China's New Regulation on Religious

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Congressional-Executive Commission on China

China's New Regulation on Religious Affairs: A Paradigm Shift?

Monday, March 14, from 2:00 to 3:30 PM

Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2255

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China held another in its series of staff-led Issues Roundtables, entitled "China's New Regulation on Religious Affairs: A Paradigm Shift?" on Monday, March 14, from 2:00 to 3:30 PM in Room 2255 of the Rayburn House Office Building.

All CECC hearings and Issues Roundtables are open to the public and the press. Members of the public who wish to attend do not need to respond to this message or otherwise register. News media representatives should see the final paragraph of this announcement.

This Roundtable examined China's new religious regulation effective this year on March 1. Government officials and experts have hailed the new regulation as a "paradigm shift" in China's treatment of religion. One PRC official claimed that the new regulation sets clear limits on officials' exercise of power over religion, safeguards religious freedom, and moves from direct administrative control to a system of self-government by religious groups.

Human rights advocacy groups reject these claims, arguing that increased detail in the regulation will reduce believers' already limited ability to worship freely in China. Some charge that the drafters' goal was a more efficient "rule by law," rather than "rule of law" protection of citizens' rights. They also suggest that the details of the new law are less significant than simultaneous official actions, such as the arrest of house church leader Pastor Zhang Rongliang within days after the announcement of the new rules, and harsher Party policy, particularly in ethnic regions.

Questions examined during the Roundtable included:

Is the new regulation likely to increase or decrease the role of the State in religious life?
Does the new regulation offer believers any redress against abuse?
Will the new rules legalize a greater variety of worship beyond the currently accepted five "official" religions? Will China's indigenous religions be allowed more scope under the new regulation?
Will the regulation's guarantee of freedom of religion survive broad prohibitions against "using religion to harm national interests, society's public interests, and citizens' legal rights and interests"?

The panelists:

Dr. Carol Lee Hamrin, Consultant and Research Professor, George Mason University.

Dr. Hamrin's long career in public service includes 25 years in the United States State Department where she served as Senior China Research Specialist. Dr. Hamrin is currently a Chinese affairs consultant and Research Professor at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. She also serves as a Senior Associate with the Global China Center, Charlottesville, Virginia, and advises other nonprofit organizations supporting social services in China. Dr. Hamrin's current research interests include research and training projects for the development of the nonprofit sector; and cultural change, human rights and religious policy. Recent publications include Advancing Freedom of Religion and Belief in a Global China: A New Framework, a report of the China Task Force of the Council on Faith & International Affairs, (2004), and God and Caesar in China: Policy Implications of Church-State Tensions, co-edited with Jason Kindopp, (Brookings, 2004).

Professor Daniel Bays, Professor of History and head of the Asian Studies Program, Calvin College.

Professor Bays is former chair of the History Department at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. He has directed major research projects, funded by the Henry Luce Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts, on the history of Christianity in China and American missionary movements. He is editor of Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Stanford University Press, 1996); with Grant Wacker, editor of the book The Foreign Missionary Enterprise at Home: Explorations in North American Cultural History (University of Alabama Press, 2003); and author of “Chinese Protestant Christianity Today,” The China Quarterly, No.174 (2003), pp.488-504.

Ms. Mickey Spiegel, Senior Researcher, Human Rights Watch, New York.

Ms. Spiegel has been working on China for Human Rights Watch since 1990. Trained as an anthropologist, she holds a Masters of Philosophy degree in anthropology from Columbia University. Among her recent writings are a chapter, “Control and Containment in the Reform Era” in God and Caesar in China: Policy Implications of Church-State Tensions, 2004, edited by Jason Kindopp and Carol Hamrin. She co-edited the March-April 2000 Documents on Religion in China, 1980-1997: Central Government Policy (1), part of the Chinese Law & Government series. Mickey has written many reports for Human Rights Watch on topics relating to religion in China, including, most recently, Trials of a Tibetan Monk: The Case of Tenzin Delek, as well as Dangerous Meditation, a report on the repression of the Falun Gong. Her nine reports on religious regulation include the major work, China: State Control of Religion, published by Human Rights Watch in 1997.

Written Statements:

Additional Statements:

Human Rights in China: "China's New Regulations on Religious Affairs: A Paradigm Shift?" HTML | PDF

Transcript:

China's New Regulation on Religious Affairs: A Paradigm Shift? Text / PDF

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