Registered Catholics Claim Property in Tianjin

In December 2005, two groups of registered Catholics demanded that officials in Tianjin municipality return a number of properties confiscated from the Catholic church in the 1950s, according to foreign news media reports. Unidentified assailants allegedly beat members of the first group, and officials indicated later that they will return at least some of the property to the group's diocese. Neither officials nor church leaders have reported whether or not the municipal government has responded to the second group.

The first group of registered Catholics demanded that Tianjin municipal officials return a number of valuable properties owned by two Shanxi dioceses before city officials confiscated the properties in the 1950s, according to a December 19, 2005, AsiaNews report. On December 15, about 50 clerics from the dioceses of Taiyuan and Yuci in Shanxi province protested peacefully in front of the Tianjin municipal government offices. The vice mayor of Tianjin met with some of the priests the same day, but made no proposal to resolve the dispute. The group then occupied one of the buildings it wants returned. On December 16, over 30 unidentified assailants, armed with pipes, clubs, and bricks, beat some of the clerics. The police came too late to apprehend the thugs, took the injured clerics to the police station, interrogated them, and sent them to the hospital several hours later. Other Catholic clerics remained in the building, which the police surrounded, demanding that they vacate by noon on December 21. Some of the clerics refused and remained in the building, according to a December 22 Reuters report.

According to a December 22 report of the Union of Catholic Asian News (registration required), Shanxi religious affairs officials pressed Bishop Li Jiantang, the 80-year-old registered bishop of Taiyuan diocese in Shanxi, to order his priests to return from Tianjin. Li refused to do so unless officials met the group’s demand for the return of church property, according to a December 26 Reuters report, which also noted that the Catholic clerics who remained in the building departed and returned to Shanxi over the Christmas weekend. A Xinhua report published on December 24 in the Shanghai Daily said that a spokesman for the State Administration of Religious Affairs in Beijing promised that the issue would be addressed in compliance with the Regulation on Religious Affairs and relevant policies. According to a January 2, 2006, AsiaNews report, the Tianjin municipal government has promised to recognize the Church’s rights to some buildings in the city. As a sign of good faith, the vice mayor gave the priests the key to one of the buildings in dispute, inviting them to use the building when they visit the city.

AsiaNews has posted a statement issued by the Taiyuan and Yuci dioceses, as well as the dioceses' petition that properties owned by Shanxi dioceses in Tianjin be returned, that reasonable compensation be made for buildings that have been demolished, and that an accounting be made of revenue derived from the properties while Tianjin officials managed them.

The second group of registered Catholics has demanded that Tianjin municipal officials return a chapel to the diocese, according to a December 26 Reuters report. Since August 2005, registered Catholic nuns from Tianjin have been occupying the chapel, which was thought to have been demolished until its existence was revealed when surrounding buildings were demolished. The nuns belong to the Sisters of Charity order and claim that they moved into the chapel to prevent developers from tearing it down. The nuns also claim that the chapel has historic significance for their religious order, since it was rebuilt after the "Tianjin Massacre" of 1870, in which 10 members of the order were killed. Municipal officials apparently have not responded to the nuns' demands.

The recovery of church properties that the Chinese central, provincial, or local governments confiscated during the 1950s and 1960s has become an important issue between the government and the Catholic and Protestant churches. Chinese law requires that such property be returned. On July 16, 1980, the State Council issued an Authorization of the Report by the Religious Affairs Office, National Basic Construction Committee, and Other Agencies Regarding Carrying Out Religious Groups' Real Property Policies and Other Issues (in Chinese). Paragraph 3, Subsection 1, of the Authorization requires the Chinese government to restore to religious bodies their property rights in structures that were previously confiscated. Subsection 3 further requires the Chinese government to restore to religious bodies the land use rights in any churches, temples, or other structures attached to those buildings that the government confiscated during the Cultural Revolution. The State Council later passed a new Regulation on Religious Affairs, effective March 1, 2005. Provisions in Chapter 5 of the Regulation guarantee additional protection of religious property, but do not address the failure of local governments to return church properties as required by the 1980 Authorization.

According to the AsiaNews reports, local governments have rented or sold church properties to third parties rather than returning them to the religious groups to which they once belonged. The government frequently retains the income that these properties generate, or sometimes local Party or city officials take the funds for personal use. Local government officials also frequently cooperate with developers to arrange for thugs to attack anyone who protests against government refusal to return church property.

The properties once owned by the Catholic and Protestant churches are often located in what are now city centers, and are, therefore, very valuable. The Tianjin property claimed by the group of Catholic clerics was located in the Italian concession on the Tianjin harbor front before 1949, and was owned and administered by Italian Catholic missionary orders and institutes that worked in Shanxi province. After the Communist takeover, the foreign orders and institutes transferred their properties to Chinese dioceses, but the new Chinese government eventually confiscated the buildings.

The incidents in Tianjin resemble a similar incident in November 2005 in Xi’an in Shaanxi province, in which unidentified men beat 16 nuns who had occupied a school building that had belonged to the Catholic diocese of Xi'an. The city government had sold the property to a developer rather than return it to the diocese.

International news media and human rights organizations have documented the problem of officially authorized violence against Chinese citizens. Some local Chinese officials have resorted to hiring "thugs" to intimidate or beat activists, critics, lawyers, journalists, or citizens who challenge corrupt practices, according to a November 22, 2005, article in USA Today. Human Rights Watch highlighted this issue in a December 8 news release and documented several cases of officially authorized violence in its December 2005 report, We Could Disappear at Any Time: Retaliation and Abuses Against Chinese Petitioners.