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CHINA: Persecution of Church to escalate as Zhejiang experiment goes
national
Posted:
16 Oct 2016 09:48 PM PDT
This
article first appeared on
Morning Star NewsPersecution of Church to escalate as Zhejiang
experiment goes national. by Elizabeth Kendal
In October 2012, South
China Morning Post ran a series of articles on China’s looming leadership
transition. One line might prove prophetic, although not in the way intended:
“For clues about how China’s leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping might manage the
world’s second-largest economy, Zhejiang
province is a good place to start looking.”
After explaining that the
years that Xi Jinping spent in Zhejiang (2002 to 2007) –
as party secretary and as governor – “are regarded as a transformative period,
during which Zhejiang expanded its private sector and moved toward cleaner, more
innovative industries,” the author posits that as President of the People’s
Republic, Xi Jinping would doubtless work the same magic on a national
level.
Similarly, for clues about how President Xi Jinping intends to
manage religion and what is possibly the world’s second-largest evangelical
Christian population (after the USA), Zhejiang province is a good place to start
looking.
-----------
President Xi Jinping
Since assuming office in March
2013, President Xi Jinping has worked doggedly to consolidate power around
himself as the “core” or hexin. To this end, Xi has been purging dissent
(primarily through an ‘anti-corruption’ campaign), escalating repression,
increasing censorship, tightening the reins on civil society. Reportedly
a compulsive micro-manager, Xi has moved at speed to acquire control over
every aspect of government. Australian academic Geremie Barmé has labelled Xi
China’s “COE” or Chairman of Everything.
In the spirit of Lenin and Mao,
Xi maintains that all elements of society should “serve socialism” and “be
consistent with Marxist-Leninist thinking”. Positing
Communism as an “attainable goal” of the Party, Xi has revived Chairman
Mao’s dictum about the Party’s tight control over culture – particularly
creative arts, literature and religion.
CCP moves to Sinicize
Christianity
China analyst Willy Lam opines that it is no accident
that President Xi’s campaign to “Sinicize Christianity”, so as to put
Christianity into the service of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was
launched in Zhejiang.
“The aggressive Sinicization of Christianity, which
started in 2013, is evidenced by the new policy of the so-called wujin (五进;
literally “five penetrations” or “five introductions”) and wuhua (五 化 ;
literally “five transformations”), which was initiated in Zhejiang Province. Xi,
who was Party Secretary of Zhejiang from 2002 to 2007, apparently wanted to
start this experiment in a region which has centuries of interaction with
Christian organizations in the West.”
See: Xi’s
Obsession with “Cultural Renaissance” Raises Fears of Another Cultural
Revolution By Willy Lam, China Brief, 8 Feb 2016
Lam’s revelation that Xi had wanted to launch his
experiment “in a region which has centuries of interaction with Christian
organizations in the West”, begs the question: “Why?” Was Xi testing the waters
to see what a Western, or even a domestic, response might look like? The
reality is, Zhejiang – and particularly, Wenzhou city – is more than its Western
connections, for as Xi would well know, it is nothing other than China’s
Christian heartland.
Zhejiang’s business hub, Wenzhou – a city of some 10
million – is believed to have the largest Christian population of any city in
China. The proliferation of churches, Christian-run businesses and sizable,
influential Christian minority has earned Wenzhou the title, “China’s
Jerusalem”. Indeed the city is famous for its many successful Christian
entrepreneurs who actively promote Christianity in their workplaces. It is
primarily because Wenzhou’s Christian entrepreneurs hold so much economic power
that Wenzhou’s churches have had so much freedom for so long. So why would
President Xi start his experiment to Sinicize Christianity in Zhejiang rather
that some quiet backwater? It is doubtless because if the experiment succeeds in
Zhejiang, it will likely succeed anywhere in
China.
------------------------------------------- The Zhejiang
Experiment Begins -------------------------------------------
CCP moves against the
Cross
On 8 January 2014 Zhejiang’s Communist Party secretary, Xia Baolong – who had
been Deputy Party Secretary under Xi Jinping – was conducting an inspection in
Zhoushan (north-east Zhejiang) when allegedly he was suddenly shocked by the
proliferation of large churches. While passing a church in Baiquan town, Xia
reportedly objected that the cross atop the church was “too conspicuous”, and
demanded that the local Religious Affairs Bureau “rectify” the problem by
removing it. And
so began the campaign to de-Christianize the landscapes and skylines of
Zhejiang.
This was never a campaign about building regulations. Rather it
was in every way an attack on the church to (literally) bring
down Cross and rein in the church, so as to force the church to bring her
message and her administration into the service of the Party.
In its battle against the cross
and the church in Zhejiang, the CCP has forcibly removed from some 1800 crosses
from their churches, much to the distress of faithful believers for whom the
cross is the ultimate symbol of grace, salvation, transformation and hope, for
the individual and the nation. Not only have crosses been removed, but
dissenting churches have been demolished and protesting church members have been
beaten and arrested.
In April 2015, as the campaign lurched into its
second year and casualties mounted, Beijing-based Christian human rights lawyer,
Zhang
Kai (37) wrote on his blog: “Seeking justice, promoting reconciliation and
advancing rule of law are an historic mission, called for by God, that Christian
lawyers must answer and cannot shirk. Confronted with cases of oppression of
Christian belief, more Christian lawyers are willing to withstand the pressure
and walk alongside those who suffer.”
CCP moves against
lawyers
On
1 July 2015 the CCP enacted a National Security Law which paved the way for
increased nation-wide repression and persecution, purportedly in defence of
“national security”. Dr Eva Pils, a China law expert at King’s College,
University of London, opined
that the national security law “manifests a neo-totalitarian ambition to
reach into every sector of society”. Maya Wang, a China researcher for Human
Rights Watch, expressed
concern that the law “includes elements that define criticism of the
government as a form of subversion”.
Then, in a massive crackdown commencing
on the weekend of 11-12 July 2015, the CCP arrested some 300 prominent human
rights activists and lawyers, including several who were defending religious
cases, in particular cases from Zhejiang. By this time, Zhang Kai had relocated
to Wenzhou where he had taken up residence in a local church and was advising
churches on their constitutional rights. Despite having been temporarily
detained on 10 July – during which time he was interrogated and warned not to
get involved – Zhang persisted in providing legal advice to more than 100
churches. On 14 July, in the midst of the crackdown, Zhang Kai announced the
formation of “Lawyers for Protection of the Cross”, a group of some 30 Christian
lawyers from across the country who would take on the Zhejiang church
cases.
Zhang
Kai was arrested on the night of Tuesday 25 August 2015, and “disappeared”
into China’s secretive and notorious “black jail” system, accused of “inciting
disorder” and “spreading fiction”.
CCP moves against TSPM
Also criticizing CCP policy in Zhejiang was
Pastor Gu Yuese, the senior pastor of China’s largest CCP-approved and
registered Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) church: the 10,000-strong
Chongyi Church in the Zhejiang capital, Hangzhou.
Hoping to protect
themselves from “blowback” (negative consequences), the Three Self Patriotic
Movement (TSPM) and associated China Christian Council (CCC) cut Gu loose, officially
dismissing him on 18 January 2016.
Pastor
(Joseph) Gu was arrested on 27 January 2016, and “disappeared” into China’s
“black jail” system on charges pertaining to corruption. The very fact that the
TSPM and CCC thought they could protect themselves, shows the degree to which
they had misread the situation. On 29 January, the authorities arrested Li
Guanzhong, chairman of the CCC in Zhejiang’s Pujiang County and senior pastor of
Puyang Christian Church in the city of Jinhua. Li and his wife Zhang Shuzhen
were likewise “disappeared” into China’s “black jail” system and held
incommunicado, without access to legal representation, on criminal charges
pertaining to corruption. Like Gu, Li had protested CCP policy in Zhejiang. In
July 2014 he had resisted CCP pressure to destroy his own church’s cross. In
January 2016 he
resisted the CCP’s order that all TSPM churches fly the Chinese
flag.
By
early February 2016 eight influential TSPM and CCC leaders had been arrested
and were being held incommunicado on criminal charges pertaining to
corruption.
----------------------------------------------- Zhejiang
Experiment Goes
National -----------------------------------------------
New
Regulations for Churches
On 8 September 2016, the Chinese government
released a deliberative draft of its new Regulations on Religious Affairs. While
Friday 7 October was designated as the day the government would stop receiving
public comments and bring the law into effect, no
public announcement has as yet been made.
The regulations give the CCP
total control over religion. Unregistered and unapproved religious activity
will no longer be tolerated; registered churches will be obliged to follow
strict guidelines; and all building will be tightly regulated, doubtless
to reduce Christianity’s visibility, just as in Zhejiang.
Click here to see an English translation of
the deliberation draft: New Regulations on Religious Affairs.
New
Regulations for Lawyers
Not only has the CCP set the stage for a
flood of persecutions and prosecutions against the church, but it is also poised
to hamstring and tightened the noose around China’s human rights
lawyers.
When Zhang Kai was arrested in August 2015, he was held in
solitary confinement and in darkness for six months until 25 February when, under
extreme duress, he made a televised “confession” in which he repented of his
“crimes”, retracted his criticisms of the CCP, and advised other lawyers against
getting involved. Upon his release on 23 March, Zhang returned to his mother’s
home in Inner Mongolia subject to strict bail conditions that he stay out of
politics and refrain from speaking to the media.
In late August Zhang
posted a video on WeChat in which he retracts his former statement, which he
said was made under duress after experiencing a six-month detention that was “all
black and no daylight”. On 31 August security police from Wenzhou City
surrounded Zhang’s mother’s Inner Mongolia home, arrested
Zhang and took him away.
When the Ministry of Justice’s amended
“Administrative Measures for Law Firms” come into effect on 1 November, then
all China’s lawyers will be officially banned from speaking out
about human rights abuses. Even silent protests, such as walking out of a
courtroom, will be prohibited.
Click here to see report by China Human Rights
Defenders (CHRD): Revised Measures on Law Firms Further Curb Independence of
Chinese Lawyers, 3 Oct 2016.
So, for clues as to how
President Xi intends to manage China’s churches, “Zhejiang province is a good
place to start looking”, for the Zhejiang experiment is about to go
national.
---------------------------------
Selected
background pieces by Elizabeth Kendal
------------------------------------- Elizabeth
Kendal is an international religious liberty analyst and advocate. She is the
author of Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today (Deror
Books, Melbourne, Australia, Dec 2012) which offers a Biblical response to
persecution and existential threat; and, After Saturday Comes Sunday:
Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East (Wipf and Stock,
Eugene, OR, USA, June 2016). See www.ElizabethKendal.com
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