Contradiction and Crackdown in China
Revd Dr G. Howard Mellor is Superintendent Minister of the Methodist International Church in
Wan Chai Hong Kong where he has ministered for four years and undertaken study visits to
China meeting Church ministers, lay leaders and the officials of the State Administration for
Religious Affairs.
China, a nation of contradictions, is cracking down on church leaders in a new wave of
repression and yet granting freedoms to high profile Ai Weiwei.
The National Security Law passed on the 1 July this year by the National People’s Congress
Standing Committee has the effect of giving the authorities a cart blanche to detain leaders and
close churches. According to the state news agency Xinhua the law vows to ‘protect people’s
fundamental interests’ including ‘sovereignty, unification, territorial integrity ... (and)
sustainable development’.
The new law includes elements that define criticism of the government as a ‘form of
subversion’. One commentator indicated that, ‘The law is phrased in such a way that it would
not leave not leave any room for disputes, compromises or interference when protecting its
core interests. It is very vague in defining what kind of specific actions would constitute a citizen
endangering state security’.
In the last year there have also been a number of pronouncements by officials of the State
Administration for Religious Affairs that indicate the intention to establish a Chinese Christian
theology, in line with Chinese culture. This would ensure Christian churches are under its own
brand of a ‘Chinese style’ church, approved by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
In sharp contrast the Chinese government have this week returned the passport of Ai Weiwei,
the celebrated Chinese artist and human rights activist, who has been under house arrest for
more than two years. This may have more to do with the visit President Xi Jinping is making to
London at the invitation of Buckingham Palace in October this year. At the same time there is to
be a retrospective of Ai Weiwei’s work at London’s Royal Academy through the autumn. This
apparent freedom does not match with other actions of the Chinese authorities. It is likely the
Chinese are seeking to avoid criticism as part of the London visit.
Since 1 July over one hundred of lawyers who have been representing human rights activists
have been detained. The state media outlets spoke of the mass arrests as an effort to ‘smash a
major criminal gang’. It is evident that the campaign against the Christian leaders and churches
is part of a wider attempt to stifle those who are ‘free thinkers’. There is within the government
a significant contradiction that one the one hand they actively encourage entrepreneurial
business thus espousing a capitalist worldview. Yet on the other there is an outright attempt to
stifle and stamp out philosophical debate, critique and criticism of the social structure of China
and the authorities who run it. Since Xi Jinping came to power there have been a number of
high profile arrests of powerful officials. Many commentators view this as being less about
stamping out corruption, but rather securing his power base among Chinese Communist
Leaders.
No-one should doubt the determination of China and its President Xi Jinping to assert China’s
place in the Pacific and as an economic powerhouse in the world. China will not yield to foreign
pressure and not tolerate foreign interference is its affairs. Christianity and its leaders are seen
as free thinking people whose biblical critiques of Chinese policy and the authorities are viewed
as subversive foreign interference which undermines the Communist Party.
Part of the complexity of this issue is that the CCP does not always, with legislation, distinguish
between religious groups. So Islam, Buddhism and Christianity are sometimes considered in the
same category – religion. Therefore when there is terrorist activity associated with one faith
group, such as the knife attacks at transport links, it is assumed that all faith groups need
restrictions imposed on them.
In the last eighteen months over 1,200 churches have had their crosses forcibly removed. Large
red crosses once used to top almost very church, in contrast to the government buildings with
the gleaming red star. Churches are being built at break neck speed, not always awaiting
building permissions (which are frustratingly slow in coming). Using the new law provincial
officials are closing down on the new found freedoms that since 1975 churches have enjoyed.
The authorities are concerned because in some provinces the number of active (known)
Christians in the population is 10% and increasing and the active membership of the
Communist Party is 10% and declining. Officials are worried about the rising influence of the
Christian church and its leaders. Consequently the crackdown in certain provinces such as
Zhejiang are having a significant affect. Zhejiang and its city of Wenzhou has a long history of
strong churches and until 1949 significant Methodist influence.
The authorities are also using the same law to restrict the influence ministers from Hong Kong
in mainland China. The Lutheran Pastor Philip Woo was summoned to the religious affairs
bureau of a district in Shenzhen on 1 July, the same day that China enacted a sweeping national
security law. Pastor Woo, based in Hong Kong, has been ministering among churches in
mainland China for 25 years. Recently he has focussed on the supposedly less risky activity:
organising religious training for Chinese church leaders. Shenzhen is just over the border with
Hong Kong and officials sought to forbid him preaching to mainlanders while they are resident
in Hong Kong. The letter which reprimanded him carried the official ‘seal’ and therefore was
authorised at the highest level. There are implications for many Methodist Pastors who
regularly travel to teach and preach in mainland China.
Nevertheless in the midst of adversity today the church in China is flourishing. The best
assessment comes from the Pew Research Centre who in 2010 assessed China had some 58
million Protestants and about nine million Catholics in both official (Three Self Patriotic
Movement) and unofficial churches - this was the most recent year for which data is available.
Some estimates are considerably higher and, because in the rural areas no-one is counting,
frankly no-one knows. Much is made of the differences between the official and what used to
be called the ‘underground’ church. But the local people recognised that the ‘family churches’,
as they prefer to call them, are making links in many provinces with the official leaders. Indeed
some ‘family’ churches are seeking registration with the government because that way they can
request land to erect a church building. Since 1 July this will be all the more difficult.
It is a humbling experience to meet church leaders in the cities and surrounding areas of
Wenzhou, Shanghai and Nanjing. Almost everyone over 30 is one generation from starvation.
Many were sent, certainly pastors, lawyers and graduates for ‘re-education’ and forced hard
labour in the cultural revolution. The faces of older members betray the hard life they have
endured.
We must pray for and keep up our support for our brothers and sisters in China in the Three
Self and family churches who are facing a renewed wave of repression.
G. Howard Mellor
Wan Chai, Hong Kong
25 July 2015
Postscript:
To understand the Chinese authorities mindset one has to have a grasp of history as the context
against which they make decisions.
There is a received wisdom that the Chinese were ruthlessly punished by the Dutch, Portuguese
and British in the 19thC and the Japanese the 20thC. Unscrupulous British traders began forcing
Indian opium on Chinese consumers which led to the Opium Wars (1839-42 ending in the
Treaty of Nanjing and 1856-60). When the Qing rulers tried to resist, the gunboat diplomacy of
the British bullied China out of millions of silver dollars. The ‘unequal treaties’ of the nineteenth
century brought the powerful Qing dynasty to its knees, leaving its people slavish addicts
unable to resist the British who claimed Hong Kong.
The wars of the twentieth century brought terrible deeds to the cities of China the most horrific
being the rape of Nanjing. The Japanese army captured Nanjing on the 13 December 1937
leading to massacre, rape and looting. It is estimated that over 300,000 civilians and disarmed
combatants died over a period of six weeks. The ‘century of humiliation’ at the hands of
imperialism ended in 1949 with the triumph of Mao Zedong and communism.
This story is recounted in school text books and forms the backcloth for present thinking about
foreign policy. It leads to a culture of suspicion about foreign influence and thus China will not
yield to foreign pressure and not tolerate foreign interference is its affairs. The Tiananmen
Square uprising was of 1989 was blamed by the Chinese authorities on ‘Western bourgeois
liberalism’.
It is, however, a curious thing that under the Presidency of Mao more than 70 million people
died as a direct result of his policies (see the books by Jung Chang especially MAO the Unknown
Story). The much vaunted agricultural policy revolution entitled the Great Step Forward was an
absolute failure leading to the famine and the death of 30 million. None of this is published in
China. Mao’s portrait continues to hang above the Gate of Heavenly Peace and beams across
Tiananmen Square. It is truly a nation of contradictions.
GHM July 2015