New Religious Exchange Association Disseminates Government Views of Religion

February 2, 2006

Government officials, religious leaders, and scholars met on December 30, 2005, to announce the establishment of the China Religious Culture Communication Association (CRCCA), according to a report posted on the Web site of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) and an article posted on Xinhua's English-language Web site. The CRCCA is a non-profit social organization led by SARA Director Ye Xiaowen that seeks to promote religious exchanges and cooperation between China and other countries.

Government officials, religious leaders, and scholars met on December 30, 2005, to announce the establishment of the China Religious Culture Communication Association (CRCCA), according to a report posted on the Web site of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) and an article posted on Xinhua's English-language Web site. The CRCCA is a non-profit social organization led by SARA Director Ye Xiaowen that seeks to promote religious exchanges and cooperation between China and other countries.

CRCCA honorary chairman Bishop Fu Tieshan, who is also vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, chairman of the Catholic Patriotic Association, and acting chairman of the Chinese Catholic Bishops Conference, remarked that the establishment of the association will help disseminate accurate information about religion in China and China's policies on freedom of religious belief. He asserted that "hostile forces" in the West have attacked China's religious policies and distorted information about religious conditions in China.

The Chinese government permits religious practice within officially recognized organizations subject to state control. It controls contact between Chinese religious groups and overseas organizations as part of its supervision of religious affairs. The Catholic Patriotic Association, the official organization through which the government controls Catholic religious practice, prevented bishops from attending an October 2005 Synod in Rome, but in May of that year a Protestant delegation took part for the first time in a World Council of Churches conference. The government monitors contact between Tibetan Buddhists in China and Tibetan Buddhist organizations outside the country, especially monasteries and nunneries of the Gelug tradition closely associated with the Dalai Lama, and Chinese authorities may punish Tibetans who return to China carrying Buddhist materials featuring the Dalai Lama's image or his religious teachings. The Regulation on Religious Affairs calls for China's national Islamic organization to organize Chinese Muslims' overseas pilgrimages, and authorities reportedly have stopped some pilgrims from making pilgrimages on their own.

Chinese citizens who worship outside of official organizations risk detention, arrest, and abuse. The CRCCA's establishment came days after authorities raided two Christmas services in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and detained house church leaders there.

For more information on religious freedom in China, see Section III(d) of the 2005 CECC Annual Report.