Freedom of Religion

According to AsiaNews, the Catholic Patriotic Association will collect an admission fee of 50 yuan from worshippers who wish to attend Midnight Mass at the Beijing cathedral on Christmas eve. A shock to Catholic sensibilities, Bishop Fu Tieshan and the Catholic Patriotic Association evidently made the decision to charge the fee, which can be from 1/6 to 1/8 of a Chinese pensioner’s monthly income. The Patriotic Association justifies the fee on the grounds of maintaining public order and security, since the Mass has drawn a very large group of worshippers in recent years. But many believe the CPA has instituted the fee as a way to prevent non-Christians from attending the Mass who are interested in learning about Christianity, particularly non-Christian university students. Chinese religious authorities long have collected fees from those visiting religious sites -- for example, from non-Tibetans visiting Lhasa’s Jokhang Temple, but in this case both Catholics and non-Catholics will have to pay the fee.

In October 2004, the national Bureau of Statistics promulgated regulations on managing social and market surveys involving foreigners, replacing interim regulations first issued in 1999. At a press conference to discuss the new rules, Bureau officials said they are designed to protect China's national and security interests, including state secrets and social stability. See press conference report and questions and answers, printed below. In addition, the measures seem designed to preclude the use of surveys to propagate religion; two provisions prohibit surveys that would violate China's policies on religion or against spreading "evil cults or superstitions."

A U.S.-based NGO has obtained a copy of a secret Communist Party Document entitled “Notice on Further Strengthening Marxist Atheism Research, Propaganda, and Education." The original Chinese-language document itself can be seen at this location.

Christianity Today editor and founder Mark Galli interviewed Ji Jianhong, who heads the Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement, during a September visit to Shanghai. Ji spoke of his youth in the Little Flock movement, which was persecuted when it refused to register with the government in the 1950s. He also commented on government officials who obstruct church policies. Ji also criticized underground Christians and foreign Protestant groups, however. He refused to acknowledge that religious persecution exists in China, arguing that Christians are not arrested for their faith but because they have broken some specific law.

According to AsiaNews, Ji Wenyuan, Deputy Director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA), has said that in any reform of laws regulating religion, priority must be given to social stability. Speaking at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Ji said that China would not enact Western-style laws because its circumstances are different.

According to AsiaNews, Zhang Zunmou, Director of the Policy and Legal Department of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) said at an October conference that the Chinese government is studying ways to remove tight control over religions, curb arbitrary interference, and give religious groups greater autonomy. Zhang did not say when such steps might be taken, and did not address other questions, such as religious freedom as a human right and the future of the state-organized Patriotic Associations.

According to AsiaNews, observers in Hong Kong who follow religious affairs in China consider the announcement as a maneuver to blunt international criticism of China's poor religious freedom record. But the fact that a SARA official made the announcement may be significant, since many analysts believe that SARA has long been chief bureaucratic opponent of loosening government control over religious organizations and practice in China.