsorship and investments to
China with the issue of religious freedom. U.S. firms should be
discouraged from investing in those provinces and cities with
severe religious persecution. The Members of Congress whose
districts have business interests in China can raise the same
concern to their Chinese counterpart officials.
3. The administration and Congress should urge the EU not to
lift its arms embargo to China unless substantial progresses
are made on human rights especially on religious freedom issue.
4. The administration and Congress should actively demand the
Chinese government to abide its international obligations to
protect and provide basic necessities for refugees in China
from North Korea who fled for freedom including religious
freedom.
Above all, I think millions of caring, loving ordinary Americans
can make a huge difference through their constant prayers, letter
campaigns, and numerous visits, as well as, embracing Chinese religious
refugees when they enter into US for freedom of worship.
In conclusion, the overall situation of religious freedom in China
has been worsening since 2002 and nationwide campaigns against
unregistered religious groups, especially underground Protestant and
Catholic groups are continuing as we speak. Thank you all once again.
Appendix I: Secret Document
ISSUED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF PROPAGANDA OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE
CPC: NO. (2004) 13--ENGLSIH VERSION
Secret
The Department of Personnel of the Central Committee of the
CPC; The Department of Propaganda of the Central
Committee of the CPC; The Office of the Central
Steering Committee on Spiritual Civilization
Construction; The Communist Party School of the
Central Committee of the CPC; Ministry of
Education; and China Academy of Social Science
Document
Notice on Further Strengthening Marxist Atheism Research, Propaganda
and Education
To the Department of Personnel, the Department of Propaganda, the
Office of Spiritual Civilization Construction, and the Communist Party
School of the
Communist Party Committee, and the Department of Education of all
provinces, autonomous regions and metropolises, the Communist Party
Committee of all departments, ministries and commissions of the
Communist Party and the state organs, and the General Department of
Political Affairs of the People's Liberation Army:
The following notice is hereby issued in order to earnestly
implement ``the Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party on Further Prospering and Developing Philosophical Social
Science,'' and further boost Marxist atheism research, propaganda, and
education.
1. Fully understand the significance of strengthening Marxist
atheism research, propaganda and education. Marxist atheism is
an important integral part of the world view of dialectical
materialism and historical materialism. Our party has long held
in high regard Marxist atheism research, propaganda and
education, created and accumulated many valuable experiences in
practice, and achieved remarkable social effects. Our Nation
has entered into a new development stage, during which a more
prosperous society (Xiaokang) [1] is under construction, and
the socialist modernization drive is expedited. Facing the new
task of reform, development and stability, the new demand of
the people on spiritual and cultural life, the new situation on
targeting the cultic organization of ``Falun gong'' and various
pseudo-science and superstition, and the new trend toward
Western hostile forces' attempt to ``westernize'' and
``disintegrating'' China in the name of religion, we need to
further strengthen Marxist atheism research, propaganda and
education, which is of great significance to consolidating the
directive status of Marxism in ideological field, maintaining
the advancement and purity of our party, improving the
spiritual, moral, scientific and cultural makings of the whole
nation, laying a solid foundation for the concerted endeavors
of the whole party and the whole people, and promoting the
harmonious development of a socialist materialist civilization,
political civilization and spiritual civilization.
2. Instructions on how to conduct Marxist atheism research,
propaganda and education. Marxist atheism research, propaganda
and education shall be strengthened under the directive of
Marxism, Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory,
and the important ``Three Representing'' thought,[2] aiming at
consolidating the directive status of Marxism in ideological
field, centering on economic construction, serving the overall
working situation of the party and state, promoting the
comprehensive progress of the society and the complete
development of each individual, liberating thought, being
practical and realistic, following time and tide, paying
attention to people's needs, coming close to reality, life and
people, making relevant work well on target and efficient.
Efforts shall be centered on positive propaganda and education,
using the facts, speaking the truth, being patient and
meticulous, and imperceptibly influencing the people. Research,
propaganda, and education shall be coordinated, enriching the
contents of propaganda and education with research results, and
deepening research with propaganda and education. Hold tightly
to national education, media communications, research on social
sciences, spiritual civilization construction activities of the
people, the training conducted by the Communist Party School
and administrative institutions at different levels. Popular
theoretical and practical issues shall be dealt with in time.
Attention shall be centered on the party cadres and juveniles.
And relevant work shall be done persistently and incessantly,
with an effort to create healthy social values, and good social
environment, under which science and civilization are
advocated, fatuity and superstition are opposed, and evil
teachings and heterodox are boycotted.
3. Major tasks of Marxist atheism research, propaganda and
education. Marxist atheism research, propaganda and education
shall be centered on popularizing the fundamental materialist
views and basic knowledge of natural science, aiming at the
elimination of fatuity and superstition, surrounding the
subject of publicizing scientific thought, expanding scientific
spirit, popularizing scientific knowledge, and disseminating
the scientific method. We shall strengthen the research,
propaganda and education of the basic principles and knowledge
of Marxist materialism, helping people recognize the general
process and rule of the development of human society, so that
they may voluntarily and firmly stick to the historical view of
Marxist materialism. Aiming at the phenomenon of fatuity and
superstition, which exists among some people, we shall
strengthen the research, propaganda and education of natural
science, particularly the basic knowledge about life, helping
people understand the universe, the origin of life, the rule on
human evolution, and correctly deal with various natural
phenomena, natural disasters, birth, aging, disease and death.
We shall also strengthen the research, propaganda and education
of a healthy and civilized life style, helping people acquire
the habit of good behavior, and scientifically and reasonably
conduct physical exercises, health care, living, sightseeing,
recreation and entertainment. And through unswerving efforts,
we shall lead people in firmly setting up the correct world
view, philosophy of life, and values, and scientific view of
nature, universe and life, and strengthen their ability to
distinguish materialism from spiritualism, science from
superstition, and civilization from fatuity.
4. Integrating Marxist atheism propaganda and education into
national education, teaching and training of the Communist
Party School and administrative institutions. Various levels
and types of school are important places, where Marxist atheism
propaganda and education may be conducted. Aiming at
cultivating ``four having'' [3] new people, and sticking to the
principle of separation of national education and religion, we
shall integrate Marxist atheism propaganda and education into
the syllabi of the course of political theory, the course of
morals, and other related courses of specialty, conducting
propaganda and education pointedly according to the characters
of students of different ages, thus ensuring the actualization
of the teaching contents and requirements. The Communist Party
School and administrative institutes at all levels, as the
major places where the party and government leaders, and the
civil servants receive their training, shall integrate Marxist
atheism propaganda and education into their teaching plans,
conducting propaganda and education in various ways. The
Communist Party School and administrative institutes in western
and border regions shall, in considering the real situation of
multi ethnic groups and religions, properly increase the
proportion of Marxist atheism propaganda and education
targeting local leaders.
5. Integrating Marxist atheism propaganda and education into
people's spiritual civilization construction activities.
People's spiritual civilization construction activities are the
great products of the people in changing their customs and
reforming the society, and are of great significance in
carrying Marxist atheism propaganda and education. Marxist
atheism propaganda and education shall be integrated into such
activities as constructing civilized cities, villages, and
vocations, which are under way throughout the country,
introducing
culture, science, technology, and health to the villagers,
introducing science, education, culture, sports, law and health
to communities, developing civilized tourist sites, building
safe and civilized campuses, and so on, and be weaved into
different phases of planning, designing, and implementing. And
efficient measures shall be taken to ban all uncivilized
conduct in spreading superstitions. Through closely following
the real production and living situation of cadres and people,
we shall combine Marxist atheism propaganda and education with
the change of old habits into new ones, with conducting
peoples' cultural and sports activities, and satisfying
peoples' spiritual and cultural demands, with popularizing
knowledge on laws, rules and regulations, and improving
peoples' legal awareness, and with popularizing scientific
knowledge, and improving peoples' scientific thinking, thus
causing peoples' minds to be educated, spirits enriched, their
state of thought improved.
6. Marxist atheism propaganda and education as daily work of
the media. The media, which directly reaches people, has speedy
communication, wide coverage, and strong influence, is an
important channel through which Marxist atheism propaganda and
education can be conducted. Broadcasting, TV, newspapers, and
magazines shall develop their respective advantages, earnestly
manage science and technology programs, and pages and subjects
on theory, in accordance with the different needs of their
audience, and publicize Marxist atheism and scientific
knowledge. Internet is speedy, convenient, reciprocal and open.
We shall enrich the pages and sections related to morals of
some key websites, strengthen the instruction and management
over online comments, and make the Internet a new tool to
conduct Marxist atheism propaganda and education. To publicize
Marxist atheism, we shall positively use films, TV programs,
books, electronic publications, and other things to people's
taste, and firmly ban all illegal publications, which
disseminate superstitions and evil teachings.
7. Integrating Marxist atheism research, as a key subject,
into the developing a plan of social science. Thorough research
on Marxist atheism is an important task in prospering
philosophical social science. National Fund on Social Science
and all research programs on philosophical social science shall
involve atheism research in such directive documents as subject
instructions issued by corresponding departments, and provide
required funding through public bidding and special trust. In
light of the overall situation of the construction of a more
prosperous society, reform, development and stability, the
current international and domestic situation, the serious harm
caused by superstition, pseudo-science and cult, and the actual
mindset of cadres and people, we shall conduct purposeful
research, and try to achieve certain results, which are deeply
theoretical, academically valuable, and socially influential.
We shall strengthen the construction of Marxist atheism
department and the training of talented people in this field,
by well run atheism research institutions and related
departments in colleges and universities, establish and train
an atheism research team, which is armed with Marxism. The
relevant regulations of the state shall be strictly followed in
conducting foreign academic exchange and joint research on
religion. The procedure on approving and recording shall be
made sound.
8. Firmly strengthening the leadership over Marxist atheism
research, propaganda and education. To strengthen Marxist
atheism research, propaganda and education is an important,
long-term and pressing task. The party committees at all levels
shall integrate it, as an important content in developing
advanced socialist culture, into scientific research plan and
overall arrangements on propaganda, put it at the top of the
agenda, make concrete plans, adopt actual measures, and bring
it into full implementation. We shall fully implement the
party's policy on freedom of religious belief, respect people's
freedom to believe religion or not to believe religion, and
make distinction between religion and superstition. The party
members, especially leading party cadre, shall strengthen their
party culture continuously, hold firmly to materialist world
view, and voluntarily set an example in studying and
disseminating Marxist atheism. All
relevant departments of the party and government, all relevant
teaching and scientific research institutions, and all relevant
social sectors shall, under the leadership of the party
committees, fulfill their duties, closely coordinate with each
other, positively explore the characters and rules on
conducting Marxist atheism research, propaganda and education
under new situations, continuously improve and renovate working
contents, forms, manners and instruments, and make our best
endeavor to improve the standard of Marxist atheism research,
propaganda and education.
Seals of the Department of Personnel of the Central Committee of the
CPC, the Department of Propaganda of the Central Committee of the CPC,
the Office of the Central Steering Committee on Spiritual Civilization
Construction, the Communist Party School of the Central Committee of
the CPC, the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China,
China Academy of Social Science--May 27, 2004
Key Words: Marxism, propaganda and education, notice Submit to:
members and alternate members of the Politburo of the Central
Committee, Secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee,
Premier, Vice Premier and State Counselors of the State Council
Copy to: the General Office of the Central Committee, the General
Office of the State Council Distributed by the Secretariat of the
General Office of the Department of Propaganda of the Central Committee
on May 28, 2004. Total copies: 750.
Appendix II: A Partial List of the Prisoners From Chinese House
Churches Compiled by China Aid Association, Inc. November 12, 2004
(I) The Martyred (5):
1. Sister Jiang Zongxiu
Age: 34; Arrested for distributing Bibles in the market
place. She was beaten to death June 18, 2004 at the Public
Security Bureau Office of Tongzi County, Guizhou Province. She
leaves behind a husband and 4 year old son.
2. Pastor Gu Xianggao
Age: 28; A teacher in a house church in Heilongjiang
Province, northeast China. He was beaten to death April 27,
2004, while in the custody of Harbin Public Security Bureau
(PSB), Heilongjiang Province.
3. Sister Yu Zhongju
Arrested: May 27, 2001, by Zhongxiang Public Security Bureau
(PSB), Hubei Province. She was beaten to death July 18, 2001.
She leaves behind a husband and a 9-year-old son Wang Yu.
4. Sister Zhang Hongmei
Age: 33; Arrested: Oct. 29, 2003 as an ``illegal
evangelist.'' She was beaten to death on Oct. 30, 2003 by
Pingdu City Public Security Bureau (PSB), Shandong Province.
5. Brother Liu Haitao
Age: 21; From Xiayi County, Henan Province Arrested: Sept. 4,
2000, while attending a house church pastoral training. He was
beaten to death on Oct. 16, 2000, Qingyang City Detention
Center, Henan Province.
(II) The Arrested (42):
1. Mr. Zhang Yinan
Chinese church Historian Arrested: Sept. 30, 2003, by Lushan
County Public Security Bureau (PSB), Henan Province. He was
sentenced to 2 years re-education through labor on Nov. 3,
2003. He is now held at Peide Labor Camp, Pingdingshan City,
Henan Province.
2. Pastor Gong Shengliang
Age: 52; From: Zaoyang City, Hubei Province. Arrested: August
9, 2001; He was sentenced to life in prison on Oct. 10, 2002,
by the Intermediate Court of Jingmen City, Hubei Province. Now
he is held at Section Four, Te Yi Hao, Miaoshan Development
Zone, Jiangxia District, Wainan City, Hubei Province.
3. Brother Chen Jingmao
Age: 72; From: Yunyang County, Chongqing City. Arrested: July
9 2001. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison on Oct. 10, 2002
for sending his granddaughter to Sunday school training class
run by his house church group. He was recently beaten and
crippled for evangelizing in Sanxia Prison, Wanzhou, Chongqing
City.
4. Mr. Zhang Shenqi
Age: 24; Arrested on Nov. 26, 2003 as a house church Internet
writer The Intermediate Court of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang
Province, tried him on March 16, 2004, and sentenced him to 1
year in prison on August 6, 2004. He is now held at Detention
Center of Xiaoshan City, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province.
5. Sister Li Ying
Age: 39; From Zaoyang City, Hubei Province Arrested: May 26,
2001. She was the editor-in-chief of ``Salvation and China''
house church magazine. She was sentenced to 15 years in prison
by the Intermediate Court of Jingmen City. Hubei Province. She
is held at No. 2 Division, Section 3, Wuhan Female Prison,
Wuhan city, Hubei Province. Zip code: 430032.
6. Pastor Liu Fenggang
Age: 44; Arrested: Oct. 13, 2003, tried by the Intermediate
Court of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province on March 16, 2004.
Convicted by the same court and sentenced August 6, 2004 to 3
years in prison. Currently held at Detention Center of Xiaoshan
City, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province.
7. Pastor Chen Yanjing
Age: 25; Arrested on August 6, 2004 at Kaifeng City, Henan
Province. He was sentenced to 2 years on Sept. 8, 2004 as a
member of an ``evil cult'' known as ``Born Again Movement''--
house church group. He is now held at No. 3 Re-education
through Labor Center, Henan Province.
8. Xu Shengguang
Arrested: April 26, 2004. Imprisoned at No. 1 Detention
Center of Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province.
9. Sister Qiao Chunling
Arrested on Jan. 24, 2004 at Luoyang city by PSB of Luoyang
city, Henan Province. She was reportedly sentenced to 2 years
re-education through labor and is believed being held at No. 1
Female Re-education through Labor Center, Zhengzhou city, Henan
Province.
10. Pastor Cai Zhuohua
Age: 33; He was arrested on September 11, 2004 by Department
of National Security in Beijing for printing ``illegal
religious literatures.'' His wife Xiao Yunfei, 32, was also
arrested on September 27, 2004. They have a 4 years old son Cai
Yabo.
11. Pastor Zhang Wanshun
Age: 41; He was arrested on August 6, 2004 by PSB of Kaifeng
city, Henan Province for ``illegal religious gathering.'' He
was accused as an active ``evil cult'' member and sentenced to
21 months re-education through labor on September 10, 2004. He
is now held at San Men Xia Re-education through Labor Center,
Henan Province.
12. Pastor Ping Xinsheng
Age: 40; He was arrested on August 7, 2004 by PSB of Yima
city, Henan Province for ``illegal religious gathering.'' He
was accused as an active ``evil cult'' member and sentenced to
18 months re-education through labor on September 10, 2004. He
is now held at San Men Xia Re-education through Labor Center,
Henan Province. His wife Ms. Huang Xuehua who is also a house
church leader is wanted by PSB.
13. Pastor Guo Zhumei
Age: 58; She was arrested on August 6, 2004 by PSB of Kaifeng
city, Henan Province for ``illegal religious gathering.'' She
was accused as an active ``evil cult'' member and sentenced to
18 months re-education through labor on September 10, 2004. Due
to her serious illness, she is on medical parole from No.
Female Re-education through Labor Center, Shi Ba Li He,
Zhengzhou city, Henan Province on October 20, 2004.
14. Pastor Yang Jianshe
Age: 47; He was arrested on August 6, 2004 by PSB of Kaifeng
city, Henan Province for ``illegal religious gathering.'' He
was accused as an active ``evil cult'' member and sentenced to
12 months re-education through labor on September 20, 2004. He
is now held at Re-education through Labor Center of Mengjin
county, Henan Province.
15. Pastor Zhang Weifang
Age: 45; He was arrested on August 6, 2004 by PSB of Kaifeng
city, Henan Province for ``illegal religious gathering.'' He
was accused as an active ``evil cult'' member and sentenced to
12 months re-education through labor on September 20, 2004. He
is now held at Da Qiao Re-education through Labor Center,
Luoyang city, Henan Province.
16. Pastor Zhang Tianyun
Age: 52; He was arrested on August 6, 2004 by PSB of Kaifeng
city, Henan Province for ``illegal religious gathering.'' He
was accused as an active ``evil cult'' member and sentenced to
30 months re-education through labor on September 5, 2004. He
is now held at Re-education through Labor Center, Xuchang city,
Henan Province.
17. Pastor Yu Xiangzhi
Age: 41; She was arrested with her husband Zhang Xiaofang and
their 11-year-old twin daughters on August 6, 2004 at their
home by PSB of Kaifeng City, Henan Province for ``illegal
religious gathering.'' She was accused as an active ``evil
cult'' member and sentenced to 12 months re-education through
labor on September 20, 2004. She is now held at the Detention
Center of Kaifeng City, Henan Province. Her twin daughters were
released after being held for 7 days at the same detention
center.
18. Pastor Yu Guoying
He was arrested on August 6, 2004 by PSB of Kaifeng city,
Henan Province for ``illegal religious gathering.'' He was
accused as an active ``evil cult'' member and sentenced to 12
months re-education through labor on September 20, 2004. He is
now held at Xi Qu Re-education through Labor Center, Kaifeng
city, Henan Province.
19. Pastor Shun Fu
He was arrested on August 6, 2004 by PSB of Kaifeng city,
Henan Province for ``illegal religious gathering.'' He was
accused as an active ``evil cult'' member and sentenced to 18
months re-education through labor on September 20, 2004. He is
now held at Re-education through Labor Center of Xuchang city,
Henan Province.
20. Pastor Li Qun
He was arrested on August 6, 2004 by PSB of Kaifeng city,
Henan Province for ``illegal religious gathering.'' He was
accused as an active ``evil cult'' member and sentenced to 12
months re-education through labor on September 20, 2004. He is
now held at Re-education through Labor Center of Xuchang city,
Henan Province.
21. Pastor Xu Fuming
Pastor Xu Fuming received a life sentence on October 10, 2002
as a member of South China Church. He is now imprisoned at
Jingzhou prison, Jingzhou city, Hubei Province. Zip code:
434020 Prison Chief: Mr. Peng Xianrong and Mr. Yang Tangxiang.
22. Mr. Hu Ying
Mr. Hu Ying received a life sentence on October 10, 2002 as a
member of South China Church. He is held at Section Five, Chu
Jiang Ran Zhi Factory, Jingzhou city, Hubei Province. Zip code:
434020 Prison Chief: Mr. Peng Xianrong and Mr. Yang Tangxiang.
23. Ms. Sun Minghua
Ms. Sun Minghua received a 13-year sentence. She is held at
No. 5 Division, Section 3, Wuhan Female Prison, Wuhan city,
Hubei Province. Zip code: 430032.
24. Ms. Xiao Yanli
Ms. Xiao Yanli received a ten-year sentence. She is held at
No. 2 Division, Section 2, Wuhan Female Prison, Wuhan city,
Hubei Province. Zip code: 430032.
25. Ms. Deng Xiaolin
Ms. Deng Xiaolin received a four-year sentence. She is held
at Section 2, Wuhan Female Prison, Wuhan city, Hubei Province.
Zip code: 430032.
26. Ms. Gong Xianqun
Ms. Gong Xianqun received a three-year sentence. She is held
at No. 3 Division, Section 3, Wuhan Female Prison, Wuhan city,
Hubei Province. Zip code: 430032.
27. Mr. Gong Bangkun
Mr. Gong Bangkun received a 15-year sentence. He is held at
No. 3 Division, Section 6, Jiangling District, Jingzhou city,
Hubei Province. Zip code: 434110.
28. Pastor Yi Chuanfu
Pastor Yi Chuanfu received a 10-year sentence. He is held at
No. 2 Division, Section 6, Jiangling District, Jingzhou city,
Hubei Province. Zip code: 434110.
29. Pastor Dong Daolai
Pastor Dong Daolai received a 10-year sentence. He is held at
No. 1 Division, Section 6, Jiangling District, Jingzhou city,
Hubei Province. Zip code: 434110.
The following Christian women prisoners were sentenced as members
of ``evil cult'' (refers to South China Church) by the People's Court
of Yunyang County, Chongqing City, on May 14, 2002. The Prison address
is: Yongchuan Female Prison, Yongchuan city, Chongqing City. Zip Code:
402164.
30. Ms. Chi Famin
Ms. Chi Famin received a 10-year sentence.
31. Ms. Tan Qong
Ms. Tan Qong received a seven-year sentence.
32. Ms. Yi Qongling
Ms. Yi Qongling received a seven-year sentence.
33. Ms. Lu Yumei
Ms. Lu Yumei received a seven-year sentence.
34. Ms. Xiang Shuangyu
Ms. Xiang Shuangyu received a seven-year sentence.
35. Ms. Tang Mengyu
Ms. Tang Mengyu received a six-year sentence.
36. Ms. Huang Zuoying
Ms. Huang Zuoying received a three-year sentence. She will
finish her sentence in May, 2004.
The following Christian prisoners were sentenced as members of
``evil cult'' (refers to South China Church) by the People's Court of
Yunyang County, Chongqing City, May 14, 2002. Their prison address is:
Section 3, Sanxia (Three-Gorge) Prison, Wanzhou, Chongqing City, Zip
code: 404023.
37. Mr. Zhao Xitao
Mr. Zhao Xitao received a seven-year sentence.
38. Mr. Shen Daoxing
Mr.Shen Daoxing received a four-year sentence.
39. Mr. Tan Shigui
Mr. Tan Shigui received a four-year sentence.
40. Ms. Gu Yaoxiang
Ms. Gu Yaoxiang was sentenced to 1 year and 9 months re-
education through labor and now still serves at Xiu Hua
Factory, Female Laojiao Camp, Shi Ba Li He Town, Zhengzhou
city, Henan Province.
41. Dr. Xu Yonghai
Age: 44; Dr. Xu Yonghai was arrested in Beijing in November
of 2003.He was tried by the Intermediate Court of Hangzhou
City, Zhejiang Province on March 16, 2004. Convicted by the
same court and sentenced August 6, 2004 to two years in prison.
He is currently held at Detention Center of Xiaoshan City,
Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province.
42. Pastor Luo Bingyin
Age: 40; Arrested on July 17, 2004 at Fuyang city, Anhui
Province by the PSB of Fuyang city, Pastor Luo is now held at
Funan prison, Anhui Province without a trial.
Appendix III: Case About Prominent Beijing House Church Leader Pastor
Cai Zhuohua
Prominent Beijing House Church Leader Faces Harsh Sentence
MIDLAND, TEXAS (CAA)--NOVEMBER 11, 2004
CAA learned a prominent Beijing house church leader will face an
extremely harsh sentence if convicted in the upcoming trial. Pastor Cai
Zhuohua, a house church leader ministering to six house churches in
Beijing will be formally tried in a Beijing court very soon. The 32-
year-old pastor was kidnapped by three plain-clothed officers believed
to be from the Department of State Security at about 2:00pm on
September 11, 2004. According to an eyewitness account, Cai was waiting
at a bus stop when three strong men approached him and pushed him into
a white van. Cai was returning home following a Bible study session
that morning. Cai's wife, Xiao Yunfei, along with her brother, Xiao
Gaowen, and sister-in-law, Hu Jinyun, were also arrested September 27
while hiding in Hengshan county, Hunan Province. Sources familiar with
the case told CAA that Pastor Cai and his wife will face an extremely
harsh sentence because of their prominent role in the Beijing house
church leadership. CAA learned that this case has been handled directly
by the Department of State Security. Another source close to the
central law enforcement authority revealed to CAA that a two-word
handwritten directive ``Yan Ban'' (which means to deal with this case
harshly and severely) was issued by Mr. Qiang Wei, deputy General
Secretary of Politics and Law Commission of Beijing. And that the
central government had already labeled this case the most serious case
on overseas religious infiltration since the founding of the People's
Republic of China. It's believed the authorities were shocked when they
found about 200,000 copies of the Bible and other Christian literature
in a storage room managed by Pastor Cai. In China, only one publisher
belonging to the officially sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement is
allowed to publish and print a limited number of Bibles and other
Christian literature each year. These publications are forbidden to be
sold in the public bookstores.
With the rapid growth in the number of Christians every year,
Chinese house churches sometimes find printers willing to print a few
Bibles for extra cash instead of relying on ``Bible-smugglers'' from
overseas. Sources close to one of Pastor Cai's churches said the
confiscated Bibles and other Christian literature were solely for
internal house church-use and Pastor Cai made no profit off them.
Pastor Cai and his wife have one four-year-old son, Cai Yabo, who is
now under the care of his grandmother. The prosecution team source told
CAA that this case is part of a broader national campaign against the
underground church and so-called ``illegal'' religious publications
that began this past June. The Chinese authority is especially unhappy
about a house church quarterly magazine called Love Feast ``AI YAN''
(www.AiYan.org) in which Pastor Cai has been involved. In several
issues in the past, contrary to Chinese official position, it published
articles on President Bush's faith and commemorations on Dr. Jonathan
Chao, one of the most respected Chinese church historians, who passed
away this year. According to the same source, instead of on religious
grounds, the authorities are considering convicting Pastor Cai and his
wife, along with the other two relatives, on criminal charges such as
tax evasion or illegal business management, which could lead to a life
sentence. All four arrested are now being held at Qinghe Detention
Center, Haidian District, Beijing. So far none of their relatives are
allowed to visit them.
``All of those who know Pastor Cai over the years can testify that
he and his wife are wonderful Christians with loving hearts for both
the church in China and their motherland,'' said Bob Fu, CAA's
president and a former coworker of Pastor Cai. ``We urge people of all
faiths to take action to demand their immediate release.''
(Photo of Pastor Cai performing baptism for new believers.)
Letters of protest can be sent to the Chinese Embassy in Washington
DC at the following address:
Ambassador Yang Jiechi, Embassy of the People's Republic of
China, 2300 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington DC 20008; Tel:(202)
328-2500; Fax:(202) 588-0032; Director of Religious Affairs:
(202) 328-2512.
Issued by China Aid Association, Inc. on November 10, 2004.
Appendix IV: Case About Husband of the Killed Christian Woman Appeals
for International Intervention
Husband of The Killed Christian Woman Appeals for International
Intervention
BEIJING (CAA)--NOVEMBER 13, 2004
China Aid Association releases an urgent letter of appeal asking
for international intervention in behalf of a Chinese Christian victim.
Requested by Mr. Zhang Zhenghua, husband of Ms. Jiang Zongxiu who was
beaten to death during interrogation time on June 18, 2004 at PSB
office of Tongzi County, Guizhou Province. CAA urges the international
community to press the related Chinese government agencies to take full
responsibility regarding the death of this Christian lady and to hold
those abusive police officers accountable. Ms. Jiang Zongxiu, 34-year-
old, was arrested on June 17 while she and her mother-in-law was
distributing some Christian tracts and Bibles in the market place at
Tongzi county, Guizhou Province. Both of them were sentenced to 15
days' administrative detention for their suspected activities of ''
spreading rumors and disturbing social order``.Ms. Jiang was found dead
during interrogation time at about 2pm on June 18, 2004. The sudden
mysterious death was even reported by China Legal Daily on July 4, 2004
in which the reporter questioned the cause of Jiang's death. However,
despite of numerous times of formal appeals to higher authorities
including both the provincial and central governments by then
relatives, so far no one had taken any responsibility to address the
request from the relatives of the victim. Surprisingly, the local
government-managed first autopsy result claimed Ms. Jiang died of ''
fat heart failure`` without even mentioning the obvious wounds and
scars caused by beatings during the interrogation time. Ms. Jiang left
a four-year-old son Zhang Jun and her husband as well as her aged
parents.
``This is another grave case of religious persecution costing a 34-
year innocent lady's life simply because of distributing Bibles and
Gospel tracts,`` said Bob Fu, ''We strongly urge the Chinese government
to fully investigate this case and address the requests of Ms. Jiang's
relatives.''
Letters of protest can be sent to the Chinese Embassy in Washington
DC at the following address:
Ambassador Yang Jiechi, Embassy of the People's Republic of
China, 2300 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington DC 20008; Tel:(202)
328-2500; Fax:(202) 588-0032; Director of Religious Affairs:
(202) 328-2512.
November 10, 2004
Re: Appeal from the family of Jiang Zongxiu, Who Died a Sudden Death
during Detention
I am Zhang Zhenghua, husband of Jiang Zongxiu, a villager of Baishi
Village of Ganshui Township of Qijiang County of Chongqing City. On
June 18, 2004, the Public Security Bureau of Tongzi County of Guizhou
Province in the name of ``disturbing social order'' detained my 34-
year-old wife, due to her disseminating the Gospel books of the Bible.
And on that afternoon she died a sudden death for an unknown reason.
Since our marriage, my wife has been in good health, and has not been
afflicted by any disease. Even if she occasionally caught cold, it was
no need for her to seek treatment. In the noontime of that day my wife
told my mother, who was detained in the same place for the same reason,
``The officers kicked me, and I feel very painful.'' Over six months
have gone by since my wife's death. The leaders of the Public Security
Bureau of Tongzi deceived the upper-level authorities, and intimidated
the victim's family. It is beyond our toleration. I hereby disclose
this case to the public, hoping all conscientious people might speak
out the truth and bringing those who violated the law to justice.
The following are our doubts over the death of Jiang Zongxiu:
1. Jiang Zongxiu had been in good health before her death.
Since our marriage, I have been working in Chongqing to sustain
the family. All the work of my family, including farming the
land, feeding the livestock, raising the child, taking care of
my parents, had to be done by her alone. She had never been
afflicted by any disease.
2. Jiang Zongxiu was severely beaten by the officers of the
PSB of Tongzi during interrogation, which can be witnessed by
my mother Tan Dewei, and some pictures taken on the site of
autopsy. There were wounds all over her body. The current law
of our country forbids beating or forcing a confession from
those who are in custody.
3. Responsible officers kept lying to my mother, who was
detained in the same detention center. In the course of
detention, my mother asked the officers several times about
Jiang Zongxiu. They had been lying to her and concealing the
truth. Suppose Jiang Zongxiu did die of a sudden death as the
legal medical appraisers insist, it is not necessary for the
PSB to conceal the truth to us. Even at the very moment of my
mother's release on June 23, they still told her that Jiang
Zongxiu had gone home. What is more, if Jiang Zongxiu had not
died, the detention center would not have released my mother
ahead of schedule, who was supposed to be detained fifteen
days. And my mother would not have been sent home in car by the
police officers. The later development of this case indicates
that the PSB knew that their illegal conduct had been
disclosed. Therefore, they were surprisingly well behaved.
4. The PSB ordered the remains to be cremated within 3 days.
The PSB knows an autopsy is inevitable for such an usual case.
They are eager to cremate the remains in order to destroy the
strong evidence and shirk their responsibilities.
5. With the hard efforts of our attorney, the autopsy was
finally conducted. In order to collect some evidences, to tell
our son when he grows up what happened to his mother, we wanted
to take some pictures. At first the police officers forbade us
to come closer to the site. With our strong demand we were
finally allowed to do so. The pictures indicate that there are
wounds all over the body.
6. In the course of autopsy, we heard that one officer said,
``It is unnecessary to appraise, for obviously she was beaten
to death.''
7. I found out on the autopsy site that, my wife wore prison
clothes. My request for her original clothes was declined. As
material evidence her clothes shall be submitted for appraisal
and analysis.
8. The legal medical report makes no explanation about what
cause the sudden death. The report detailed the situation of
the interior organs, but failed to mention the fingerprints,
imprints, and stripes on the body, which any lay people can
identify are caused by beating. Is it done so carelessly, or to
help the PSB shirk responsibilities?
Zhang Zhenghua,
Jiang Zongxiu's husband.
______
Prepared Statement of Joseph M.C. Kung
NOVEMBER 18, 2004
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Two and a half years ago on March 25, 2002, I testified to this
committee about the persecution of underground Roman Catholic Church in
China. I testified at that time that the persecution of religious
believers had never stopped regardless of the fact that China had made
significant economic progress and that China had joined World Trade
Organization. I also testified two years ago that many arrests and
tortures of underground Roman Catholic bishops, priests, nuns, and lay
persons had taken place, ranging from an 82-year-old priest to a 12-
year-old girl. I also reported the complete destruction of a shrine of
the Blessed Mother in Dong Lu in Hebei by 5,000 Chinese soldiers in May
1996 and the destruction of hundreds of churches. I talked about the
disappearance of Bishop Su Zhimin after his arrest in October 1997 and
the disappearance of Bishop An Shuxin after his arrest in May 1996. We
discussed the difference between the Patriotic Association and the
underground Roman Catholic Church. We highlighted that a Holy Mass, a
prayer service, and even praying over the dying by an underground Roman
Catholic were considered illegal and subversive activities by the
Chinese government punishable by exorbitant fines, detention, house
arrests, jails, labor camps, or even death. We also discussed how the
Chinese government forced underground Roman Catholics to register with
the Patriotic Association. Refusing to do so would result in being
sentenced to three years' labor camp. Being ordained an underground
Roman Catholic priest was also considered a crime punishable by three
years in the labor camp. You may find all this information in your
congressional record dated March 25, 2002.
I regret to inform you that I do not have any good news for you
today. The arrests and atrocities that I reported to you two years ago
continue unabated during the past two years. For instance, churches are
still being destroyed. Random arrests of religious and other faithful
are still being made.
A Roman Catholic church was demolished by the Chinese government on
June 21, 2003 in Liu Gou Village in Heibei. The building of this church
was completed only two weeks beforehand. One church in the Fujian
province was torn down three times because the faithful refused to join
the Patriotic Association. Since 1999, 27 churches were destroyed in
the archdiocese of Fuzhou in the Fujian province.
Bishop Peter Fan, who was the Bishop of Baoding in Hebei for
approximately 41 years, was pronounced dead in jail on April 13, 1992.
He was tortured to death at the age of 85. He spent all 41 years as a
bishop under surveillance, custody, detention, and arrest in prison or
in labor camps. Reuter reported: ``There was a large bruise on the
right side of the man's face. The bones of his legs appeared to be
broken. The two legs were tied so tightly together with white cloth
that it was difficult to untie them. There was obviously something they
wanted to hide.''
In his 2002 China trip, US President George W. Bush urged Jiang
Zemin to free Bishop John Gao Kexian from prison. Instead, Bishop Gao,
76, a reserved and timid man, died two and one-half months ago in an
unknown prison in northern China in August 2004 after five years in a
prison. His remains were sent to his relatives at the end of August,
2004 without any explanations. He joins the ranks of the martyred who
gave their lives for Christ in China. (Asia News 9/12/04)
Bishop SU Zhimin and Bishop AN Shuxin are still missing. We still
do not know if they are now dead or alive.
Bishop Su is a prominent leader of the underground Roman Catholic
Church. He had been arrested at least five times, and spent
approximately 28 years in prison thus far. He was beaten in prison so
savagely that he suffered extensive loss of hearing. He met with
Congressman Christopher Smith in January 1994 and was arrested and
detained for nine days immediately after the departure of Congressman
Smith. He was arrested again later, and escaped from prison and
remained in hiding from April 1996 to October 1997. He was rearrested
in October 1997. While in hiding, Bishop Sue wrote to the Standing
Committee of the People's National Congress. He asked it ``to
thoroughly investigate the serious unlawful encroachment on the
citizen's rights, and to administer corrective measures to restore
order and control to ensure that the civil rights and interests of the
vast number of religion believers are protected.'' Bishop SU was seen
only once when he was accidentally discovered on November 15, 2003
while he was hospitalized in a Baoding hospital. Once the Chinese
government realized that Bishop Su was discovered, he was taken away
immediately without a trace.
Bishop AN was in labor camp from November 1982 to October 1985. He
was arrested several times from 1985 to 1993. He was last arrested in
May 1996 and was only seen once when he was allowed to visit his mother
a few years ago. He has not been seen ever since.
Underground bishops are routinely rounded up during the major feast
days such as Christmas and Easter or even during a visit by certain
foreign personnel. They are routinely taken away forcibly to a hotel
for a few days in order to be separated from their congregations so
that they could not celebrate the Holy Mass during the important feast
days or they could not meet with these foreign visitors. Often, adding
insult to injury, the bishops are forced to pay for the hotel and meal
expenses, including for those government officials who watched over
them. This could amount to a large sum of money that the bishops simply
cannot afford.
Besides Bishop Su and Bishop AN, many other bishops have been
arrested. The attached prisoner list could give you some idea that
almost every one of the underground Roman Catholic bishops is either
arrested in jail, or under house arrest, or under strict surveillance,
or in hiding.
The violent and widespread arrests of underground Roman Catholic
religious and faithful continue unabated. On August 6 this year, eight
priests and two seminarians were arrested in the Hebei province while
they were attending a religious retreat. Approximately 20 police
vehicles and a large number of security personnel conducted a house to
house search in order to arrest these priests and seminarians. There
are now at least twenty-six underground religious in various jails at
this time in the Hebei province alone. The Vatican issued a strong
denunciation of religious repression in China because of this arrest.
The Pope's spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, criticized China when he
said: ``We find ourselves once again faced with a grave violation of
freedom of religion, which is a fundamental right of man.'' On May 16
this year, two priests, Father LU Genjun and Father CHENG Xiaoli, were
arrested in Hebei just before they were to start classes for natural
family planning and moral theology courses. A dozen priests and
seminarians were attending a religious retreat on October 20, 2003 in a
small village in Hebei. They were all arrested. On July 1, 2003, five
priests were arrested on their way to visit another priest, Father LU
Genjun, who was released from labor camp after serving there for three
years. Another priest, Father LU Xiaozhou, was arrested on June 16,
2003 when he was preparing to administer the Sacrament of Anointing of
the Sick to a dying Catholic. These are just few examples of the
arrests since my testimony two years ago.
Sometimes a religious is arrested for flimsy reasons. The
government official would then ask for a ``fine'' which could be
negotiated for the amount in order to release the prisoner. Often, the
``fine'' is paid quietly without any receipt, and the religious is
released. These incidents have been orally reported to me a number of
times. They are of course without any written evidence. A priest was
arrested in Wenzhou in Zhejiang province because he printed religious
hymns. He was arrested in 1999 and sentenced in 2000 to six years in
prison with a fine of JMP 270,000 equivalent to approximately
US$33,750!
Bishops and other religious continue to be forced to attend a
government-sponsored religious conference to propagate the three
autonomies principles (Self apostolate, self finance, and self
administer) of the Patriotic Association, thereby forcing or attempting
to force the underground Church personnel to join the Patriotic
Association by threats and by treats. The catechism is not allowed to
be taught to young children under 16 years old. Underground seminaries
are considered illegal and are not allowed to be established.
Upon learning that I was going to testify to this committee, an
underground bishop requested me to give you two messages:
1. Since 1949 when the communists took over China, literally
tens of thousands of Roman Catholic bishops, priests, and other
faithful have been arrested. They were put in jail for 10, 20,
30, or even 40 years. Many of them died in jail. One of them
was Bishop Joseph FAN Xueyan, whom I had reported above. Many
of them were released after a very long period. Some of those
released, such as Ignatius Cardinal Kung, have since died. Some
of them are still living. It does not matter to the government
if they are dead or still living; they are still considered
criminals because their ``criminal'' charges were never erased
by the government. This bishop in China respectfully requested
this committee to convey the plea to the administration that,
while negotiating with the Chinese government for religious
freedom, the United States government propose that these
prisoners, both living and dead, be officially and posthumously
exonerated of so called crimes of which the Chinese government
falsely accused them five decades ago. In doing so, the
reputation of these living and dead religious prisoners of
conscience can be restored in China. Those who are still living
can at least once again enjoy equal treatment in the society.
2. The people of China love and yearn for true freedom of
religion. Again, the bishop wonders if the United States
government could continue to negotiate with the Chinese
government so that (i) the faithful in China do not have to
fear that they could get arrested during their religious
activities, (ii) their churches would not be destroyed after
they labored so hard to build them, and (iii) all those
imprisoned religious and other faithful would be released. The
bishop believes that the freedom that President Bush has
committed to promote all over the world during his election
campaign has to include religious freedom. Pope John Paul II
has said that religious freedom is the most basic form of all
freedom. This Chinese underground bishop therefore hopes that
through the
direct request from President Bush to the highest authority of
the Chinese government, true religious freedom might be granted
to the Chinese people. The bishop wants the highest authority
in China to know about these atrocious acts of persecution of
people of religious faith in the hope that, having realized
these atrocities, the government will wake up to correct and
eliminate this persecution.
Thank you.
Cardinal Kung Foundation: Prisoners of Religious Conscience for the
Underground Roman Catholic Church in China--Updated: November 15, 2004
The following is a list of persons known to the Cardinal Kung
Foundation to be Roman Catholics who are confined for their
religious belief and religious activity. This list is by no
means complete, because of the difficulties in obtaining
details. Accordingly, many cases of arrest were not reported
here.
A: (Underground) Roman Catholic Bishops In Prison or Under House Arrest
or Under Surveillance or In Hiding
A(I) In Prison
1. Bishop AN Shuxin, Baoding, Hebei--Arrested in March, 1996. (Our
press release June 17, 1996). Whereabouts unknown. Dead or alive
unknown.
2. Bishop GAO Kexian, Yantai, Shandong--Arrested in October, 1999.
Whereabouts unknown. Died in jail in August 2004. Cause of death
unknown.
3. Bishop HAN Dingxiang, Yong Nian, Hebei--Arrested on or about
December 1, 1999 (our press release January 23, 2000).
4. Bishop SHI Enxiang, Yixian, Hebei--Arrested April 13, 2001 (our
press release April 22, 2001).
5. Bishop SU Zhimin, Baoding, Hebei--Re-arrested October 8, 1997
after 17 months in hiding. (our press release October 11, 1997) He has
disappeared. His whereabouts are unknown.
A(II) Under Arrest Warrant & In Hiding
6. Bishop Han Qian, Siping, Jilin. Has been under arrest warrant
for many years. Hiding somewhere.
A(III) Under House Arrest or Under Strict Surveillance
7. Bishop FAN Zhongliang, S.J., Shanghai--Under strict
surveillance.
8. Bishop HAO Jinli, Xiwanzi, Hebei--Under strict surveillance.
9. Bishop JIA Zhiguo, Bishop of Zhengding, Hebei--Arrested August
15, 1999. (Our press release November 2, 1999) Released Jan 28, 2000
(Fides press release February 18, 2000). Arrested again April 20, 2002.
(Our press release April 24, 2002). Released few days later. Now under
strict surveillance.
10. Bishop LI Side, Tianjin, Hebei--Confined to the top of a
mountain under primitive condition.
11. Bishop LIN Xili, Wenzhou, Zhejiang--Arrested 1999. Under house
arrest.
12. Bishop LIU Guandong, Yixian, Hebei--Paralyzed, but still under
strict surveillance.
13. Bishop MA Zhongmu, Ningxia--Under strict surveillance.
14. Bishop John YANG Shudao, Fuzhou, Fujian--Arrested February 10,
2000. (our press release February 13, 2000). Now released under house
arrest.
15. Bishop Yu Chengti, Hanzhong, Shaanxi--Under strict
surveillance.
16. Bishop XIE Shiguang, Mindong, Fujian--Arrested mid-October
1999. Now released under strict surveillance.
17. Bishop ZENG Jingmu, Yu Jiang, Jiangxi--Arrested November 22,
1995. Sentenced to 3 years. (our press release November 26, 1995) He
was released from jail May 9, 1998 (our press release May 10, 1998) and
was re-arrested September 14, 2000 (our press release September 16,
2000). Released again according to Zenit report on October 31, 2000.
Under house arrest.
Note: Notwithstanding the above list, almost all underground bishops
are either in jail, under house arrest, hiding with or without arrest
warrant, in labor camp, or under severe surveillance.
B. (Underground) Roman Catholic Priests & Seminarians
B(I) In Prison or in Labor Camps
1. Father AN Jianzhao , Baoding, Hebei--Arrested August 6, 2004.
2. Father CHEN Guozhen, Baoding, Hebei--Arrested July 1, 2003.
3. Seminarian CHEN Rongfu, Gaocheng County, Shigiazhuang, Hebei--
Arrested October 20, 2003.
4. Father DING Zhaohua, Wenzhou, Zhejiang--Arrested 2002.
5. Father DOU Shengxia, Gaocheng County, Shigiazhuang, Hebei--
Arrested October 20, 2003.
6. Seminarian HAN Jianlu, Gaocheng County, Shigiazhuang, Hebei--
Arrested October 20, 2003.
7. Father HUANG Chunshou, Sujiazhuang Village, Quyang County,
Hebei--Arrested August 6, 2004.
8. Father HUO Junlong, Baoding, Hebei--Arrested August 6, 2004.
9. Father KANG, Fuliang, Baoding, Hebei--Arrested July 1, 2003.
10. Father KONG Guocun, Wenzhou, Zhejiang--Arrested October 1999.
11. Father LI Jianbo, Baoding, Hebei--Arrested April 19, 2001.
Sentenced to 3 years labor camp. ( Our press release April 22, 2001)
12. Father LI Shujun, Baoding, Hebei--Arrested July 1, 2003.
13. Father LI Wenfeng, Gaocheng County, Shigiazhuang, Hebei--
Arrested October 20, 2003.
14. Father LIU Heng, Gaocheng County, Shigiazhuang, Hebei--Arrested
October 20, 2003.
15. Father MA Wuyong, Baoding, Hebei--Arrested August 6, 2004.
16. Father PANG Guangzhao, Baoding, Hebei--Arrested July 1, 2003.
Although released and gone home, he is not allowed to administer
sacraments.
17. Father PANG Yongxing, Baoding, Hebei--Arrested December 2001.
Sentenced to 3 years labor camp (our press release July 26, 2002).
Although released and gone home, he is not allowed to administer
sacraments.
18. Father WANG Limao, Baoding, Hebei--Arrested March 24, 2002.
Sentenced to 3 years labor camp (our press release July 26, 2002).
19. Father WANG Zhenhe, Baoding, Hebei--Arrested March 1999. Has
been detained for 5 years. Although released and gone home, he is not
allowed to administer sacraments.
20. Father YIN Joseph, Baoding, Hebei--Arrested July 1 2003.
21. Father YIN Zhengjun, Baoding, Hebei--Arrested January 2001.
Sentenced to 3 years labor camp.
22. Seminarian ZHANG Chongyou, Gaocheng County, Shigiazhuang,
Hebei--Arrested October 20, 2003.
23. Father ZHANG Chunguang, Baoding, Hebei--Arrested April 2000.
Has been detained for 4 years. Although released and gone home, he is
not allowed to administer sacraments.
24. Father Zhang Zhenquian, Baoding, Hebei--Arrested August 6,
2004.
B(II) Status Unknown--May be Still in Prison or in Labor Camp
25. Father DONG Yingmu, Baoding, Hebei--Arrested during the
Christmas season, 2002.
______
Prepared Statement of Ngawang Sangdrol
NOVEMBER 18, 2004
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the Commission
regarding the state of religious freedom in Tibet. I am honored to be
able to share my thoughts on behalf of the International Campaign for
Tibet and on my on behalf.
The Tibetan struggle is the struggle for our Nation and for the
right of the Tibetan people to preserve and promote our identity,
religion and culture. Following the Communist Chinese invasion and
occupation of Tibet, our people have valiantly tried to resist the
destruction of our country, our religion and our cultural heritage.
Tibetan Buddhism is a fundamental and integral element of Tibetan
identity and has always played a central role in Tibetan society. The
Chinese Communist party sees religious belief as one of its most
significant problems in Tibet, largely due to the ties between Tibetan
Buddhism and Tibetan identity. The Party has been
confounded by its failure to draw Tibetans away from their religious
beliefs, and particularly their loyalty to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
As well as posing an ideological problem for the Party, their concerns
over religious belief in Tibet are also political and strategic. The
Party's fear of a Tibetan desire for separation from China and
instability in the PRC's border regions has increased its sensitivity
to any perceived infiltration from outside ``hostile'' anti-China
forces.
In July of this year, the International Campaign for Tibet came out
with a report on the state of religious freedom in Tibet. The report
found that despite cosmetic changes there has been no improvement of
the Chinese government's attitude toward Tibetan religious
practitioners. I am giving below some of the findings of the ICT
report.
Since the liberalization of the mid-1980s, the Chinese authorities
have made various attempts to limit the growth of religion in Tibet.
After the Third Work Forum on policy in Tibet was held in Beijing in
1994, religious activity began to be severely curtailed. The Third Work
Forum guidelines demonstrated a deep concern on the part of the Party
over the continued popularity of Tibetan Buddhism, intensified by the
perceived relationship between religion and the pro-independence
movement. The Third Work Forum gave approval at the highest level to
increased control and surveillance of monasteries and the upgrading of
security work undertaken by administrative bodies, beyond their
existing duties as political educators and informants. It also called
for the following steps to be taken in each religious institution:
Vetting the political position of each Democratic
Management Committee and appointing only ``patriotic'' monks to
those committees.
Enforcing a ban on the construction of any religious
buildings except with official permission.
Enforcing limits on the numbers of monks or nuns
allowed in each institution.
Obliging each monk and nun to give declarations of
their absolute support for the leadership of the Communist
Party and integrity of the motherland.
Requiring monks and nuns to ``politically draw a clear
line of demarcation with the Dalai clique,'' in others words to
give a formal declaration of opposition to the Dalai Lama and
his policies.
The tightening of restrictions on religion in Tibetan areas in the
mid-1990s
reflects the general direction of religious policy in China. At the
same time, the crackdown on monasteries and nunneries can also be seen
as part of the wider effort to suppress Tibetan dissent through a
combination of propaganda, re-education, administrative regulation,
punishment and implementation of increasingly sophisticated security
measures.
In Tibet, religion became the target of destruction mainly because
their religion and culture are what make Tibetans different from the
Chinese. So long as the
Tibetan has his unique religion and culture, there is no way to call a
Tibetan ``Chinese.''
In regards of the Chinese general policies on religious freedom in
Tibet, hundreds of my compatriots displayed their disagreement mainly
in peaceful way and were imprisoned. I myself participated in
demonstrations against the Chinese authorities from the young age of 13
precisely because I wanted to protest against the Chinese attempts to
deny the Tibetan people our basic rights, including religious freedom.
I was also incensed by the way the Chinese authorities were denigrating
our spiritual and political leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and no
Tibetan can accept such action. Following my detention I was given
various sentences altogether extending to 12 years in the dreaded
Drapchi Prison in Lhasa.
I had joined hands with several of my fellow nuns who, too,
suffered detention and torture in prison. Quite a few of them have
passed away as a result of the situation that they have to face under
imprisonment. Those who were fortunate to escape death in prison have
more or less become living corpses, even though they are supposed to
have been released from prison today.
I have been fortunate in that the international community,
including the U.S. Congress and Administration consistently raised my
case with the Chinese leadership. By the grace of my leader His
Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan leadership, as well as the
active support of American leaders I am today enjoying my time in
freedom. While I value my freedom, I am continuously reminded of the
plight of my fellow Tibetans, particularly those in prison. I would,
therefore, like to take this opportunity to urge upon the U.S.
Government to do whatever possible so that the innocent Tibetans who
have been detained and tortured, solely for exercising their political
rights, can gain their freedom.
In the meanwhile, I am trying to do whatever I can to highlight
their situation. Upon coming to the United States, I have been told of
the rules and regulations contained in the Constitution of the People's
Republic of China guaranteeing several rights to people living in
China, including the prisoners. It has been a surprise to me to learn
that even within the restrictive system that is in place in China
today, I should have been provided with rights, including the right to
judicial service as well as a free trial. Not only did I and my fellow
prisoners not get such rights, we were not even informed that we had
such rights. Therefore, I have begun the process of trying to
understand Chinese laws so that I can become a better spokesperson for
the Tibetan political prisoners.
I have been informed of your Commission's report for 2004 in which
you have commented on the situation in Tibet. Your report is correct in
saying that even though the Chinese Constitution and other laws, like
the Law on Regional Autonomy, may have clauses talking about religious
and other freedoms, yet in practice there are very many restrictions
placed on the Tibetan people. For example, I recently heard that
Chinese officials have said that there is no formal ban on the Tibetan
people possessing and displaying photos of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
These officials were reported by the media as saying that the Tibetans
voluntarily do not want to display His Holiness'' photos. These Chinese
officials are not only ignorant of the Tibetan people's feelings but
their action also indicates the Chinese government's lack of respect
for Tibetan people's religious rights. It has only been an year or so
since I came out of Tibet and I know that if there is no direct or
indirect political pressure from the Chinese authorities, almost all
Tibetans in Tibet would be displaying portraits of the Dalai Lama. We
Tibetans are proud of our religious and temporal leader, and the
Tibetan people's belief and reverence for His
Holiness the Dalai Lama has not waned. Unfortunately, almost all major
decisions relating to the Tibetan people are not made by the Tibetan
people, nor even by Tibetan officials, but by Chinese leaders in
Beijing.
I support the Commission's recommendation on Tibet made in your
annual report for this year in which you said, ``The future of Tibetans
and their religion, language, and culture depends on fair and equitable
decisions about future policies that can only be achieved through
dialogue. The Dalai Lama is essential to such a dialogue. The President
and the Congress should continue to urge the Chinese government to
engage in substantive discussions with the Dalai Lama or his
representatives.''
Since this Commission has been specifically established to monitor
the situation in China and provide appropriate policy recommendations
to the U.S. Government, I would urge you to consider the following.
1. The case of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche is extremely urgent
since there is every possibility that the Chinese government
will execute him after his suspended death sentence expires in
the coming month. The US Government should intervene so that
this innocent Tibetan lama is saved from execution.
2. The issue of the Panchen Lama is of utmost importance to
the Tibetan people. We still do not have any solid information
about the whereabouts and the well-being of the 11th Panchen
Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima. The United States should press
China to allow an independent monitor to verify that the
Panchen Lama is fine and that he is getting his religious
education.
3. The situation of Tibetan political prisoners has been of
close interest to me, since I was one until recently. I would
urge the United States to press the Chinese government to
release all Tibetan political prisoners. Further, China should
be asked to restore the rights of those Tibetan political
activists who have been released. I have heard from many of
these individuals that they continue to face persecution even
outside of prison.
4. Ultimately the only way to provide a lasting solution to
the issue of religious freedom in Tibet is by finding a
solution to the political problem in Tibet. The United States
should be proactive in urging the Chinese government to begin
substantive talks with the representatives of His Holiness the
Dalai Lama so that a negotiated solution can be found.
In conclusion, I thank the United States government and the people
for the positive role that you have been playing in highlighting the
Tibetan issue and for supporting His Holiness the Dalai Lama in finding
a just solution to the Tibetan issue.
Tashi Delek and thank you.
Opening Statement of Hon. James A. Leach, a U.S. Representative From
Iowa, Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China
NOVEMBER 18, 2004
The Commission convenes this morning to hear several experts, who
have agreed to share with us their analysis of the intensifying
government campaign in many parts of China against religious groups and
individual believers and practitioners.
Religious freedom around the world remains among the most important
issues of concern for most Americans, and for that reason, freedom of
religion has been a central topic in our bilateral human rights
discussions with China for many years. Unlike Karl Marx, who believed
that religion was the ``opiate of the masses,'' our country's founders
held that ethical values, derived from religion, anteceded and anchored
political institutions. It is the class struggle implications of
Marxism--the exhortation to hate thy fellow citizen instead of love
thine enemy--that stands in stark contrast with the demand of tolerance
built into our Bill of Rights.
From the American perspective, the real opiate of the 20th and 21st
centuries would appear to be intolerance, the instinct of hatred which
becomes manifest in the individual and unleashed in society when
governments fail to provide safeguards for individual rights and fail
to erect civilizing institutions adaptable to change and accountable to
the people. Churches, religious schools, hospitals, and faith-based
charitable organizations are examples of this type of civilizing
institution. Coupled with religious faith itself, such institutions can
be a powerful force for tolerance.
Both the Congress and the executive branch have long stressed the
importance of religious freedom in China. The Senate and House have
frequently passed resolutions calling on Chinese authorities to respect
the freedom of worship, belief, and religious affiliation guaranteed by
international human rights norms. In his first term, President Bush
raised U.S. concerns about religious freedom with the most senior
Chinese leaders, emphasizing the importance of treating peoples of
faith with fairness and dignity, freeing prisoners of conscience, and
respecting the religious and cultural traditions of the people of
Tibet.
The Chinese Constitution says that the government protects ``normal
religious activity,'' but in practice, the government and the Communist
Party require that religion be consonant with state-defined patriotism.
Official repression of religion is particularly harsh in Tibetan and
Uighur areas, where religious conviction and traditions may frequently
be interwoven with separatist sentiment. Chinese authorities often see
separatist sentiment as a precursor to terrorism, even when religious
practitioners express such sentiment peacefully and advocate
nonviolence.
In June 2003, the Commission convened a hearing to assess whether
the rise of a new group of senior Chinese political leaders might augur
a change in government policy toward religion. Our witnesses were not
very optimistic about any such changes, at least over the short term.
We also became interested in whether the new leadership group would
encourage the social service activities of religious groups, so that
faith-based groups would take responsibility for some of the social
services that governments at all levels in China can no longer sustain.
Roughly 18 months later, we have seen evidence of some increased
official tolerance of faith-based social service initiatives in some
places in China, but in general we have not seen significant
liberalization of Chinese government policy toward religion itself.
Indeed, there is significant evidence of a tightening of repressive
measures in many places in China.
With those comments, let me introduce our Commission members, and
our first panel.