The Congressional-Executive Commission on China held another in its series of staff-led Issues Roundtables, entitled "China's National and Local Regulations on Religion: Recent Developments in Legislation and Implementation," on Monday, November 20, from 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM in Room 2200 of the Rayburn House Office Building.

On March 1, 2005, the State Council's Regulation on Religious Affairs (RRA) entered into force, representing the first comprehensive national regulation devoted to religious issues. Since then, some provincial-level governments in China have amended or issued new regulations on religion, while others continue to use older regulations. Although the RRA and related local regulations introduce some transparency to China's system of religious regulation, inconsistencies among regulations and ambiguities within them persist. Although Chinese government officials and some scholars have stated that the RRA represents a "paradigm shift" by limiting state control over religion, in the past year human rights groups reported continued government repression of some unregistered religious groups and tight controls over registered communities.

This Roundtable examined the interplay between the national RRA and local regulations and discussed the practical impact of such regulations on freedom of religion in China.

The panelists were:

Eric R. Carlson, Attorney, Covington & Burling LLP, Washington, D.C. Mr. Carlson is the author of China's New Religious Regulations: A Small Step, Not a Great Leap, Forward, 2005 BYU L. Rev. 747, and co-author (with Dr. Kim-Kwong Chan) of the book Religious Freedom in China: Policy, Administration, and Regulation. Mr. Carlson also serves as a Fellow of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University.

Bob (Xiqiu) Fu, President, China Aid Association, Midland, Texas. Mr. Fu was born and raised in mainland China. A house church pastor in Beijing and English lecturer at the Beijing Administrative College and Beijing Party School of the Chinese Communist Party, he was arrested in 1996 along with his wife as an "illegal evangelist." After his release, Mr. Fu escaped to Hong Kong and came to the United States in 1997. Mr. Fu is presently a Ph.D. candidate at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and is a visiting professor in religion and philosophy at Oklahoma Wesleyan University. In addition, he is the Editor-in-Chief of the Chinese Law and Religion Monitor and the Religious Freedom in China Web site (www.MonitorChina.org). He has served as a guest editor of Chinese Law and Government (March-April and May-June 2003), and has written articles on religion and public security in China, 1999-2002, and religious freedom and the rule of law.

James W. Tong, Associate Professor of Comparative Politics, University of California-Los Angeles, and Editor of the journal Chinese Law and Government, Los Angeles, California. Professor Tong served as the Vice Chairman of UCLA's Department of Political Science (1994-97), and its Director of the Center for East Asian Studies (1996-2002). His publications include a book on peasant revolts from the 14th to 17th century in China (Stanford U. Press, 1991), three journal articles on the Falun Gong, and articles on the 1989 Democracy Movement in Beijing. In addition, he has edited or co-edited three journal issues on central and provincial religious policy documents in China. He has served as a World Bank consultant on fiscal policy in China, briefed the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on religious policy in China, and hosted two visits of China's State Administration for Religious Affairs to UCLA. Professor Tong received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and M.A. from the University of Washington, and has held teaching positions at Michigan State University and the California Institute of Technology.