<DOC> [108th Congress House Hearings] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access] [DOCID: f:96473.wais] CATHOLICS AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN CHINA ======================================================================= ROUNDTABLE before the CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION __________ SEPTEMBER 17, 2004 __________ Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.cecc.gov ______ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 96-473 WASHINGTON : 2004 ____________________________________________________________________________ For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512ÿ091800 Fax: (202) 512ÿ092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402ÿ090001 CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS House Senate JIM LEACH, Iowa, Chairman CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska, Co-Chairman DAVID DREIER, California CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming FRANK WOLF, Virginia SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas JOE PITTS, Pennsylvania PAT ROBERTS, Kansas SANDER LEVIN, Michigan GORDON SMITH, Oregon MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio MAX BAUCUS, Montana SHERROD BROWN, Ohio CARL LEVIN, Michigan DAVID WU, Oregon DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California BYRON DORGAN, North Dakota EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS PAULA DOBRIANSKY, Department of State GRANT ALDONAS, Department of Commerce JAMES KELLY, Department of State STEPHEN J. LAW, Department of Labor John Foarde, Staff Director David Dorman, Deputy Staff Director (ii) C O N T E N T S ---------- Page STATEMENTS Madsen, Richard, professor of sociology, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, CA.................................... 2 Carroll, Sister Janet, program associate, U.S. Catholic China Bureau, South Orange, NJ....................................... 5 APPENDIX Prepared Statements Madsen, Richard.................................................. 28 Carroll, Sister Janet............................................ 30 CATHOLICS AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN CHINA ---------- FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2004 Congressional-Executive Commission on China Washington, DC. The roundtable was convened, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2515, Rayburn House Office Building, John Foarde [staff director] presiding. Also present: David Dorman, deputy staff director; Erin Mewhirter, office of Grant Aldonas, Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade; Susan Weld, general counsel; and Mark Milosch, special advisor. Mr. Foarde. Good morning to everyone, and thank you for coming to this issues roundtable of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. My name is John Foarde. I am the staff director and represent Chairman Jim Leach. We will have some other CECC staff, and we hope some personal staff from some of our commissioners, coming in due course to attend this morning. I would like to thank everybody who has come out on this cloudy, rainy day to join us. We are here this morning to examine Catholics and civil society in China. Most experts agree that Chinese citizens will not enjoy substantial religious freedom until they are free to form unsupervised religious associations and organizations. Between 1949 and 1978, the Chinese Government destroyed China's relatively under-developed civil society. But since 1978, the Chinese people have rebuilt some of the institutions of civil society, despite strict government limits. The government generally gives little latitude to religious believers to form private voluntary associations, but in recent years has permitted the formation of a network of Catholic social services, while tightening restrictions on Catholics in other areas. This morning we want to examine recent developments in Catholic institutions of civil society in China, and assess in what areas there might be some scope for future liberalization, or might be the possibility of additional restrictions. We have two distinguished panelists to help us this morning. Richard Madsen is professor of sociology at the University of California at San Diego, and we are grateful for him coming all this way to share his expertise with us, and Sister Janet Carroll, the program associate with the U.S. Catholic China Bureau, who is here on the east coast, but also had to travel to Washington to join us, and we are grateful for that as well. As we have at our roundtables over the last three years, we will give each panelist 10 minutes for an opening presentation, and then launch a round of questions from the staff panel until we either run out of steam or get to 11:30, whichever comes first. So, without further ado, let me recognize Professor Madsen for his presentation, please. STATEMENT OF RICHARD MADSEN, PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SAN DIEGO, SAN DIEGO, CA Mr. Madsen. It is a great honor for me to speak at this roundtable and to have a chance to share what expertise I have on the situation of the Catholic Church in China. The first thing I would say, very briefly, is that the Catholic Church in China in many ways is an extremely vital institution. Many people had pretty much given it up for dead after the Communists took over in China in 1949, including many foreign missionaries who thought that many of their Catholics were basically ``rice Christians,'' poorly educated in the faith, who would not stand up to the tremendous persecution they ended up facing. So it was to the surprise even of Catholic missionaries, I think, as well as to secular scholars and to other people, to see how, in the 1980s, the church rebounded and has become a very dynamic, very vital institution. The Catholic Church in China is characterized in many places by enormous fervent devotion and commitment to the faith, sometimes, of course, under daunting obstacles. The church is developing new forms of organization of social services, as we are going to talk about later, and is ordaining a steady stream of new priests; religious sisters are being professed; and the numbers of Catholics are steadily, although somewhat slowly, growing. There are approximately 12 million Catholics in China today. At the same time, the church is faced with some severe problems. There is a problem of factionalization between the so-called underground church and the official church, and also problems related to the lack of numbers of new priests that would be needed to fill the gap caused by the retirements and deaths of an older generation of priests, because there were not that many priests ordained in the middle period during the repressive Mao Zedong years. So, there is a lack of priests, a lack of money, and factionalism. Over and above that, there is a problem, I think, with the capacity of the church to sometimes adapt itself to the dynamic secularizing influences of modernization and of urbanization in the coastal areas of China. The Catholic Church is strongest in China in the countryside, in the hinterlands. In major cities like Shanghai, even though the city is a site of a long-lasting Catholic community, the number of young people willing to become priests and the level of commitment begins to pale in comparison with the countryside, because for some reason the way the faith has been formulated and organized does not seem to match the experience and aspirations of people who are caught up in modernizing or urbanizing society. So, these are challenges that the Catholic Church faces, daunting challenges. But in my written statement, I mentioned that in some respects the Catholic Church in China is more dynamic, flourishing, and in better shape than, say, the Catholic Church in America or Europe, where, by many measures, the Church is in somewhat of a decline, reeling from scandal in the United States, whereas in China, it is on an upward trajectory, in spite of all its problems. Comparing the Church in China with the Church in America is like comparing apples and oranges. But there is no reason to say that the Catholic Church in China is in terrible shape, especially in comparison with us. In many ways, it is an inspiration to us all. The development of the Catholic Church in China is part and parcel of very dynamic development of civil society in China. The way I defined civil society in my written statement is a very simple, basic kind of definition: whenever you have a market economy, whenever you have mobility and the capacity of people to transcend family and local community, and form new kinds of associations, whenever you have these kinds of opportunities created by a dynamic market economy, you are going to have a civil society. You are going to have all sorts of new forms of organizations. And you have this in China. The classic problem of western social theory has been how you take a civil society, which is an inevitable thing, and make sure that this works toward stability, justice, and peace. All our great thinkers, from John Locke to Alexis de Tocqueville and even to Karl Marx tried to deal with this problem. In China, they are wrestling with this problem, too. In an earlier period, the basic instinct of the Chinese Government was to suppress civil society. The government saw this as a fundamental problem. Now, they basically, I think, have come to the point where they realize that you cannot suppress it. The issue is how they channel it. To do that, they are going to have a rule of law. They are going to have to have a framework within which a civil society can be set free, but also regulated so that it works for the common good. The framework through which the Chinese are going to do this is inevitably going to be different from the one in our society. I gave a talk about civil society, kind of a testimony to the Political Consultative Congress of Shanghai, which is a quasi-legislative body--I was the first foreigner to do this two years ago. After the talk, one of the members came up to me and said, ``I think I misunderstood you. It sounded to me like you said that in America the laws and the government allow groups in civil society to do whatever they want as long as they do not hurt anybody, and they make no effort to make sure they cohere into the common public good.'' I said, ``That is exactly what I said.'' And she said, ``This cannot be.'' This was totally outside the orbit of her way of thinking. She assumed that the government has the responsibility to make these groups work together for the common good.'' So the fundamental mentality we have at work here is different from ours. I think it is very possible that this mentality will change, but as China develops a framework for civil society, it would probably be more directive and more corporatist than we have here. However, I think it may eventually allow for a greater degree of flexibility and freedom than we have today. So the Catholic Church is part of the civil society. Because civil society in China is both very active, but poorly regulated and poorly protected, because guarantees of freedom of association are not truly guaranteed under the law-- there are no rights of association that are firmly guaranteed in the law; and because civil society flourishes in an ambiguous legal limbo--because of all this, very messy kind of tendencies develop. For one thing, groups in civil society establish themselves and maintain themselves only through sometimes extra-legal means, and even corrupt means, by buying off people so as to gain freedom to act. The capacity of such groups to organize themselves and to keep going is always contingent on very particularistic and complicated kinds of events. The religious organizations in China are part and parcel of this whole situation. So, religious organizations in China lead a very perilous kind of existence. There are areas of freedom, but they can be arbitrarily taken away. This creates, sometimes, paranoid and closed attitudes. Sometimes they get involved in complicated, messy sorts of compromises. What I would say, therefore, is that religious organizations in China, including the Catholic Church, are part and parcel of this kind of civil society. You cannot see the Church as kind of an island of moral and religious purity in the midst of a corrupt, messy society. The Church is part of the world. The world is complicated and messy, and the Church engages in all that messiness. At the same time, Catholics, like other non-Christian people in China, are searching for new ways to live a decent life and to serve people in new ways. I am sure Sister Janet will talk about all the new Catholic organizations that are being created with the social service organizations. The Catholic Church in China is faced with particular challenges that maybe are somewhat special to the Catholic Church in comparison, say, with certain kinds of Protestant communities. One issue is that the Catholic Church tends to be more rooted in local village and family organizations, and has a more difficult time transcending these. Another problem is that, because of the situation with the Vatican, it is very difficult for the Catholic Church to organize itself and speak with one voice. Because of all this, you cannot have a unified Catholic presence, and it would be more difficult to develop large-scale civil society organizations, such as Catholic Charities, in China. So this makes the Catholic situation in China somewhat special, but in general it is part of the overall situation about a messy, but emerging, civil society. [The prepared statement of Mr. Madsen appears in the appendix.] Mr. Foarde. Thank you for giving us a good start and a lot of food for thought as we go into the question and answer session a little later. Let us go on. Let me recognize Sister Janet Carroll. Sister Janet served as the executive director of the U.S. Catholic China Bureau from 1989 to 2003, and continues to serve as a program associate. She is widely published on Church and China issues, and has been a panelist and lecturer on these subjects, and we are delighted to have her with us this morning. Please go ahead. STATEMENT OF JANET CARROLL, M.M., PROGRAM ASSOCIATE, U.S. CATHOLIC CHINA BUREAU, SOUTH ORANGE, NJ Sister Janet Carroll. Thank you, Mr. Foarde. Let me also express my gratitude to be able to be here this morning. We have been aware of the work of this Commission for several years and been in contact previously during the hearings and other things that we follow very closely. I would like to certainly commend the Commission for that work. In the words of your co-chair, Senator Hagel, this idea that, as the United States Government and the Government of China, we can work closely together for the common good and common interest, not only of our own national interests, but also for the people. Second, as I have said as a caveat, that it is also important for the American people and the Chinese people to work together. That is where I think the civil society issue is best engaged. Professor Madsen has already sketched out the background on the Church situation, and the Church, as it struggles forward in China today, as it does, indeed, in many lands, our own included. My experience has always been grounded in my own personal experience of having worked in the field, albeit not in China proper, but rather in Taiwan, many years in the mid-1950s, 1960s, and into the 1970s. But that experience of working with the people at the grassroots level colors everything I do, and even today when I visit China, my interest is always just to be with the ordinary folks. I think it is there that the hope lies for the future of the Church, indeed, for the future of the country. I will try to stick more closely to the statement I prepared and simply lift up a few aspects of it that perhaps will complement what Mr. Madsen has already shared with us. I think, as he has indicated, no matter how you construe the developments in the last quarter century, the signs of renewed opportunities for social services and civil society certainly exist. I use these two words interchangeably in the sense that, insofar as the Church will organize social services and social welfare programs, that is in my view the contribution for the moment that the Church will make to civil society. It is always important to remember that in China, everything you hear is true in one place and in one time, but may not be true in the next place and the next time, which makes it difficult sometimes for us to deal with all that ambiguity. There are a lot of contextual perspectives which we have to bear in mind when we are going to look at the situation, and I think Dick has already raised some of them. But I would just highlight that the cultural and social traditions, as they are evolving in China, give an opportunity for Christianity, in general--certainly the Catholic Church--to also engage in providing new ethical and moral foundations for the emergence of a civil society. The civil society has to be grounded in these underpinnings. While there is cause for concern and caution about the situation, there certainly are these unparalleled opportunities which the churches can take. Christianity can make an important contribution to a life ethic, as a philosophy, but also through the very services that the churches can render. Many of us would be familiar with the extensive program of social services: schools, hospitals, clinics, all manner of social ministries, orphanages, and so forth, that the missionary church provided in China until the 1950s. Today, of course, the local Catholic Church in China has the prerogative to establish its own ministries in that regard. I think that, given the limited resources, both material resources as well as human resources, they are doing an outstanding job in getting started. I have left, on the distribution table for people to take, four or five samples of so-called Catholic social service centers which are already functioning in China today, some of them more or less developed. Perhaps the best known one, with the most structure, is the Beifang Jinde Center in Hebei Province in northern China, about three hours from Beijing. They work extensively throughout the country trying to respond to rescue and relief needs when there are tragedies like flooding and earthquake and other disasters. They are trying to make an effort to respond to the HIV/AIDS crisis, and other programs of interest, and they are doing quite well. There is another center getting under way in the northeast of China in the city of Shenyang, organized by the Liaoning Diocese. You can read about their programs and what they are envisioning, and the perspective they take on engaging in the society and in service. I also brought along a copy of a newsletter of another very well-established social service agency in the diocese of Xi'an in western China, which has quite a bit of work underway, spread out very extensively in the village areas of Shaanxi Province. I've already brought to your attention the well-known Catholic Intelligentsia Association of Shanghai. Under a rather archaic title they have existed in Shanghai since the mid-1980s--soon after the Church there reopened. A small group of Catholic professionals came together to offer pro bono services in the fields of legal, medical, and social service. Another area in which I think the Catholic Church can contribute in China, where they are indeed struggling, is to look at the culture as it engages with modernity and the whole new development of a market economy. How can Christianity become a living interlocutor with Chinese culture, and help it to reinterpret its history, prepare for the New China that the government is seeking to bring into existence? A famous slogan that Chinese political leaders use as a challenge to the people is ``to create a new spiritual civilization.'' This is our kind of religious language, yet it is interesting to hear this kind of language coming from the so-called atheistic authorities in China. So I would say that the post-1978 People's Republic of China, the ``New China,'' already now passing its first quarter century of existence, is facing this challenge of creatively reinventing its traditional value system and its moral categories in order to have new interpretive models. With these models, they can not only make sense of their past and find common ground in the present for the good of the people, but also can move toward the future, which will enable them to play their rightful role in the international community. Civil society will be an integral part of the transformation that is happening in China. It has to be structured in a manner consistent with the values, virtues, and cultures of that ancient and great civilization. One of the things those of us who have tried to engage and work with the Chinese churches must remember, and I think it is one of the ways you will see organizations working in China, is to give priority to the principles of harmony and right relationships that are central to the Chinese psyche. Those two elements of seeking harmony and the smooth way to go, and of being in right relationships, whether it is with the government or one's peers, or caring for the needy and the poor in society, have to bear great weight in the restructuring of China's civil society. It is time, I think, for a new dialogue, not only within China, but internationally with China, to move in this direction. Finally, I would like to speak a little bit about the needs that are out there, about how the programs are organized, and why these programs have the character that they do when you look at the literature. There are many needs and many ways that the Church could serve if it had the resources, if it had the support and assistance from sister churches, and from other organizations in the social services sector. Before our roundtable this morning, we were talking about developments in the field of law. The Chinese welcome and are open to work together with those who can assist them in preparing their own human resources to meet the goal of creating a rule of law. In the field of general education, while the churches are not yet permitted to sponsor schools as such, a great deal of work is being done in the field of informal and supplementary education. Similarly, collaborative efforts would be welcome in the social and medical fields. I mention the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which necessarily needs help from every quarter. The churches are already playing a tremendous role--both Catholic and Protestant groups--in trying to respond to this crisis, mainly by training personnel and collaborating with local health bureaus in designing programs. I have included in the packet of materials on the distribution table for those who may find it of interest, a response to some questions that might be asked as we think about religiously sponsored social service projects in China. How do these organizations function? What kinds of limitations do they struggle under?, and so forth. I think direct responses are always valuable: verbatim from one of the directors of such programs regarding these concerns. What sorts of supervision and restrictions that these agencies work under simply because they are church sponsored? My interluctor noted that strictly speaking, there were no written rules that make them any different from other organizations. But they indeed are supervised, especially those agencies and organizations that try to relate internationally and have funding from foreign contacts and foreign personnel coming in to assist them with their programs. These are delicate areas, and there is a lot of government supervision when a social service agency in China functions in that way. Other people may ask if it depends on who's in charge? Indeed, it does. My source mentioned that, again, harmony and right relationships are very important. When there are competent people in both a local government ministry as well as in the Church side of the organization and they can discuss and agree on common concerns, things go well. Another question that is asked is, ``What is the primary concern that the government might have about these kinds of religiously affiliated organizations? '' I would say, as the Xi'an director said, that the primary concern--and this is something we have certainly not been shy about in the past--is that these programs would be used for what they would judge to be ulterior purposes. In other words, to put it very bluntly, a social service program whose real goal was to proselytize or convert people to Christianity rather than to just altruistically serve the people. We know that, unfortunately, some overly zealous groups use these methods. Regrettably, the Chinese Government perceives them as detrimental to its interests. If I might, just one final comment in terms of what kind of restrictions, perhaps, these groups appear to be under. I interviewed a young woman doctor who is currently doing her studies at Pace University in hospital administration and has been working in the diocese in Hebei. She mentioned that, coming up now, it appears that there is much stricter control in terms of the objectivity of the social services that I already alluded to, but more importantly, that standards are rising all the time. In the old days, the missionaries could do whatever as long as they were doing good deeds. But now it is not sufficient that the Church just have a clinic that perhaps is not staffed with personnel with high professional standards, and does not use up-to-norm methods, pharmaceuticals, or clinical tests, and so forth. So she mentioned to me that more and more small clinics run by the churches in the countryside are being closed because they lack these standards and capacities to follow the local norms. She was of the opinion that this situation was probably good, because the churches need to bring them up to modern standards. In fact, her being here finishing her degree in this field is a function of her local bishop's concern about having adequately credentialed professional staff who will administer these social service programs for that diocese. Thank you very much for your attention. [The prepared statement of Sister Janet Carroll appears in the appendix.] Mr. Foarde. Sister Janet, thank you very much. Both presentations have given us a lot of ideas and concepts to discuss. I will let you both rest your voices for a minute while I make an administrative announcement or two. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China will have a formal hearing on Thursday, September 23, beginning at 10:30 a.m. in this room, 2255. The subject will be the situation in Hong Kong after the Legislative Council elections on September 12. We will try to take a look at constitutional development and universal suffrage in Hong Kong, and what the prospects are for that. The Commission will meet in a closed session in this room at 10 a.m. on that same day, and so we will not admit people to the room until just before the 10:30 hearing begins. But you are all welcome to come, and we would very much like to see you there. The Commission is charged by statute to issue a report each year, which may contain recommendations to the President and to the Congressional leadership. In keeping with that statutory mandate, we will release the annual report for 2004 on Tuesday, October 5. The room, I think, will be room 1116 Longworth, but please look at the Web site. Of course, we will send out an announcement in a couple of weeks to remind people about that date and time for the Annual Report press conference. Chairman Leach and Co-Chairman Hagel will preside at the hearing next week, and also at the press conference to introduce the report on October 5. With that, let us go to the question and answer session. I will exercise the prerogative of the chair to leap right into it. Our Commission members are very interested in the dynamics between the underground Church and the open Church. We wondered if communities of underground believers have tried to form any voluntary associations or band together to do the sort of social service work that is apparently being done in the open Church by the groups that Sister Janet and Dick alluded to during their presentations. Can you comment on that? Mr. Madsen. First of all, I would say they have a tremendous, quite sophisticated capacity for organization that transcends just local villages and communities. There is an underground Catholic bishops conference that gets interrupted by the police. Over and above that, if by civil society you include all sorts of voluntary organizations, they do lots of work in getting the money together to build churches and other buildings in places such as Wenzhou. There are all these beautiful churches that they have built. Some of them have been destroyed recently, but there is the capacity to get themselves organized to build the churches and to raise money, sometimes from foreign sources. A lot of that kind of activity goes on. I think, because they are not officially registered, they are under pressure and are more concerned about survival than about expanding social services such as works of charity, although I think there is a fair amount of work that goes on in helping each other in local communities. But they would have a difficult time doing so in the formalized way that the official Church can do it. Mr. Foarde. Useful. Sister Janet, please. Sister Janet Carroll. I would also--and Dick, in his own paper made a point on this which I would respond also to--say, just to clarify that these, these hard-line distinctions that we make between underground and open, or whatever terms you want to use, registered and unregistered is what I prefer to use, are not always useful. None of the activities we have been talking about happened without the acquiescence, formal or informal, of the local authorities. So in our understanding, there is no such thing as things happening that nobody knows about. However, to address your question, would a church in a given city or a countryside area that is not registered--could that church start a social service program? Maybe not formally, I think, in the sense of having it have a name like Catholic Social Service Center of x location, but in fact they are doing it. The work is going on. More importantly, a lot of these organizations that are formally established--and I would say that there are probably more than just the four or five that we have illustrated here this morning--the people working in them are Catholics who belong, across the board, to different communities which choose one position or the other. I know, myself, for many of the young sisters, for example, that would be doing a lot of this ministry, their natural sympathies would be with the unregistered communities because their families belong to those traditions and that is where they come from. But in terms of the objective work they do, they are there working in the structures that enable them to do the ministry. Mr. Foarde. Thank you. And thank you for bringing up another point which I would like to follow up on a little bit, and that is the blurring distinction between registered and unregistered Catholics, open or underground, or however we might describe them. That is something that we on the Commission staff have only begun to understand a lot better this year. I am glad you brought that up. I am very short on time, so I think I am just going to pass the questioning on to my friend and colleague, Dave Dorman, who represents Senator Chuck Hagel, our Co-chairman. Dave. Mr. Dorman. Well, first of all, thank you, to both of you, for coming today. The issues of religious freedom, freedom of association, and civil society in China are all ones that I know Senator Hagel considers very important, and very important to the Commission. I am sure that all of our Commissioners share this view. I do not think you have testified before the Commission before, and we always try to draw the greatest variety of viewpoints and the greatest variety of expertise that we possibly can. So, thank you for coming today. I had the opportunity to read your written statement last night, Professor Madsen. I wanted to ask you something that has been puzzling many of us here on the dais for quite some time. You mention in your written statement that many of the activities of the Church would not be possible without the informal acquiescence of government officials. This is something that many of us here have actually experienced during travel in China: the differences between provinces, the differences between regions, sometimes subtle, sometimes quite apparent. We have our own theories of why that, in fact, is the case. But I wonder if you could give us your views on whether you believe there are variations from province to province and from region to region regarding the degree of control, the degree of regulation, and the degree of harassment, and if so why these variations exist. Mr. Madsen. Again, this speaks to a point that Sister Janet just made about the way in which underground and above-ground factions in the Church blend together. There is a huge gray area between the extreme members of either side. If you look at the formal structures of China at provisions guaranteeing the hegemony of the Communist Party, and even look at the Constitution, on paper it looks like a classic totalitarian system. But in reality, the capacity of the central government to control the society is rather weak and becoming weaker all the time, partly because of the dynamism of this market economy, partly because of corruption and other factors. So there is a lot of practical space for people in different places to organize themselves in ways that go beyond the government's written regulations. People throughout China find ways to make their own kinds of peace with the system. The capacity to do this varies with many different factors involved, one of which is distance from Beijing. But other factors enter in as well. So what you get is enormous variability across China, and in some places, as far as religious groups are concerned, there is tremendous freedom to practice whatever you want, underground or above-ground. With respect to these so-called underground churches, in many places people are not living in the catacombs, you know. They are not doing what they are doing in hiding. They are building beautiful churches that everyone can see. They are publicly visible, even though they are not officially registered. To make this all happen, you have to have local officials at least be willing to look the other way. Sometimes it is done through bribery, pay offs, and so forth. Sometimes it is done simply because local officials do not have the energy to go after some of these churches. They have other priorities. Sometimes a combination of the above. But this happens in contingent ways, in ways that are variable across the board. The problem however, is that none of this activity is protected by rights under the law, so that if local officials change, if the national situation changes for some reason, this can be taken away from them. So that is why you get this tremendous instability. But, in general, there is enormous variation in China and enormous areas of practical freedom, although freedom is not guaranteed under the law. That, itself, causes problems. Mr. Dorman. Thank you. Sister Janet Carroll. If I might build on that response. I think that it is the old ``glass half empty or half full'' paradigm that comes into play. I think that my experience with the young people, meaning the new younger leadership among the clergy, religious, and the laity who are taking the leadership in the churches, they tend to be future-oriented people. They are not looking back, or even being constricted by present realities. But they are trying to prepare themselves for the future. It is much more important that they be given the capacity to act and enabled so that when, indeed, a more viable field for them to function comes into the rule of law in China, they will be ready to do it. So, they make the necessary adjustments. I would not say it is all being opportunistic or pragmatic, or anything like that, or just compromising, but they try to work realistically in that situation. Thus, they are less concerned about what they are not able to do, and they are much more concerned--as I remember Father Chen said to me when I recently visited the Social Service Center at Xi'an--there is so much to do that they can do, that they really are not going to get themselves all in a snit about what they cannot do. Mr. Foarde. Useful. Thank you. I would like to recognize Susan Roosevelt Weld, the general counsel of the Commission, for some questions. Susan. Ms. Weld. My first question has to do with what Sister Janet said about a person from a traditionally Catholic family, which is unregistered, deciding to register and serve in some of the official organizations. Is that typical? It seems to me that is one reason, a very strong reason, why there would be blurring of the two communities. Sister Janet Carroll. Absolutely. And, strictly speaking, individuals--and Dick can correct me on this if necessary--do not have to register, in other words, the average Catholic who just wants to go to Mass on Sunday or take part in some activity. It is the leadership and those who are responsible for the Church in an institutional, juridical sense, and the Church itself as a place of worship, and so forth. But an average Catholic does not even necessarily have to belong to the Catholic Patriotic Association, although obviously they are encouraged to join. So that explains it. Many of the young graduate students that we now are sponsoring in this country for studies--there are quite a few of them here right in the Washington area-- clergy, religious, and others, come from those types of families. But they know that the future requires them to be prepared. And the way they can have that opportunity for preparation is to go through the system and seize the opportunity. So, yes, it is quite common, I would say. Mr. Madsen. I would just reiterate what Sister Janet said, that as far as individuals are concerned, they do not have to be registered. It is just the institution that has to be registered. And individuals have different approaches to this. Some people in the so-called underground faction of the Church would not be caught dead inside an official Church, and that is all there is to it. But others want to receive the sacraments and want to be part of it, so they would attend if it were convenient and available. Sometimes they make distinctions. For instance, I think when I did a research project in the 1990s--it may have changed in the last few years--sometimes Catholics, for instance, go to confession. They might not want to go to confession to a priest in the official church because they might be afraid that the priest might be under pressure to tell somebody, and so forth. They could not trust them. But they would go to Mass, maybe, in an official church, but not to confession. And in some cases, if someone were dying and wanted to receive the Last Rites, they would want to be 100 percent sure that the Rites were going to be sacramentally effective, and thus they might go to an underground priest rather than an above-ground priest. But then in the other circumstances they would go into the official Church, et cetera. So, individual Catholics would span the spectrum and there would be a lot of gray areas, and very complicated sorts of things that would go on. Ms. Weld. Thank you. I am also interested in another thing. Is there great suspicion of either unregistered or registered Church members who have links, strong links, with, for example, people from abroad who are working in China? I ask this question because of that case recently in which communications abroad were found to be a violation of laws against disclosing state secrets. Is that a common situation? What is meant by ``state secrets'' in those cases? Do you know the cases I am talking about? From Zhejiang Province. Mr. Madsen. Communication abroad is always a sensitive issue. You are not supposed to have communications abroad without being officially supervised and receiving permission. People have them anyway, of course. But that is one thing that can always be used against you, so everyone violates that in a way, but that gives government officials leverage to get rid of anybody they do not like. Many of the underground and official churches still depend a lot on foreign donations and foreign help in various ways. They get a lot of help that comes from different sources, sometimes from Taiwan, the Philippines, and of course the United States. However, because of the way China is set up, there is always an inherent suspicion about foreign contacts, and they can be used against you. Sister Janet Carroll. Yes. Of course, some of this is grounded in history and the experience--even our Holy Father himself has apologized for certain excesses in the past where, you know, apparently missionaries operating in good will were also compromised in their way of functioning in China. We frequently visit China. We take study groups over, what we call religious study groups. I have led nine of them myself in the last 10 or 12 years. We visit the churches. We spend time with people there. It is very open, very above-board. To my knowledge--I am certain they would tell us if it was the case-- that does not compromise our friends and those we meet with locally. So, we have those kinds of contexts and communications. Nowadays, we regularly receive invitations to attend church ceremonies, the taking of vows of sisters, dedication of new churches, all these normal activities that churches have, and we are invited to participate, and so on. So, I do no think that they are penalized for being in contact with us. I think those areas that you refer to are more a reaction by authorities who were aware of things that were being done. As we know, long documents governing foreigners' activities in the field of religion in China have been elaborated, describing who can preach, and so forth. And if those rules are violated, well, then of course you then lend yourself to problems. In many cases, as is true in every country, there are many laws on the books that we do not like, but it does not mean that we can violate them with impunity. So, you have to wait until the law gets changed, and work for the change. Mr. Foarde. Again, very useful. I would like now to recognize our colleague who is responsible for organizing this roundtable this morning and who has been looking at Catholicism in China this past year for us, Mark Milosch, for some questions. Mark. Mr. Milosch. Sister Janet and Professor Madsen, I am very glad to have met both of you today. My question is about civil society as much as religion. I think many of us are concerned with this issue because we want to learn the lessons from the decline of Communism in eastern Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, and its fall in 1989. I am wondering if you could compare the position of civil society in China today, with particular reference to the Catholic Church in China, with its position in eastern Europe, particularly Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia, in the 1980s. Mr. Madsen. I think, around 1989, there were some people in the Catholic Church, especially in the underground part of it, who thought that they could make a contribution similar to that of the church in Poland and perhaps in Hungary, in the 1980s. That is, the church could bring down Communism. Some of them-- at least a few of them--thought that way. They had almost apocalyptic understandings of this. This is one reason why the government was so eager to crush them when it cracked down in the early 1990s. I think that idea was certainly unrealistic, because the Catholic Church in China is a small entity, 1 percent of the population, perhaps. In eastern Europe, in Poland, especially, it was very large and identified closely with Polish nationalism. The Catholic Church is too small in China to really be a force that could totally transform the Communist system. But perhaps the problem is that Chinese society is somewhat fragile these days. I think social stability and government control are increasingly tenuous. In some respects, the government is afraid that even little things can help breakdown occur. ``A single spark can light a prairie fire,'' as Mao Zedong said. So, they are on the lookout for any kinds of signs of independent activity that would have the capacity to be a nucleus of resistance of disaffected people. Since so much of the Chinese Catholic Church is rural, and since the farmers have so many reasons to be discontented, and there are thousands of peasant riots every year, the government is afraid that groups like the Catholic Church that do have the capacity to organize beyond villages could be the nucleus of trouble. As a matter of fact, although there have been literally thousands of these peasant riots and disturbances in the last several years, in no instance have Catholic organizations directed them. So, while the government has lots of reasons to fear instability, the Church generally has not been one of them, but I think the authorities are wary and they are on the lookout. I think this dynamic leads you to this situation, that in general the authorities have not bothered the Church as much as they might because they have other problems to deal with. But if they have reason to be suspicious, then they can move in, so you have an ebb and flow of repression and loosening up. Sister Janet Carroll. The only thing I would add, perhaps, to that, Mark--and I addressed this issue on the bottom of page 8 in my statement--is I think the Chinese Government is at pains to learn the lessons from eastern Europe, certainly not to repeat the political mistakes that were made. To my understanding, the authorities are concerned about learning the socio-economic lessons, to avoid the fragmentation and the terrible factionalism, the ethnocentricity, and so forth, that has exploded all over eastern Europe and is causing such grief. They want to ensure that it not happen in a country such as China, which could lend itself to that type of tension, and to the great detriment of everyone concerned. On the economic side, the government has made such progress, relatively speaking, in the economic area, that they want to be sure that it not all be lost or destroyed. Frankly, I think what we often label as repression of religious movements, even such as Falun Gong and so forth-- although I do not recognize Falun Gong as a religious movement myself--should more properly be labeled as much more official concern about the organizing capacity of those groups. It has very little to do with religion and ideology. It has everything to do with the fact that churches and spiritual groups can organize vast numbers of people who could be used for something other than the religious or spiritual purpose for which they are initially organized. Mr. Foarde. Really useful. Let me pick up the questioning now. I want to go back to a couple of things that each of you said in your opening statements. Sister Janet, you alluded to the contribution of the missionary Church before the Revolution in 1949 in building the institutions of civil society. But can you tell us what happened to those institutions? Did they disappear entirely? Are there vestiges of them today that were picked up and invigorated in the 1970s? What was the dynamic of that? Sister Janet Carroll. Probably the most obvious would be schools and a few hospitals. Let me say that, from the Catholic side, the Catholic Church in China, as Dick has said many times, was much more rural, and therefore was not as known for large institutions in the major cities, with the exception of Fudan University in Shanghai, and so forth. However, there are more institutions in the countryside. I think a lot of those, when the properties were taken, and so forth, they just all went away. A lot of those properties are what is now being recovered, actually through the services of the Catholic Patriotic Association. So I think maybe it applies more to Protestant Christianity, which had far more established colleges, universities, and hospitals, and so forth. For example Peking Medical College was originally a Protestant institution. A lot of the buildings, of course, are back being what they were, hospitals and schools. For example, the famous School of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, who were very famous for their work. That school is still a school, but it is not any longer a Catholic school. One of my very favorite ones, though, is the very large building that the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary had quite close to Tiananmen Square, a building that is now a McDonald's. Let me add one more point, though, about reparations. I work with the United Board for Christian Education in Asia on the China subcommittee, and I understand that a lot of reparations were received for Christian colleges that had been confiscated in China. I do not know if ``reparations'' is the correct word. Nonetheless, money was received by the sponsoring agencies among Protestant groups--which was held in trust and is being used for programs to strengthen and develop tertiary education all over the country today. To my knowledge, and maybe Dick could speak to that, I know certainly speaking for the Maryknoll Congregation now--I belong to the Maryknoll order--we never received any funds or anything like that for the properties that were taken. But we are happy now that a lot of them are reverting to the Church and the properties are being used again by the Church. Mr. Foarde. If you have a comment, Dick, I would love to hear it. Mr. Madsen. One issue that also sometimes becomes a bone of contention with the official and underground churches has to do with the recovery of property that was confiscated in the 1950s by the Communists. As part of the new policies on religion, some of that property is supposed to come back to the churches. The churches are being rebuilt and they are supposed to get some of the property. Of course, the property, if it goes anywhere, is going to go to registered churches, the official churches. Sometimes the underground feels that it ought to be getting this property instead. It is complicated, because some of this property has become very valuable. For instance, the property around the main cathedral in Shanghai was basically a rural area in the early 20th century, but now it is the heart of the commercial district of Shanghai. The real estate is worth a fortune there. If the Church in Shanghai got all the property back that it owned before 1949, it would be fabulously wealthy. Even so, it has gotten a portion back and actually it is quite well off because it has developed that into office buildings, and so forth. The government is not going to give it all back because it has become too valuable now, but then there is contention about how much it should give back, and so forth. This is one source of some of the controversies that you have over the church money. Mr. Foarde. Interesting. Sister Janet Carroll. Frequently they will trade properties, too. At Fushun in Liaoning Province, they have just traded what had been Maryknoll property located in the heart of the city for a large tract of land on the edge of town, given to the Community of Sisters where they have now just built a monumental building. They had to do that because the scope of the land dictates the size of the building. So they built a center, a home for their elderly sisters, and a formation and training center for the young sisters, and so on. It was a tradeoff. In fact, it was of interest to them. They really did not want to be in the hubbub of the downtown market, anyway, so they were glad to be rid of the property. Mr. Foarde. Interesting. Let me go to Dave Dorman for more questions. Dave. Mr. Dorman. Sister Janet, I wanted to refer to your written statement. I appreciate your introduction and your reference to the importance of seeking ways to build bridges and opportunities with the Chinese Government and the Chinese people, and to use these bridges in a constructive and cooperative way to help China realize a democratic future. I am sure that Senator Hagel would agree as well. I use that as an opening because this Commission is dealing with some of the most difficult and contentious issues in the U.S.-China relationship. Some of those fall within the area of religion. In your written statement, you build a very nuanced argument that I found interesting. In one paragraph, in particular, you refer to times where Chinese Christians and other believers find themselves in political conflict with the state, and then suggest that their actions are too confrontational. Now, it seems to me--and I emphasize the word ``seems''--that this sort of argument does not take into account individuals in China who peacefully express their religious views and find themselves in prison. This is a difficult issue for the Commission. As both of you have pointed out today, there are positive developments in China regarding Catholics. At the same time, many religious believers in China are suffering severe repression. How would you add this piece to the argument that you present in your written testimony? Also, I would ask, could you offer some guidance to the Commission in terms of building opportunities and bridges with China on the issue of religious freedom. Sister Janet Carroll. Well, it is very broad. Anyway, let me just try to speak to a few things. Thank you for acknowledging that. Again, one cannot say everything that one wants to say, so I sometimes tend to want to say the things that I feel have not been said clearly enough, in place of other things that are said often. First of all, let me make this clear: No one wants, in any sense of the word, to gainsay the sufferings and the difficulties of any people in China--religious believers certainly among them--who have suffered simply because of their conscience and their beliefs. We all know that this repression is something that is just outright reprehensible, and people should not be held in any way and made to suffer for their beliefs. It is not my intention ever to gainsay any of that. Indeed, no matter how you got there, if you are the one that is in these dire straits, there is nothing else that matters but that, so you cannot really relativize it and say, ``Oh, well, but on the large scale of things, you know. . .'' So I do not mean in any way to imply that view. But what I am talking about is this--and I think Dick made a reference to it--I mean the poles that tend to exist in the Catholic communities on the two ends of the spectrum, which is this whole large thing called the Catholic Church in China, where you have very recalcitrant groups on both ends of the spectrum. It is not just that they are on the side of the very hard core ideologues among Chinese authorities who take a dim view of anything, religion or whatever, that they are not controlling. On the side of the church, there are also those who say, even if the Holy Father himself comes out and makes a statement, they say he is misinformed. So, you have these two extremes. Leave those aside. But in the middle, I think, you have all of the gray area that we constantly talk about, and I think that is the way to go. We need more gray area. We need more people who are kind of trying to find a way in the gloaming, in the fog, and to come together. You have heard this before, there are rights and there are rites. R-I-G-H-T-S, which in the West we are very strong about, and in China and in the East, R-I-T-E-S is much more important. In other words, the way something is done is almost as important as what is done. When Senator Hagel was talking about building bridges, to me, that is a coming together. You do not build a bridge by throwing it over there and standing on this side and waiting for everybody to cross over. That is not reconciliation or bridging differences. It is something coming together in the middle. So, that is what I mean. I think there are ways. We see this. I use this analogy a lot: In the West, there is a river, and it is not running very smoothly, so you want to have it go straight to its outlet, so you go in there and you dynamite out the rocks, and it goes right straight through. But if you look at a Chinese painting, the water is always going around, over, and under, and around, and over, and under. It finds a way. It gets there in the end, but it does not cause such damage in the process. So maybe that is a little simplistic way of thinking about it, but there is something there that I am trying to say. The way we do it could achieve the same ends. It might take longer, and in taking longer, if people are languishing in prison or languishing and suffering, that is not good. We do not want to compromise them in any way. But I think marching out in the streets and demonstrating, things like that--I worked for a number of years, as some of you know, at the Holy See Mission to the United Nations. I will never forget Monsignor Giovanni Calli, who was the head of the mission at the time, saying, what goes on at the United Nations is a world of diplomacy in which, behind the scenes, quietly, people can find ways to come together to find their common interests. Once it blows out in the public, nothing is going to be achieved because neither side can back down publicly. So that is the way of thinking of the school I come out of. There are ways to do the same thing. It takes longer, maybe, and it might be more difficult, and it is not always as satisfying as being able to make a big statement. Mr. Dorman. Good. Thank you. Mr. Foarde. Susan, do you want to pick up the questioning? Ms. Weld. Sure. I guess one aspect of my question has to do with civil society and the reason the government sees the organization of entities in civil society as so dangerous, when now there is such a need, especially in the countryside where the church is the strongest. So, that is one part of it. But the other is this: the reasons the government feels that religion is dangerous and backward. One reads a lot of things that they put out saying it is anti-science, asking, how can you have religion in a country that wants to develop? Do you think there is movement there in the government for changing this view of religion? Because you can prove that in the West that science and religion are very happy partners in development. So, that is part of my question. The other is that in some of your writings you say the Christian villages are stable. They have little crime and everybody has a great, strong community feeling. It seems to me the government now fears instability so much, that that would be a model they should try to work with rather than fight. Is there any chance that that might happen? Mr. Madsen. I think that what Christians do, and should do, is point to all the positive things that religion can bring. People in China, researchers for instance, the Academy of Social Sciences--have also pointed to that. Religion brings good things, such as social stability. Social stability lowers crime rates, et cetera. So, obviously it has positive social functions. In the government in China itself, as in any government, there are different factions, different sides, hard-liners, soft-liners: some would accentuate the positive, some would be worried more about negative consequences. The negative consequences are the possibilities of linking up and communicating across wide areas that then could channel discontent. Religion brings those things, too. Also, of course, now I think globally, there is a more global atmosphere of being aware of the downside of religion, the fanaticism, and so forth. This problem has been accentuated, of course, since September 11th. So, the government also draws upon that sometimes. I was in a meeting last year in Shanghai, and one person there was from the Religious Affairs Bureau who in many ways was very reasonable. But then at the end he talked about the need to fight terrorists, he said, like bin Laden and the Dalai Lama. I and my colleagues said, ``Wait a minute! Do you really want to equate the Dalai Lama and bin Laden? '' He said, ``Yes, yes, they are both terrorists. They both want to split China. They are dangerous.'' So, that was the mentality that can get generated in these times. Yet the same person was willing to recognize various positive things that religious communities can do. So, we are living in the stage of ambiguity right now. In terms of science and religion, I think, in general, there are old textbooks and old thinking in China from probably the early part of the 20th century, that said that advanced countries in the world to replace religion with science. This was part of the ideology of the May 4th Movement. In fact, you saw the same thing with the Kuomintang in Taiwan. To some degree, more sophisticated people in China and elsewhere are developing a more subtle understanding of this, but there is still this kind of popular legitimation through science that has a very strong foothold. But it does not map onto reality. So, I think that the prejudice against religion will change as the level of education begins to rise in China. Sister Janet Carroll. Interestingly, we were recently contacted by some scholars and academics in China asking if we could supply them with copies of the Vatican documents which had been translated into Chinese. Of course, they have been translated into classical Chinese in greater China. The reason they gave for their interest in these documents is that they are interested in doing commentaries on these documents which would ``help,'' exactly as they said, their government and people in authority to revise their understanding of the role of religion in society and the Church in the modern world. They were interested in, as it were, the policies coming out of the Second Vatican Council about the Church's social role, its importance in that way, and not this old mentality that you referred to, this sort of superstitious type of thing that you can dismiss easily. I thought that was a very interesting development, that also echoes the keen interest about the role of religion in society among young scholars today in China. In fact, the Chinese Government is sending many young scholars--I know we even received one that the State Department was facilitating a few years ago from People's University to come and have experience and exposure in the States at the request of the State Department to help him understand how religion functions in our society. So they are very keen and interested in that. Some years ago, we had a delegation from Shanghai also at the time when Jiang Zemin was still mayor of Shanghai, coming to try to understand that issue. In fact, we met here at the law school. I do not recall if it was at Catholic University, or where it was. Anyway, there is a keen interest. I think that those in China today that have that very old ideological fixation of the non-compatibility of religion and science, or religion and modernity, even, are few. However, it does not take many, if they are in positions of influence, they can certainly still have an impact. But I think the more balanced leadership, the more rational contemporary leaders in China today, are certainly more open in their view of the role of religion in society. I mean, not to deny that they see a very utilitarian role. Mr. Foarde. Let me recognize Mark Milosch again for more questions. Mark. Mr. Milosch. It seems to me that one could say that the Chinese Government permits quite a few Catholic civil society organizations--for example, the parish itself, which, for most Catholics in the world, is Catholic civil society. Of course, there are also Catholic social service organizations in China. And there are orders of sisters in China and there are seminaries. But it seems that the point, for the Chinese Government, is always to keep Catholic civil society organizations local, rather than national, or even provincial. Are there informal networks whereby Catholics try to link up across diocesan and provincial boundaries? How do they do that and how does the State try to frustrate that? Mr. Madsen. Well, there are both formal and informal networks, of course. There are national publications, like the magazine published under the auspices, ultimately, of the so- called Patriotic Association. The Patriotic Association tries to monopolize the formal interconnections. It calls for national bishops meetings, and so forth. So there is a formal organization of the church. At the same time, there are a lot of informal connections, although they are sometimes truncated, made difficult, because of government supervision. So people around China know what is going on in various ways, sometimes through rumor, sometimes through word of mouth, sometimes through passages of mimeographed materials. And people travel. In the old days, it was very difficult to travel from place to place in China, but now people travel to different Catholic centers from around the country. For instance, I was doing a little study project of a pilgrimage site of Catholics in Sheshan near Shanghai, and people come from all over China. They come from Xinjiang, they come from Inner Mongolia. They come on long distance buses, especially in the month of May. So, they know when this is happening. They can organize themselves to come. Obviously when they come, it is a chance for them to mingle and to learn things. So there are networks that are difficult to see from the outside because they are not formalized and they are not very visible, but there is a lot of intercommunication that goes on, maybe because some of it is not official. It is more difficult, therefore, to separate, fact from rumor. So you get variations in quality and quantity of information, which causes its own difficulties and problems sometimes. Mr. Milosch. If I could follow up right away. What about Internet sites being used to create these networks? I hear about the underground and official Catholic communities setting up Internet sites--that these are always popping up and being closed down, and popping up again. Mr. Madsen. I do not know about underground Internet sites. They are making a major effort to keep those under control. There are above-ground Internet sites, for example in the Shanghai Diocese, and this Beifang Jinde has a good Internet site. Catholics, like many other groups in China, are developing and starting to get used to using the Web. Underground sites, I do not know of. If they do surface, the government will shut them down, I am sure. Do you know, Sister Janet? Sister Janet Carroll. No. I would not know of any. I am not sophisticated in that area, myself. But, as you mentioned, I know the public ones. Two other points I would mention in terms of national networking channels. Not only does Beifang Jinde Social Center do the social program, but they also have a national Catholic newspaper--Faith Fortnightly--which circulates about 50,000 copies biweekly. You can subscribe to it right here in the United States, and so forth. It really is published there by the people. It carries world Church news, local Church news, and has sections on spirituality, devotionals, and a lot of local Church news. It goes out all over the country. There are also a couple of Catholic presses that transcend their dioceses--like Guangqi Publishers in Shanghai, which serves the whole country. Beijing has a press. I believe it is called Wisdom, or something like that. Then Xi'an has a smaller one, and they do a lot of publishing of books, mainly in the area of theology, scripture, spirituality, and devotional literature for the people. Then, I do not know if this would fit in this category or not, but there is a recent development of post-ordination courses being organized for young clergy. They even welcome foreign ``professors'' to give short courses within those programs. Clergy from around the country go to the National Seminary in Beijing for several months of study, while others go to the Major Seminary at Shanghai and also Shijiazhuang. This latter program receives professors from Fudan University in Shanghai to help with the teaching, as well as having visiting professors from abroad. Of course, there is also a mix of other ``education''--history, politics, and social studies required by the government as components of these programs. Nonetheless, these programs are definitely helping to develop the ministerial life of the young clergy. It is also a chance for them to meet and form friendships and to mutually encourage and support each other. Finally, mentioning the Internet, I would say that we should not just think of the old models of parish or maybe diocese. Today young people in China, like everyone else, network through the Internet. Everybody has an e-mail address in China and cell phones are everywhere. Young people especially are in touch with each other all the time. So there is a lot of networking going on that transcends what we would think of as traditional church networks. The parish structure in China, except in the major cities such as cathedral parishes, is not as clearly defined as we would think of it here in the United States, but they may be organized as dioceses, and the bishop is central to the leadership of those groups in each province. Mr. Foarde. More useful information and ideas. Thank you both for those comments. Dick, I wanted to go back to something that you said in your opening remarks. I was very taken with your anecdote about your briefing for the Chinese officials where you were talking about regulation of civil society in the United States, and being told, in effect, ``No, we could never do that here.'' I am wondering if this sort of directed, corporatist approach that you were talking about toward which they seem to be moving in China is prevalent anywhere else in the world, in Europe, in Latin America, or Africa, for example, or would this be something that is unique to China as it develops? Mr. Madsen. I think there are different models for how to regulate and organize civil society. There is the Anglo-America liberal model. There is a European model which you see coming from the German tradition, or from France. To some degree, in the early part of the 20th century, insofar as China got ideas about organizing civil society, they came from such European sources, often via Japan. To some degree, that more corporatist approach may fit Chinese culture better and Japan might be a model. Japan is not liberal and democratic in the sense that it is here, but there is a lot of openness for civil society. In Japan, if you know how that works, civil society groups have to be registered and organized. It is much more controlled than it would be here. Mr. Foarde. So there is more structure. Mr. Madsen. There is much more structure to it. But there are still quite a lot of democratic freedoms. We rightly consider Japan a democratic society. If China keeps on evolving, it might evolve into that general model of institution, perhaps, based on European civil law, not on Anglo-American common law. So, that is one speculation. As it is now, the problem with China is there is not any law. It really is just a work in progress, so it is hard to know where it is going to end up. In the government, there are people who want to move toward a more real rule of law and those who do not, and they are struggling. It is hard to know what the outcome will be in the short term. In the long term, I think, it has to develop a legitimate rule of law or else it will come apart. Mr. Foarde. Interesting. Useful. I guess I would ask both of you, we have gone around a couple of times on different aspects of it. But I would like your views more directly on the specific question of why the Communist Party and the government permit these sorts of social service organizations to come up and operate, albeit unevenly at different times in different places. What interest does a party that really wants to control everything have in doing that? Mr. Madsen. The Party is not trying because it does not have the capacity to provide social services for people throughout China any more. The old ``iron rice bowl,'' the old state-run enterprises, that is all gone. There is an enormous problem being created, with laid-off workers, people lacking social services such as basic health care. So they are under tremendous pressure to provide substitutes for what they provided before. This is their dilemma. If they do not provide these services, all sorts of terrible things can happen, including social unrest. But not just social unrest. Basic health care, for instance. Even in the most dim realization of self interest, they have to provide things like inoculations for people coming into cities like Shanghai, or else epidemics such as SARS are going to get out of control. So they have to make these services available, even though they do not have the capacity to do so in a structured way. So they have to allow various kinds of groups the leeway to do this. At the same time, they are worried about the chaos that can come from social fragmentation, so they are between a rock and a hard place and they are trying to find their way through. Again, it is difficult to know where it will end up because there are so many contingencies there, that there is no clear path to the future. Sister Janet Carroll. I would just reinforce that idea, the notion of China's absolutely sheer need. Again, I do not think it is entirely just utilitarian in that sense of the word. I think the government is genuinely concerned to try to meet the tremendous social needs. Having shredded the social safety net that existed in the old structured socialism and the ``Big Brother,'' or the ``danwei,'' the government has left people on their own. We just saw in the New York Times in the past couple of days several terribly moving articles about the plight of migrant workers and the poor and struggling people in different parts of the country. Migrant workers are contributing so much to the economy of China, but at the same time placing these tremendous burdens on social services. Just when they have shredded the social safety net, these problems are multiplying like crazy. I think I cited in the paper about the president of the World Bank. Mr. Wolfensohn has just taken China on right at this conference that was held in May in Shanghai--on the need to address poverty, the need to reduce poverty, and that they are facing this income gap. That is the issue that I want to speak to, this tremendous gap that is growing up--it would have been unheard of in the period of high Communist China when for a time all boats were rising together even if they were rising ever so slowly. Now we have this fabulous wealth alongside of outright degradating poverty. Mr. Wolfensohn warned the Chinese Government that this is grist for the mill of social instability. As I said in my paper, a more serious challenge, that lay in the lap of the government than to suggest that religious groups are going to cause social instability. So the Chinese people are desperately in need of the assistance, as many governments in the world are, of all the sectors in society. All should be able to contribute. I hope it will be able to be done harmoniously. It is not always easily done. I remember from my time with the United Nations, when I worked on NGO issues, the Non-Governmental Organizations Committee, there were very few non-governmental organizations anywhere in the world, in our experience, except mostly in the West. But GONGOs, Government-Organized Non-Governmental Organizations, were common all over the world, and I think this will be the model in China, too. But I hope that the needs will be able to be met before the situation deteriorates any further. Mr. Foarde. Thank you. Very useful. We have a few minutes left. Dave, do you want to pick up a question? Mr. Dorman. Sure. Sister Janet, I want to thank you for bringing in a variety of literature today. I picked up a Beifang Jinde brochure on the way in. It is so beautifully designed, it just draws your eye, so I have to admit to you that I have actually looked through it while sitting here. I would like to ask you a few questions about Beifang Jinde if I could. First, the brochure says ``since 1998.'' So I think, as you have mentioned, we are really not talking about history, we are talking about a current event. The brochure also says ``the first Catholic nonprofit, non-governmental social services organization.'' I am just guessing that the group or person that is responsible for setting up Beifang Jinde could be easily described as devout, hardworking, and very savvy. I am wondering if you could enlighten us to the work that was done to put this organization together. I am also guessing that because the brochure says ``the first,'' there is also a second and third organization now? Could you also comment on the extent to which the lessons learned from setting up Beifang Jinde were shared with these organizations? Sister Janet Carroll. Yes. I think ``the first'' has to do with the fact that they are probably the first one that registered as an NGO and are able to function as such. Of course, this organization is like groups such as the Amity Foundation on the Protestant side which have been in existence for a long time. Yes, like many things in China, a lot depends on the personalities involved. The social centers I have spoken of rely on the shoulders of gifted young priests like Father Jean- Baptiste Zhang at Shijiazhuang and Father Steven Chen at Xi'an, who are able to do these things. Both of them are movers and shakers. It is not easy. They deal with a lot of difficulties along the way, but they get up and over them. However, before these centers were actually formally registered, the programs were already quite well established. Credibility is very important. For the center for which the newsletter is available--that one I am sure is also registered, because they receive funding from outside and they have a lot of collaborative projects with groups like Caritas, operating out of Hong Kong, and so on. And I believe the one at Shenyang, if it has not already received it, it is seeking registration and recognition as official. In fact, I think it is. We were there in June, and I remember now seeing this large bronze placard that they had ready to go up on the wall of the building announcing this Catholic Social Service Center, which would mean that they would have local approval. As I said, I would not doubt that there are other places that also are moving in this way. China is a big place. In these three cases, I know the three priests who are involved in the direction and they tend to be very gifted, talented young men who, as I alluded to before, see the opportunity and say, ``There is lots to be done, let us get in and do what we can do within the confines of the situation, and more will come later.'' All three of them happen to have had opportunities for study abroad, and I think that helps a lot, as it does for any group, to have chances to be exposed to wider realities. Most recently, Father Joseph Zhang of Shenyang led a team of sisters and laity to Thailand, where they participated in an HIV/AIDS training workshop for several weeks. Now they are doing that sort of work in that northeast China area. Let me tell you that that brochure is even nicer looking than this. This is just a Xeroxed copy of a glossy folder that they have. Mr. Dorman. Thank you. Mr. Foarde. We are very short on time, so I think I would give the last set of questions to Mark Milosch, if you have questions. Mark, please. Mr. Milosch. Yes, I do. Thank you. It is perhaps not such a short question, but maybe you will be able to give it a short answer. I am wondering if there are characteristic Catholic attitudes that affect how Chinese Catholics come together, or how they approach civil society, whether in formal associations or informally in the Catholic underground? I am thinking of sociologists who have written about Catholics as being different from non-Catholics, about the idea that the Catholic religion creates a kind of ``Catholic personality.'' Is that good or bad for civil society? Do Chinese Catholics even have this ``Catholic personality? '' Or are Chinese Catholics very much like other Chinese people because they have been socialized in an overwhelmingly non-Catholic society? Mr. Madsen. Well, basically I think they are like other Chinese people, although, because of the rural bias of the church, they are more like rural Chinese people than modern urban Chinese people, although that may be changing. In general, the Catholic organization is, of course, hierarchical. The Protestants are congregational, so it is a grassroots kind of organization. The Catholics still look to the priest and bishop, and things coming from the top down. The Church is organized that way. Catholics do not grow quite as fast as the Protestants, I think, because Protestants rely upon lay people, lay preachers, and the Catholics still rely on the priest. To some degree--and this is an impression--the Catholics in China, somewhat the same as in other parts of the world, expect funds to come more from the top down than raising them themselves. You have more of that horizontal organization with Protestants. A place like Shanghai has lots of services because it has that real estate that I mentioned that has been developed, and so the money comes from the top down. It is not people putting money in the collection plate and organizing themselves. Those are Catholic characteristics which I think that you still see in China, although things are changing. One thing that has paved the way for some of this change is the way in which, when the church was suppressed during the Maoist years, Catholics had to organize themselves locally without priests, so there were lay leaders and local organization. To some degree, that has been supplanted now during this reform period by the more traditional forms of organization. But there is this move toward local independence. There is a little bit of protestantization, perhaps, going on, although its intent is consistent with this other hierarchical principle, which is also being changed as they get influence from the Second Vatican Council. So, it is a dynamic mix. Sister Janet Carroll. I would just add two things. One, our colleague, a good friend of both Dick and me, Dr. Jean-Paul Wiest, has said that the expulsion of the missionaries in the 1950s was sort of a ``happy fault'' for the Church in China, because for the first time in its history it had to stand on its own two feet and act autonomously within the confines of being a local church, and assume leadership. In some ways, the fact that the Vatican Council passed China by, somehow the Holy Spirit was working there, to let the laity get involved, which, of course, in the West we took as a great development in the Catholic community after the Vatican Council. So, the Holy Spirit found a way to do it in China without having the Council's conclusions be promulgated there. The other point I want to make is more to the point. I think the character of the way Catholics can function in civil society in the Catholic Church--and it is only starting to get under way in China because they have to know more about it--is we have, in Catholicism, a great body of social thought. I think that is a great grounding for the activity which can underpin our call to work for justice and peace. That message, I think, the Catholic social teachings, would be very welcome by the authorities in China if indeed it could inform the way Catholics are able to engage in the civil society. Mr. Milosch. Thank you. Mr. Foarde. We have run out of time for this morning, but it was a fascinating conversation and discussion. We very much appreciate both of you coming from a great distance, and a shorter but not inconsiderable distance, to Washington to share your expertise with us. So on behalf of Chairman Jim Leach and Co-Chairman Senator Chuck Hagel and all the Members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, thanks to our two panelists, and to all who came and attended today. I would remind our guests about the hearing on Hong Kong next Thursday the 23rd, and then the presentation of the Annual Report in a press conference over in the Longworth Building on October 5. For today, then, we will bring the gavel down on this one. Thank you all very much. [Whereupon, at 11:32 a.m. the roundtable was concluded.] A P P E N D I X ======================================================================= Prepared Statements ---------- Prepared Statement of Richard Madsen SEPTEMBER 17, 2004 AN OVERVIEW OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN CHINA Although faced with severe challenges, the Catholic Church in China is flourishing. It has at least 12 million members (a four fold increase from the three million Catholics in 1949), many of whom exhibit extraordinary amounts of devotion and commitment to their faith. There has been a steady increase in construction of new Church facilities and a steady stream of new candidates for the priesthood and religious life. There are active interchanges between Chinese Catholic leaders and leaders of the worldwide Church. A significant number of newly ordained Chinese priests, seminarians, and sisters have been able to study abroad. Chinese church leaders regularly receive visits from priests, bishops, and even cardinals from abroad, and Chinese churches receive economic help from sister churches around the world. The Chinese Catholic Church is on an upward trajectory of growth in numbers and in the size and quality of its institutions. By some measures, one could argue that it is flourishing to a greater degree than the Church in Europe and the United States. At the same time, the Catholic Church in China faces severe problems. The most troublesome is the split between ``underground'' and ``official'' factions. Catholics in the official Church carry out their religious practices within venues officially registered with the government and subject to government regulation and supervision. Sometimes out of principle, sometimes out of necessity (because of a lack of officially approved Church facilities), underground Catholics practice their religion outside of the officially approved framework. In many places, underground and official Catholics get along quite well. Under some circumstances, however, they become bitterly at odds, with underground Catholics accusing the leaders of the official Church of having fatally compromised their faith by collaborating with a Communist government and betraying their bonds of loyalty to the Holy See. Apart from these serious and widely publicized problems of conflict, there are more subtle, and perhaps in the long run more difficult to resolve problems. One is the lack of clergy. Although there is a steady stream of new priests, it is not large enough to meet the needs of a church that, because of inability to ordain significant numbers of new priests during the repression of the Mao years, is top heavy with old priests who are rapidly reaching the end of their lives. Another set of problems stems from the difficulty of formulating versions of the faith that would appeal to urban people. The great majority of Catholics are rural and their beliefs and practices reflect the values of a rural lifestyle. This form of faith is less comprehensible and attractive to urban people. The Catholic seminary in Shanghai, for example, has few students who actually come from Shanghai--most come from small villages in the hinterlands. As China becomes increasingly urbanized, it may become harder for the Catholic Church to grow--unless of course it adapts its theology and organization to a modernizing world, which may be difficult for a leadership already stretched thin by the demands of ordinary pastoral care. THE CHINESE CATHOLIC CHURCH AS PART OF CIVIL SOCIETY In both its strengths and weaknesses, the Catholic Church reflects the overall development of civil society in China during the reform era (i.e., 1979 to the present). By civil society, I simply mean the array of social groups formed by voluntary association, which is made possible by the opportunities for mobility that are the consequence of a modern market economy. The marketization of the Chinese economy has loosened the ties of dependency that bound peasants to their people's communes and workers to their State owned enterprises. People now move around looking for work. They form new groups for economic help and social support. They need such groups because the government no longer has the will nor the way to provide social security through its State controlled institutions. Such voluntary associations form the beginnings of a civil society, which is an almost automatic byproduct of a market economy. But by itself such a civil society does not lead to a stable, just, and peaceful society. Western political philosophies offer various visions for how to make modern civil societies stable and peaceful. These involve the construction of a rule of law that guarantees citizens the right to form free associations while regulating these associations so that they contribute to a common good. But the Chinese government has not yet developed a stable rule of law that would guarantee the right of association while regulating such associations in a way that would seem legitimate to most of their members. Under these circumstances there has been a great flourishing of new forms of association. But many of these associations exist in a legal limbo. They can be arbitrarily closed down. Because of this lack of security, they have to adopt self-protective measures that may cause negative consequences for society at large. Sometimes they have to conceal their activities. Sometimes they cultivate particularistic relationships (often lubricated with bribes) with powerful people who can protect them. Sometimes they develop paranoid attitudes toward the government and one another. Because of lack of oversight, sometimes their leaders abuse money and power. The Catholic Church is not immune to these problems that afflict Chinese civil society as a whole. Much of Catholic activity exists in a legal limbo. The government specifies that Church activities must take place under the auspices of the Catholic Patriotic Association, which is supervised by the State Agency for Religious Affairs. But only a few Catholic apparatchiks are fully committed to this institutional framework. Most Catholics, including most bishops and priests, who work within the officially approved framework ignore much of the spirit if not the letter of its regulations. For example, although they are not supposed to have direct relationships with the Vatican, a large majority of bishops within the ``official'' church have received ``apostolic mandates'' from the Holy See, that is, they have gotten Vatican approval to be bishops. This would be possible on such a large scale only through informal acquiescence from government officials responsible for regulating and controlling religion. On the other hand, most underground Catholics carry out their activities in a very visible manner, in full view of government officials. This is also possible only because of informal acquiescence from agents of the state. Since such activities are not protected as rights under the law, however, they can be suddenly suppressed. Thus in recent years we have seen waves of arrests and church demolitions followed by periods of relaxation--all in ways that from the point of view of people in the grass roots must appear unpredictable and arbitrary. This in turn fuels the anxiety and paranoia that lead to factionalism. But such factionalism affects all areas of Chinese civil society, not just the Catholic Church. THE CHINESE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND INHIBITION OF CIVIL SOCIETY Although the Catholic Church reflects many of the characteristics of Chinese civil society in general, the Church has some particular features deriving from its unique history, organization, and theology that place it partially in opposition to the development of a modern civil society. As modern civil societies develop, they usually produce associations of national and international scope that transcend the interests of particular localities and help solve problems of national importance. Thus, the American Catholic Bishops conference speaks out on problems of national relevance and Catholic Charities distributes aid to people across the world. At present it would be hard to imagine the Chinese Catholic Church producing such organizations. Because the Vatican has not established diplomatic relations with China, it is unable to openly regulate China's Catholics. There is no Vatican nuncio in Beijing to help make sure that Chinese bishops are following papal directives. Communications between the Vatican and China's Catholics have to be indirect and irregular. This gives local Chinese Catholics-- especially perhaps those in the underground--a great deal of practical autonomy, more even than they would have in the United States or Europe. This, in turn, leads to a great many local varieties of Catholic practice. Nowhere in the world does the Catholic Church act as a unified force, but in China it is even less unified than most places. This, of course, fits nicely with a government agenda to block the emergence of large scale organizations that could conceivably challenge Communist Party hegemony. The fragmentation of Catholic social organization affects not just the standardization of teaching about faith and morals and the mobilization of a Catholic voice on matters of national importance, but the provision of social services. There are some well run Catholic charitable associations in China, particularly Jinde in Shijiazhuang (Hebei Province) and the various associations of the Shanghai diocese. But some of these have ambitions to expand, it is unclear that they will be able to realize these ambitions because they are deeply embedded in their local social ecology. Unless the Sino-Vatican relations were greatly improved, it would be difficult to imagine the development of national charitable institutions like Catholic Charities in the USA--or even organizations like the Three-self Protestant Amity Foundation, which has a wide national reach. Another important feature of the Chinese Catholic Church is its embedding in traditional institutions of village and family. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Catholic missionaries made great efforts to convert not individuals but whole extended families. They attempted to build little ``christendoms,'' whole villages where social, economic, and cultural institutions were intertwined with Catholicism. This is indeed the pattern in those parts of China where Catholic practice is strongest: whole lineages, whole villages, and even whole counties are Catholic. The faith is thus identified with and supported by the non-voluntary, traditional institutions of family and community. This familism and localism pull against the mobility and voluntary association that constitute modern civil society. Catholic villages are said to be places with especially strong moral solidarity, where crime is low and mutual cooperation is high. But, if it stays confined to family and neighbors, the spirit of love and solidarity does not really contribute to the building of a civil society. In large cities like Shanghai, places filled with the loose, relatively impersonal relationships that form the building blocks of civil society, the Church seems to be losing ground. Protestant spirituality indeed seems more conducive to such society, which may be one reason why Protestant growth is outstripping Catholic growth in China today. In some respects, then, the Catholic Church in China does indeed contribute to the constitution of a civil society. In some respects it mirrors both the positive and the negative characteristics of Chinese society in this time of transition. In other respects, however, it stands apart from and even resists the formation of a mature civil society--and is challenged to reform its theology and practice so as to adapt to a modernizing China. ______ Prepared Statement of Janet Carroll, M.M. SEPTEMBER 17. 2004 Senator Chuck Hagel, at a session of this Committee last June, astutely noted that ``China's future is also important to America's future. It is in our interest to work broadly and deeply with the Chinese Government using all the bridges and opportunities available to us to help shape and ensure a democratic future for China.'' [CECC Hearing--June, 4, 2004] I would like to key my remarks here this morning to this challenge set before us by Senator Hagel--with the important caveat that I believe we must also work ``broadly and deeply'' with the Chinese people toward these noble ideals. The efforts in the field of social services and charitable works of compassion and mercy that have been very courageously and patiently initiated by religious believers [including Catholics and Christians of all persuasions in China today]--in the past decade and more, call upon us all to cross many bridges and reach out in solidarity and support. I have made available to this Committee through the Staff, a packet of materials for anyone here who wishes to have evidence of this development [albeit only a small sample] of Social Services programs and projects which are slowly, but steadily contributing to the emergence in China of a Civil Society--embryonic as it may appear at present. THE CONTEMPORARY CONTEXT FOR CATHOLICS IN CHINA: SERVING THE PEOPLE In the past decade or so, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the demise of Communism as a credible ideology worldwide, the Openness and Reform Policy pursued by China, has led to spectacular economic growth and development. Some observers [including David Aikman in his new book Jesus in Beijing; and the eminent China historian Daniel Bays, at the Bartlett Lecture given at Yale University last spring]--think that Christianity in China, at least Protestant Christianity, may well be on the verge of entering its ``golden age.'' For the first time in their history, Chinese Christians had to find their own self-sufficiency, employ their own initiatives, and choose their own leadership. However you choose to construe developments in the past quarter century in China, from the perspective of the Churches--[1979-2004]-- signs of renewed opportunities for service to society and the propagation of Christianity are certainly abundant today. However, a maxim you should always bear in mind when thinking about China goes something like this: ``Everything you hear about China is true . . . at some time and in some place; but NOT true in another time or another place.'' To fully understand the status of the Catholic Church in China within the State apparatus, to say nothing of the vicissitudes of the way religious policies are implemented by the Beijing Regime [which has recently reverted to stricter enforcement of rules and regulations for religious organizations]- is well beyond the limitations of our time here this morning. In the Q&A period I will be glad to respond to specific questions you may have about these and other issues. By way of addressing the subject of this Roundtable today, I would like to offer some contextual perspectives on the engagement of Chinese Catholics and Church-sponsored social ministries in recent years. In nearly three astonishing decades since the opening of the Churches, Christian believers in China have struggled to re-invigorate and extend local communities of Faith, to restore and re-build not only churches, but seminaries and convents, to train new generations of leadership, and subsequently to establish centers for social and medical ministries to the society;--all with only the barest of resources--but with vast stores of enduring courage and commitment. As it continues this journey--even greater challenges are before the Church to take its witness out beyond the sanctuary and into the public square. Chinese Christians are challenged to take up the immense task of giving prophetic witness and service to the rapidly developing and radically changing Society that is China today--an economic and political power already playing a major role in the world community. As cultural and social traditions evolve, Christianity is poised to provide new ethical and moral foundations for the emergence of a modern Civil Society and State. While there is cause for caution and concern among friends of the Chinese people and the Church in China, at the same time, there is are unparalleled opportunities for Christianity, to once again offer valuable contributions to the Chinese people, by sponsoring medical and social projects and educational programs (if not yet formal academic institutions)--not on the scale that existed during the modern missionary period [1850--1950];--but commensurate with the material resources and human capabilities of the Chinese Local Church. When Daniel Bays spoke at Yale last spring he addressed prospects for Chinese Christians, albeit constrained by limited human rights and religious freedoms, to make significant contributions to the up- building of Civil Society in China. In another lecture entitled ``China in Transition,'' by Roderick MacFarquhar [Professor of History and Political Science at Harvard and one of the world's most respected China scholars] this topic of civil society was also addressed, thought interestingly, he never mentioned Religion as such. In an otherwise very insightful and creative analysis of ``whither China'? at this juncture in its quest for modernity, MacFarquhar presented a scenario of the crisis China faces in the near term--as it struggles to transition to what he called ``a new transnational Chinese civilization''. His remarks pointed to important issues to bear in mind in considering the prospects for Chinese Christians, and indeed all religious believers in China today, to contribute to the emergence of a viable Civil Society. While MacFarquhar seemed somewhat pessimistic about developments in China in the near term, Dan Bays projected a rather positive view of the potential for Chinese Christians, in particular the new and more educated entrepreneurs in urban settings--[whom Bays identified as `` a significant sub-set of the emergent middle class'']--to play a catalyzing role in this crucial transition. Looking from the perspective of Catholics in China today, and reflecting on Catholicism's call to ``prophetic servanthood'' on behalf of the common good and well-being of the peoples, there are several possibilities that present themselves which just might reconcile these contrasting views. A contemporary Jesuit China scholar, [Benoit Vermander SJ--Director of the Ricci Institute in Taipei, Taiwan]--has elucidated the challenge and opportunity for Christianity in China today--as presenting Christianity as a living interlocutor with Chinese culture--a force capable of contributing to the redefinition of Chinese Culture, that both the leadership and the people require in order to re-interpret their history--and ultimately rid themselves of the disappointments and disillusionments of their past attempts to make the transition to become a modern Nation State. [The MacFarquhar Lecture also dealt with this issue of a revised understanding of their history by the Chinese themselves]. Only then will they be enabled to assume roles of influence and authority appropriate to a people with a civilization and culture--rich with gifts and insights essential for the achievement of prosperity, justice and peace for themselves and the global community. New China--the Peoples Republic of China--already in the latter half of its first century of existence--urgently needs a creative re- invention of its traditional value system and moral categories; and to employ new interpretive models by which to make sense of the past, find common ground in the present and develop a sense of shared purpose and meaning for the future. On a mutually acceptable basis of equality, reciprocity and respect, Christianity can offer much to China in its quest for a ``new spiritual civilization''--[a term now even used by the Chinese regime to galvanize the masses under the rubric of the United Front.] This new spiritual civilization is perhaps another way of describing the new transnational civilization,'' which MacFarquhar noted was MAO TzeTung's visionary ideal from the early years of the Communist revolution which the Chinese people tragically failed to realize due to Mao's turn to brutal dictatorship. After some 20 years of the Reform and Openness policies--initiated by DENG following Mao's death in 1976--China still stands in need of a second generation of transformation--ideally, one that will be consistent with its culture, virtues and values. Among these harmony and right relationships are central to the Chinese psyche and must bear great weight in structuring a Civil Society in China. Regrettably, many Chinese Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, as well as other religious and quasi-religious movements (like Falun Gong), are often sadly been in conflict with the political authorities--who like the emperors of the Dynastic era--continue to have an almost ``sacral sense'' of themselves as the final arbiters of China's political and legal culture. While our Christian creeds and confession stress harmony and peace, sometimes our actions tend too much toward dissidence and confrontation--even if justified in principle and validly grounded in human and natural rights. While bearing in mind the Gospel admonition to ``render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's''--in China we also need to respect relationships and observe Rites--that is the manner and the way things are done; these dynamics and principles count every bit as much as the ``Rights,'' to which we in the West hold so tenaciously. It takes great patience and perseverance to remain in dialog--while ``seeking the common ground'' [to quote the well respected Protestant sinologist Phillip Wickeri in his book by that title.] A NEW DIALOGUE BETWEEN RELIGION AND SOCIETY Those seeking to partner with China in pursuit of social goals, must be willing to listen and discern with sensitivity and respect; be able to tolerate frustrations and the ambiguities of living with constraints and limitations; and be people with a capacity to risk difficulties and misunderstandings. Only in this manner, can we seize and exploit the many opportunities that actually exist for religious believers to give witness to their beliefs and share their ``good news'' with the Chinese people, in a manner wholly appropriate and relevant to the culture and social ethos of the times. This next point may seem a digression, but I believe it is very relevant to the subject of this discussion this morning. There are two important issues to bear in mind in this dialog--both of words and actions: one is the need mutual respect between sovereign states; and the other is the moral weight attached to leading by example. I find it lamentable that (under the present administration, the United States, increasingly tends to be very selective in choosing when to be domestically bound by international law in general, and human rights in particular. In Chinese terms this is known as ``resisting intrusion into internal affairs.'' Ironically, recent actions of the US Government in this regard have undercut the credibility of this country as the champion of internationally recognized human rights and freedoms. I refer specifically to the failure of the USA to become signatory to several of the International Covenants and treaties on human rights and freedoms, and more regrettably to withdraw from those previously ascribed to. This seriously undermines confidence other weaker States may accord to the Rule of Law; and signals to the world that powerful leaders can withdraw from such obligations--as different leaders come and go. This is a penchant that Communist Party leaders in China have been disposed for years--arbitrarily opting for rule by man, as opposed to the ideal of Rule by Law. It is ironic that the USA is now perceived as taking such a reprehensible stance in international affairs. The world stands sorely in need of moral leadership based on example, not on force. We cannot call others to adhere to international laws and covenants which we ourselves selectively disregard. THE NEED FOR A NEW SOCIAL ETHIC Today, the literally tens of millions of religious believers in China--including a growing number of young scholars, who have taken a keen interest in Christianity as a life philosophy and as an ethical and moral code, may succeed in re-imagining and re-creating a new Civil Society in China that can appropriately take up its rightful role in the global family of nations. These challenges toward which Christians in China need to direct their energies and resources, also suggest to those of us who are concerned about China's future and our own future in the global community, possibilities of reaching out in solidarity, supporting all those in China who are struggling to rise to the occasion and seize the opportunity to minister to the social well-being of their own people--especially the poor and marginalized. We all need to get beyond the headlines and sound bytes of the media and the overly simplistic approaches of some agencies in the USA--with their own agendas for China. The lived reality for Chinese people today is a far cry from what is reported or extrapolated from given events or incidents in the Media. There are numerous ways to partner with Christians in China. There are actually many areas of service open to expatriates--both in the fields of education and social and medical work Both human and financial resources are in demand for supportive services in Church sponsored social and medical ministries,--as well as directly with such programs in the public domain. HIV/AIDs is a rampant and growing problem in China--one vastly under acknowledged by the authorities. Slowly government health ministries are starting to welcome training and assistance to prepare and equip themselves to deal with this pending tragedy of already crisis proportions. RESPONSES FROM THE CHURCH Regarding the government's response to initiatives from the Catholic Church in the field of Social Service, I have included in the packet of materials submitted, a brief memo--addressing some of the concerns which may be on the minds of the committee members. [cf. Memo of the Director, Xian CSSC]. In sum, it notes that as long as local governmental policies, procedures, and requirements are carefully complied with, activities and programs of civil service and for the social welfare of the people are welcomed and appreciated by the Chinese authorities. In so far as there is coordination and/or cooperation with international contacts in these fields, there is usually closer supervision--especially regarding the role of foreign nationals in the projects and regarding use of funds received. Not surprisingly--when there are amenable relations between the authorities on both sides (Church and government) trust is established and things work smoothly. TWO AREAS AFFECTING THE INTEGRITY OF THE CHURCH-SPONSORED PROGRAMS: 1. Services provided must be offered on objective and unbiased terms: [i.e. not as a cover for evangelization or other subjective interests] and be without inappropriate requirements or expectations of any reciprocity to the advantage of the service provider. 2. Social Service projects, especially medical services (hospitals and clinics) must comply with standards established by local health authorities: e.g. qualifications of professional staff, use of appropriate procedures and medicines, and adherence to acceptable standards of care, and so forth. Increasingly, especially in rural areas, some small church-run clinics have been closed due to failure to meet these standards. [Interview with Dr. WU Gui Xian, Hebei/XianXian Catholic Diocese MBA Cand. In Hospital Administration at Pace Univ./NYC] Developments in the Not-for-Profit and Non-Governmental Social Services Sector in China--as an integral part of the emergence of a Civil Society--have come a long way in barely a quarter of a century. This view is further validated if we acknowledge the absence of any semblance of a Civic Society in either the Dynastic or the Republican Eras, nor after the establishment of the Peoples' Republic in 1949. Therefore, little if any foundation exists upon which a Civic Society in China might be built--neither in China's past politico-social structures nor in the socio-cultural traditions of the Chinese people. Rather than decrying what is not yet, we might more generously assess all that has been accomplished by our Chinese brothers and sisters in initiating relevant works of social and civil service in their communities. CHALLENGES IN THE NEAR TERM China's income disparity is worse than that of other Asian countries like South Korea, Japan and India--this despite the fact that under Mao (between 1950 and 1980) China had achieved one of the most even distributions of wealth--with all boats rising together. For several years running, China has maintain economic growth at about 9 percent per annum. This has brought a level of wealth to urbanites and younger elites never dreamed of before, reflected in their choice housing, style of clothing, and tastes in food; as well as in less material ways such as education, entertainment and travel. The dark side of China's new wealth really is a widening disparity between rich and poor continuing unabated. Luxury gated communities are surrounded by poorer shanty towns filled with illegal migrant workers and displaced citizens scraping by on US$50 per month. Millions of Chinese are left unemployed from their abandoned unprofitable state- owned enterprises (SOEs). Rural poor continue to struggle to provide for their families with little more than a sixth grade education. Prostitution in cities has become one of the few ways that women with little or no education can eke out a living. By contrast, some 70 percent of China's peoples still live in rural villages, where they are less touched by modern life and increasingly dependent on wealth trickling down from the cities. The average income inland is said to be only a third of that on the coast. This year the threat of 4-5 percent inflation has prompted authorities to try to damp down the economy, but only enough not to bring on a crash. So eminent an expert in such matters as the President of the World Bank--at a Conference on Poverty Reduction last in May in Shanghai, warned China that the growing gap between the wealthy and progressive coastal provinces and the still generally poor interior is grist for widespread social instability--and threatens the undoing of all the social and material progress of this past decade. It would be hard to find a more dire and ominous threat to lay in the lap of China's leadership! There is a great irony in the fact that in the international market place, many concerns are expressed about China's overheated economy. Frequently, many US corporations and workers, especially those in unions, express fears and frustration with the impact of China's economic growth, not only on the global economy, but on the US domestic economy. We ought not to miss the point however, that the fate of hundreds of millions of ordinary working poor in China is also at issue. As cited in an article in the NY Times many credit China's vast numbers of migrant workers with that country's astonishing and prolonged economic growth. As they increasingly flood into urban regions, migrant workers add value to the economy. [NYT 9-12-04 Week in Review Pg. 5]. That is the good news. At the same time, these millions of migrant workers also add a tremendous burden of demands for social services upon the governmental sector--just when such social safety nets as had existed during the era of the centrally managed economy have been shredded to pieces. The difficulty facing China's leaders is to provide these millions of migrant workers, and by extension their desperately poor families and dependents, with affordable housing, access to schooling, health care, legal protections and so forth. Obviously, social service agencies and organizations have a major and crucial role to play in helping to construct the social safety net required to meet these demands. As in other developing countries--and even in our own country--government turns to the voluntary and religious sector for assistance. Not unexpectedly, as is our common experience, governmental vis-a-vis non-governmental sector relationships are never as smooth and unambiguous as the situation would seem to warrant. In sum, China is undergoing unparalleled economic growth bringing with it consequences that could lead to depression and disaster. The values of a structured socialism have receded and the differences between rich and poor, whether one speaks of individuals or of sectors of society, have surged. Westerners generally are concerned with individuals' rights, whereas traditionally, these have been limited in China, where the perceived welfare of the group--family, village, or society in general--has always had priority. Today, however, many observers generally agree that people in general, and the single individual, have never had more freedom in China. A person can be an atheist or a believer. The thing he/she must not do is to participate individually or within a group in activities that may in any way be seen as a threat to the power of the state. ROLE OF NON-PROFIT (NPO) AND NON-GOVERNMENTAL (NGO) ORGANIZATIONS Long gone is the ``Iron Rice Bowl'' era (circa 1950-80), when ``Big Brother'' took care of social welfare needs. China today is tending toward what some term a ``small government, big community'' system. Traditionally, Chinese normally cared for their family members and those within their ``connections network'' (guanxi) One rarely helped an acquaintance, let alone a total stranger. Charity and volunteerism were unknown concepts up until the past decade. The NPO/NGO sector, including equivalent social and civil programs of the churches are increasingly necessary to bridging the socio- economic gaps between haves and have-nots. China rapidly adopted the Western capitalist model without acknowledging the important underpinnings of capitalist society: those Judeo-Christian principles which provided a moral compass and safety net for the weak and disadvantaged. China's materialism--and we should be quick to acknowledge, western and American capitalist and materialist development, is increasingly based on a desire for profit in a moral vacuum, where anything goes. By contrast, corporate social responsibility (CSR) should rather play a key role in helping domestic and multinational for-profit businesses invest in China's social capital--and not just crassly exploit its vast means of production. In this context, China desperately needs to continue to develop its non- profit sector and find ways to encourage citizens to broaden the horizons of their civic responsibilities. For Christian and other religious believers in China today, the current Chinese milieu may prove to be an opportune time to offer a re- evaluation of Chinese society and to work toward the articulation of a new social ethic and a new morality. While the Constitution of the PRC is a finely worded document espousing many virtuous ideals, and while the Party continually devises idealistic slogans to galvanize the masses for the common good, China's movement toward a ``rule of law'' and a return to a more equitable distribution of material wealth system has a long way to go. Religiously motivated organizations can make an important contribution. China's government however, remains particularly sensitive to uncontrolled religious movements, although not without reason. In the nation's history politico-religious movements have more than once brought down a dynasty. Interestingly, many, if not most, Chinese Christians have no quarrel with the idea of government supervision of religion. What they object to is the abuse of this right of oversight. Nonetheless, while repression or harsh mistreatment of unregistered religious group leaders (Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, or Falun Gong) continues to take place, longtime observers find the situation improving. No longer ideologically anti-religious, many Chinese authorities increasingly see the social benefits of religion. But due to historical experiences, they are also sensitive, perhaps overly so, to the dangers real, imagined or imputed of unregulated (even simply unregistered) religious movements. CONCLUSION I'd like to conclude my statement with an challenging reflection by Aldo Caliari, Coordinator of the Rethinking Bretton Woods Project at the Center of Concern here in Washington DC: ``The human rights system envisioned in the mid twentieth century placed on nation-states the ultimate responsibility for the human rights of individuals in their jurisdiction. The system rested on the assumption that states have the power, resources and policy space to fulfill such a mission. Nowadays, while it is true that nation-states continue to bear this responsibility, it is important to recognize the changes in the global political economy that have taken place in the years since. These changes have significantly undermined the ability of nation-states, especially those within the developing world, to fulfill their human rights responsibilities.'' We ought not to ignore these realities, as we look to China to develop a viable Civil Society in which the private, volunteer sector, including those of religious motivation, will thrive. Difficult as it is for us as Americans, we need large doses of humility and respect to abide within the legal framework prescribed for the work of Christian ministry and witness in China today--all the while working and praying with the Christians in China for a more favorable time. Those of good will and courageous and creative imagination will already find multiple opportunities to serve. Together all of us can be empowered to work for global justice in economic and social relations; for integrity and harmony with all facets of Creation; and toward a world of Peace and prosperity for God's people everywhere. To return to Senator Hagel's admonition, cited at the opening of my statement, ``It is in our interest to work broadly and deeply with the Chinese Government (and the Chinese people) using all bridges and opportunities available to us . . .'' I urge this committee to call upon our government to ensure that its actions, both bi-laterally and through its behavior in international finance and trade institutions, respect and support the ability of China, and many other developing countries, to fulfill their commitments under international human rights law. Again, in Caliari words: ``A significant forward move would be for the US to incorporate as a key dimension of its foreign policy the notion that international organizations and industrial countries are co-responsible for human rights violations in developing countries on whose domestic policy choices they have had (either by action or omission) an influence.'' David Lampton, President of the US-China Committee sums up my own counsel best: ``Americans must balance the impulse to treat China as it is--with the foresight to recognize China for what it may become.'' National Interest [Fall 2003] <all>