SARA Director Calls for Continued Controls on Religion

August 31, 2006

Ye Xiaowen, Director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA), emphasized the importance of government control over religious communities during an interview with the Xinhua news agency reported in a July 21 Xinhua article. Ye focused on future strategies for government control over religion, though such control has been a longstanding policy.

Ye Xiaowen, Director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA), emphasized the importance of government control over religious communities during an interview with the Xinhua news agency reported in a July 21 Xinhua article. Ye focused on future strategies for government control over religion, though such control has been a longstanding policy. According to the article, "[Ye] said one of the key tasks of the [government's] religion departments...is to actively help the religions get adapted to the mainstream of the socialist society. To this end...the government may suggest realistic directions for the religions from a friendly and constructive viewpoint and channel them to take part in the country's construction."

The government will direct religious communities by ensuring that religious leaders provide correct interpretations of religious tenets, Ye said in the interview. "Such explanation will convey positive and beneficial contents to worshippers and direct them to practice faiths rightly," he said. Chinese government interference in the interpretation of religious doctrine takes a variety of forms. For example, the China Islamic Association, the state-controlled association that oversees China's Muslim community, has been compiling new sermons that reflect the "correct and authoritative" view of religious doctrine in line with state policy. The Islamic Association now requires that Muslims seeking to be qualified as religious personnel know these sermons.

Ye added that the government's religious work "should be done on a legal basis." In 2004, the State Council promulgated a comprehensive national Regulation on Religious Affairs (RRA). The RRA provides some protections for recognized religious communities but also codifies control over such communities by mandating government oversight and approval of many activities.

Ye also said that the government will encourage religious communities to take part in social welfare activities. Local religious affairs bureaus recently have reported on government projects to organize charity work by religious communities. See, for example, a June 12 report from the Guangdong Ethnic and Religious Affairs Commission and an August 10 article from the Shanghai Ethnic and Religious Affairs Commission. In addition to organizing such activities directly, the government also permits religious communities to organize their own social welfare activities. Article 34 of the RRA provides for such undertakings.

Since the reform era began in the late 1970s, the government has sought to co-opt religious communities to meet state goals and to ensure that religious communities do not challenge state power. As a result, the state has accommodated religion in some respects, though it also represses religious practice outside of its sanctioned framework. Government support for religious charity work also reflects recognition of the role of civil society organizations in providing welfare services that the government cannot provide itself.

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