<DOC>
[109th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:20420.wais]
CHINA'S NEW REGULATIONS ON RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS: A PARADIGM SHIFT?
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ROUNDTABLE
before the
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 14, 2005
__________
Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China
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CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
Senate House
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska, Chairman MEMBERS TO BE APPOINTED
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
GORDON SMITH, Oregon
JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
MEL MARTINEZ, Florida
MAX BAUCUS, Montana
CARL LEVIN, Michigan
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
BYRON DORGAN, North Dakota
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
STEPHEN J. LAW, Department of Labor
PAULA DOBRIANSKY, Department of State
GRANT ALDONAS, Department of Commerce
David Dorman, Staff Director (Chairman)
John Foarde, Staff Director (Co-Chairman)
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS
Spiegel, Mickey, senior researcher, Human Rights Watch, New York,
NY............................................................. 2
Bays, Daniel H., professor of history, head of the Asian studies
program, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI...................... 6
Hamrin, Carol Lee, consultant and research professor, George
Mason University, Fairfax, VA.................................. 9
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements
Spiegel, Mickey.................................................. 26
Bays, Daniel H................................................... 28
Hamrin, Carol Lee................................................ 29
Additional Submission
Statement submitted by Human Rights in China entitled, ``China's
New Regulations on Religious Affairs: A Paradigm Shift? ''
dated March 14, 2005........................................... 33
CHINA'S NEW REGULATIONS ON RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS: A PARADIGM SHIFT?
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MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2005
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The roundtable was convened, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m.,
in room 2255, Rayburn House Office Building, John Foarde (staff
director) presiding.
Also present: Susan Weld, general counsel; Carl Minzner,
senior counsel; Keith Hand, senior counsel; Steve Marshall,
senior advisor; Kate Kaup, special advisor; Mark Milosch,
special advisor; Rana Siu, U.S. Department of State; and Laura
Mitchell, research associate.
Mr. Foarde. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to this
issues roundtable of the Congressional-Executive Commission on
China.
Since we gathered on Thursday last for our issues
roundtable on public intellectuals in China, the Majority
Leader of the Senate has chosen our Chairman for the 109th
Congress and the Senate members of the Commission. The chairman
is Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, who was our co-chairman in
the last Congress. So we are delighted to welcome our three
panelists on behalf of Senator Hagel and the members of the
CECC so far appointed, and to welcome all in the audience today
to this issues roundtable, in which we are going to examine
China's new regulation on religious affairs.
This new regulation is important to the Commission because
I think it is fair to say that every Member who has been
appointed so far to the CECC has had among his or her
priorities for membership on this Commission the monitoring of
religious freedom in China and advocacy on these issues. So
over three and a half years, we have done quite a number of not
only full hearings of the Commission, but also roundtables on
various aspects of China's legal and political regime to
control religious belief and practice.
This new regulation on religion, which became effective on
March 1, has been hailed by Chinese officials and Chinese
experts as something of a paradigm shift in the way that the
government treats religion. One official was quoted in
materials that we have seen in the Chinese language that the
``new regulation sets clear limits on official exercise of
power over religion, safeguards religious freedom, and moves
from direct administrative control to a system of permitting
self-government by religious groups.''
But religious believers and practitioners and human rights
organizations dispute these claims, arguing that the more
detailed new regulation will in fact further limit the ability
of religious believers to worship freely in China. Some critics
charge that the government's goal really was a more efficient
``rule by law'' rather than a protection of the right to
religious belief and practice of the ``rule of law'' approach.
They have also suggested that the details of the new regulation
are less significant than some of the very unhelpful
simultaneous acts of the government, such as the arrest of
dozens of house church leaders right after the new rules were
announced, and a generally harsher Communist Party policy,
particularly in ethnic regions.
To help us examine this new regulation and what it might
mean, we have three distinguished panelists--two of them have
been our guests in the past--to share their expertise with us,
and one of them is new to testifying here at one of our staff
panels. We are delighted to have all three of you, both the old
friends and the new friend.
I will introduce each, briefly, before they speak. Just as
we have done over the last three and a half years at these
issues roundtables, each panelist will have 10 minutes to make
an opening presentation. I will let you know when you have
about two minutes left. That is your signal to wrap things up.
Inevitably, you will not get to all the points that you wish to
make, but we hope that there will be time during the subsequent
question and answer session for you to catch up any points that
you did not get to discuss.
Our first panelist this afternoon is Mickey Spiegel, a
senior researcher at Human Rights Watch in New York, and an old
friend and frequent contact of ours. Mickey has been working on
China for Human Rights Watch since 1990. Trained as an
anthropologist, she holds a Masters of Philosophy degree in
anthropology from Columbia University. Among her recent
writings are a chapter entitled, ``Control and Containment in
the Reform Era'' in God and Caesar in China: Policy
Implications of Church-State Tensions, 2004, edited by Jason
Kindopp and Carol Hamrin. Mickey co-edited the March-April 2000
Documents on Religion in China, 1980-1997: Central Government
Policy (1), which is part of the Chinese Law & Government
Series. Mickey has researched and written an enormous number of
reports for Human Rights Watch on topics relating to religion
in China, including, most recently, ``Trials of a Tibetan Monk:
The Case of Tenzin Deleg'' as well as ``Dangerous Meditation,''
a report on repression of the Falun Gong. Her nine reports on
religious regulation include the major work, ``China: State
Control of Religion,'' published by Human Rights Watch in 1997.
Mickey Spiegel, welcome. Over to you for 10 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MICKEY SPIEGEL, SENIOR RESEARCHER, HUMAN RIGHTS
WATCH, NEW YORK, NY
Ms. Spiegel. As a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch,
a private, independent human rights monitoring organization, I
appreciate the opportunity to appear today before the
Congressional-Executive Commission on China to present our
perspective on the evolution of religious policy in China
following the end of the Cultural Revolution from 1966-1997.
From the time the Chinese Government rescinded the Mao-
imposed ban on all religious belief, it has steadily reinforced
the structure of laws and regulations directing religious
practice. The regulations that went into effect on March 1,
2005 do not appear to be a break with tradition, but an attempt
to tighten the state's control, codify Party policies, and
strengthen the bureaucracy established to enforce them. The aim
is twofold: stricter control and less arbitrariness.
In 1982, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist
Party promulgated Document 19, ``The Basic Viewpoint and Policy
on the Religious Question during Our Country's Socialist
Period.'' Its principles continue to underlie religious policy
in the People's Republic of China even today as we meet to
consider the implications of the new State Council Decree,
``Regulations on Religious Affairs,'' effective since March 1,
2005.
Document 19's original formulation was sparse: ``respect
for and promotion of the freedom of religious belief,'' but it
signaled a sea change. Promotion of freedom to choose to
believe signaled an end to policies of repression which
alienated believers and interfered with the state's ability to
turn its full attention to, and to direct the attention of
believers to, the mutual goal of rapid modernization. Respect
for a variety of beliefs spoke to the state's determination to
curb cadres who had been able, with impunity, to intimidate,
harass, arrest, and torture believers.
However, with the promulgation of the 1982 Chinese
Constitution which followed hard on the heels of Document 19,
the potential for limiting the full flowering of religious
belief and practice became immediately obvious. Document 19
limited freedom to believe to five major religions: Buddhism,
Daoism, Islam, Catholicism, and post-denominational
Protestantism. Article 36 of the Constitution limited state
protection only to ``normal'' religious activities.
The ambiguity of the term ``normal'' permitted a plethora
of limits on religious freedom. What developing regulations
implicitly allowed was considered normal; any other activity
could be deemed abnormal, even by a local bureaucrat. As a
Chinese official said some months ago, what was illegal was
abnormal; what was abnormal was illegal. It did not get us very
far. But such a formulation continued to make possible
arbitrary rule by local fiat, something the central government
was determined to disallow, even as it strengthened control
over religious practice. At the same time, prohibition on the
use of religion to disrupt public order signaled a concern, one
that continues to this day, that hostile forces would use
religion as a cover for fomenting subversion.
Guidelines, such as those making ``patriotic''
organizations responsible for monitoring compliance with state
policy, establishing a ``three-fix'' policy that limited
evangelical practices and the use of lay religious leaders, and
instituting a ``three-self'' policy that barred organizational
ties to world religious bodies, gave way to emphasis on a
``rule of law.'' That new emphasis culminated in 1991 in a
policy directive that carried Document 19 a step further and is
still the centerpiece of religious control. Document 6,
``Circular on Some Problems Concerning the Further Improvement
of Work on Religion'' mandated that every congregation, temple,
monastery, mosque, and church had to register with the
authorities. An unregistered group was, by definition, illegal,
and its members subject to arrest. A group deemed ``legal''
opened itself to control of its personnel, religious materials,
activities, membership, and finances.
Jiang Zemin extended the impetus toward regulation of
religious activity through law when, in 1993, he stated that
religion must adapt itself to a socialist society. The
imperative has been interpreted to mean that everything from
the organization of rights and rituals, to underlying theology,
to day-to-day management of personnel, materials, and
activities, must meet the changing needs of society, as
interpreted by its rulers.
By 1994, regulations codified by the State Council
specified the steps required to properly register and the right
of rejection reserved to those bodies charged with monitoring
compliance. Local regulations made still more explicit what
legally registered organizations could or could not do. There
was, however, still room for small groups operating discreetly
in the shadows to continue to meet and worship. That small
space, though still in existence in 1994, narrowed again in
1999 when the Chinese Government, in response to the emergence
of Falun Gong, further reserved for itself the right to
determine, in the religions it recognized, what constituted
orthodox belief and what was heterodox, and thus, illegal, and
to further determine what belief structures could be classified
as cults and thus, ipso facto, illegal.
The regulations that went into effect on March 1, 2005,
further codify the rules restraining religious practice in
China and the bureaucratic mechanism used to reinforce those
rules. That bureaucracy consists, in part, of the national-
level State Administration of Religious Affairs; a hierarchy of
religious affairs bureaus in all administrative units such as
provinces, townships, and counties; the Ministry of Public
Security; and local police units.
Several immediate problems assert themselves. The usual
twin problems of undefined terminology and vaguely worded
regulatory articles make it difficult to understand precisely
what compliance requires and leave considerable leeway for
national and local interpretation. For example, the problem
remains of what is ``normal'' and what is not; nowhere is there
an explanation of ``the lawful rights and interests of
religious bodies, sites for religious activities and religious
citizens;'' and the requirement that those same actors
``safeguard unification of the country, unity of all
nationalities, and stability of society'' (Article 3) leaves
the state free to re-interpret the provision as the need arises
and leaves religious practitioners no redress should they be
charged with a violation. In addition, other than the specific
requirement in Article 48 of the new regulations that the
``Regulations on Administration of Sites for Religious
Activities'' be repealed, laws and regulations remain in place
that do not specifically target religious activities, but
nevertheless have serious implications for religious
expression. The 2005 regulations make no comments on these pre-
existing laws and regulations, nor do they suggest how their
implementation will affect provincial
regulations. The usual practice had been for provinces and
other administrative areas to follow national templates in
crafting regulations specific to their jurisdiction.
The most problematic addition to prior regulatory regimes,
and one that I believe clearly signals an increase in state
control, is the requirement that a religious body--nowhere
defined--``shall be registered in accordance with the
provisions of the Regulations on Registration Administration of
Associations.'' The change signals the need for the religious
body to satisfy two bureaucracies, the Civil Affairs Ministry
and the State Administration of Religious Affairs. The
requirement not only adds to bureaucratic oversight, but in
theory it requires inter alia a religious organization to have
a government agency ``as a professional leading unit,'' 50
members, full-time personnel, and if local, have ``activity
funds totaling in excess of 30,000 yuan.'' Most important, the
regulations state in Article 13(2), that an application may be
rejected because one with a ``similar operational scope exists
in the same administrative area.'' In other words, the state is
given the power to decide how many mosques are enough.
Several other provisions speak directly to an increase in
state control: the requirement that the religious affairs
department of the State Council approve educational institutes,
which may reject an application on the grounds that sufficient
institutes exist in a given locale; involvement of a national
religious body in the selection of students who may go abroad
for religious study; the obligatory involvement of three
administrative levels before an application to prepare to
establish a site for religious activities can be approved and
the additional requirement that no application for registration
can be made until construction is complete; apparent
elimination of any gray area through which small local groups
without a structure could use someone's home or shop as a
meeting place where like-minded believers could quietly
congregate; acceptance of ``guidance, supervision and
inspection'' by ``relevant departments of the local people's
government''; and restrictions on large-scale religious
activities.
An added worry grows out of the requirement in Article 27
that religious personnel be ``determined qualified as such by a
religious body.'' The stipulation brings to mind the ongoing
``patriotic'' campaigns in Tibet and Xinjiang, during which
clergy are compelled to examine themselves and their colleagues
for inappropriate behavior or thought.
One omission may--but only may--signal a positive policy
change. Nowhere in the regulations is there reference to what
belief systems qualify as religions. The omission may signal
that additional belief systems will be added to the short list
as apparently has been the case for some aspects of popular
religion. Conversely, it may signal only that the government
will continue to be the sole arbiter of what is a religion and
what is not.
I am reluctant to consider regularizing religious belief,
practice, or organization as a positive development. The
premise seems to be that communities of believers have the
potential to challenge Beijing's rule throughout China, though
more so in Tibet and Xinjiang, where religion serves as an
identity marker and supports independence sentiment.
I believe the hope is that the new regulations will lay the
groundwork for religious organizations to perform necessary
social welfare functions that the state itself cannot support--
hospitals, clinics, old-age homes, senior centers. But I
suspect that China's leadership has crafted the regulations in
a way intended to further isolate religious belief and practice
from life's day-to-day minutiae. That emphatically is not
freedom of religious belief, even as defined in the dry
language of international human rights doctrines.
No, the March 1, 2005 regulations are, at best, a cosmetic
cover-up.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Spiegel appears in the
appendix.]
Mr. Foarde. You were remarkably disciplined, and I
appreciate it very much. We will have a chance to reach some of
the material that you did not cover during the Q&A.
Next, I would like to go on and recognize this afternoon a
new friend, Professor Daniel Bays, Professor of History and the
head of the Asian Studies Program at Calvin College. Professor
Bays is the former chair of the History Department at the
University of Kansas at Lawrence. He has directed major
research projects, funded by the Henry Luce Foundation and the
Pew Charitable Trusts, on the history of Christianity in China
and American missionary movements. He is the editor of
``Christianity in China: From the Eighteenth Century to the
Present,'' a 1996 volume published by Stanford University
Press; with Grant Wacker, he also was the editor of the book,
``The Foreign Missionary Enterprise at Home: Explorations in
North American Cultural History,'' a 2003 volume published by
the University of Alabama Press; and is also the author of
``Chinese Protestant Christianity Today,'' an article in The
China Quarterly, No. 174, 2003.
Professor Bays, thanks very much for being with us.
STATEMENT OF DANIEL H. BAYS, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, HEAD OF THE
ASIAN STUDIES PROGRAM, CALVIN COLLEGE, GRAND RAPIDS, MI
Mr. Bays. Thank you very much. I am honored to be here to
participate.
As I look at them and read them over, these regulations do
not constitute a ``paradigm shift,'' especially when, at the
same time, as you point out in your introduction, there are
major cases of persecution continuing.
In late February in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, there
was a raid by several different types of security personnel,
and Chinese officials ultimately kicked several foreigners out
of the country and temporarily detained 150 or so Chinese
pastors and church workers.
Carol Hamrin mentions near the end of her paper some things
that have been going on since last fall as well, or last
summer: a purge from the Party of people who are discovered to
be religious believers; a tightening of campus Christian
activities at colleges and universities; and a freeze on the
creation of what up until recently was the rapidly expanding
number of university-level study centers that looked at
Christianity or other religions. That is going on at the same
time that these new regulations are going into effect.
Like Mickey Spiegel, I believe that the purpose is not to
enhance believers' rights or their security to practice their
religion. There might be a side effect, some side effect which
is not all bad, for believers to know what the state is going
to do if it regularizes its supervisory behavior. But I think
that the regularization of control is to enhance state and
Party control. So, the purpose is to reduce arbitrariness, but
for the purpose of better total control.
Like Mickey, I noted, as in the past with such laws, great
problems of vagueness of terms, no definition of them. For
example what is ``normal religious behavior,'' or ``religious
extremism? '' Still, I found some interesting features,
interesting to me as an historian. For example, Article 38
talks about how state functionaries can be disciplined for
abuse of power, but it does not indicate whether that could
include Party members. Does ``state functionaries'' include
Party members? We are not told.
Article 33 makes it clear that believers are entitled to
fair compensation for confiscated property when their old
church has to be demolished. In the past, there have been some
cases of real exploitation and unfairness of the compensation.
This Article 33 makes it clear that that should not be done.
There is a reference in the regulations that relates to
religious groups carrying out social service activities. And
foreign donations can be used for social service as well. That
may indicate that the state is not doing very well in these
responsibilities, which we know is the case. The state is not
doing well in social service activities for its own population.
I notice that there runs through the document a consistent
thread of concern about religious groups coming under the sway
of foreign forces. That could be, of course, Muslims, Tibetans,
Catholics, and even Protestants. It applies to anybody.
Overall, my conclusion, in general, is that this is not a
``paradigm shift.'' This is sort of a clean-up by bureaucrats.
I always think of a comment from someone that Chan Kim-Kwong
and Allan Hunter interviewed. I think it was Chan who
interviewed a fairly high-ranking bureaucrat before their book
came out in 1993 on Protestantism in contemporary China. He
said, ``These people who are always at us for more rights--
reporters, political organizers, and religious believers--they
have all kinds of claims, but we just see them as an
administrative problem.''
As a historian, this document reminds me a lot of the
behavior and assumptions of pre-Communist Chinese political
regimes, e.g., the compulsion on registration of venues and
licensing of clerics, a deep fear of heterodoxy which then, as
now, is xiejiao. It was translated as ``heterodoxy'' in the old
days; now it is ``evil cult.'' Absolute paranoia about
religious forces becoming politically subversive, as in Falun
Gong.
Actually, there are some Protestant-related groups, sort of
offshoots of Protestantism, who are pretty off-the-wall and are
potential candidates for anti-state rebellious behavior. That
is one of the weaknesses of the Protestant scene, I think, in
China today.
I have a few other related observations, some along the
lines of religious believers dealing with state control.
Thinking of laws that affect religion and religious believers,
at some point one would think that people will start to realize
that the laws should, and can, protect citizens as well as
being instruments of the state. There were a few cases in the
last years starting to show this.
John Pomfret, who was for a few years the correspondent for
the Washington Post in Beijing, had an interesting article a
couple of years ago on how some of the local lawyers who are
believers--I think it was in Fuzhou--sued the state for not
letting their churches have Sunday schools for kids, and making
the legal argument that the regulations against that were not
laws, but simply guidelines. In Ian Buruma's book, ``Bad
Elements,'' there are a couple of cases of very brave Chinese
lawyers trying to push the envelope on protecting citizens,
including some religious believers.
Other aspects which come to mind from recent reading are
all the Web sites being shut down by the state, and the state
itself says some of those are religious. We are not sure how
many of them, but there must be quite a few if some are being
shut down.
Protestant groups in particular, about which I know the
most, continue to refuse to register with authorities and
continue to create their own non-state-sanctioned training
schools and programs for their leaders, and print material that
they are not supposed to, and often have extensive,
unauthorized contacts with Christian groups outside of China.
A few comments just to conclude this part of it, just
laying out some ideas. Laws aside, overall, where are we headed
in terms of religious groups, especially, say, Protestants, in
terms of the future? I have a hunch that the growth of an urban
and better-educated, better-off class of religious believers,
urban Protestants, may result in more security for the church.
It is harder to beat up on better-off urban residents than it
is on rural people. Will that result in elements of a Chinese
civil society, with believers showing a sense of civic duty and
responsibility and a desire to participate in local
decisionmaking? That is possible, I think. I think that
intellectuals can play a role in this, too.
It is possible that, in the future, there will be these
people who are referred to as ``culture Christians,'' some of
them religious believers, others simply appreciative of what
they think Christianity might do by way of public social values
to address the problems of corruption and ineffectiveness of
government, and that sort of thing. They might play a role in
establishing an urban Christianity.
Looking far ahead and making a wild guess about the future,
there may be in effect now a long-term pattern of the state's
gradually and selectively declining control over society,
because it just cannot control everything, and some elements of
society gradually growing more assertive and claiming their
rights if they can conceive of law as giving them rights, as
well as the law giving the state a tool. It might be easier for
religious believers to do that, to be more assertive and to try
to claim their rights with this new religion law or that may be
wishful thinking, because it is possible that the
interpretation and implementation of this law, or these
regulations, rather, might keep us right where we are in terms
of practical freedom of religious belief.
So, with that I will conclude and wait for our discussion
later.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bays appears in the
appendix.]
Mr. Foarde. Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Bays.
Our third panelist today is also an old friend, Dr. Carol
Lee Hamrin, currently a consultant and Research Professor at
George Mason University here in the area. Carol's long career
in public service includes 25 years in the U.S. State
Department, where I had the privilege of being her colleague
and benefited very much from her work as Senior China Research
Specialist. Dr. Hamrin currently is a Chinese affairs
consultant and, as I said, a Research Professor at George Mason
University in Fairfax, VA. She is also a senior associate with
the Global China Center in Charlottesville, VA, and advises
other nonprofit organizations supporting social services in
China. Her current research interests include research and
training projects for the development of the nonprofit sector
in China, and cultural change, human rights, and religious
policy. Recent publications include ``Advancing Freedom of
Religion and Belief in a Global China: A New Framework,'' which
is a report that she put together for the China Task Force of
the Council on Faith & International Affairs in 2004. We are
looking forward to reading ``God and Caesar in China: Policy
Implications of Church-State Tensions,'' which she co-edited
with Jason Kindopp from Brookings.
Carol, over to you.
STATEMENT OF CAROL LEE HAMRIN, CONSULTANT AND
RESEARCH PROFESSOR, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY, FAIRFAX, VA
Ms. Hamrin. Thank you, John. I am always happy if I can be
of help to the Commission. I think your work is very important.
I think you have done a remarkable job of giving Washington a
deeper, more complex understanding of the change going on in
China, so keep it up.
I view trends in religious affairs as part of a broader
trajectory in state-society relations that might be called
``outgrowing socialism.'' Following a pattern set by the
economic reforms, the state still protects and gives special
support to select social institutions that are granted a
monopoly for certain functions--what we might call state-
organized institutions [SOIs], to reflect similarities to the
state-owned enterprises [SOEs]--while also allowing small-
scale, private, civic institutions to spring up in order to
meet demand. These smaller and weaker organizations,
nonetheless, just like private businesses in China, have
greater vitality and flexibility, and gradually put competitive
pressure on the state agencies. I think that kind of
competition is good.
Thus, the unregistered religious organizations, through
steady, positive resistance, have greatly outpaced, in growth
and popularity, those belonging to the five official
monopolies, the so-called ``patriotic'' religious associations;
this, despite the state's unwillingness to grant them
legitimacy and its periodic efforts to force them to register
through the monopoly associations. Similarly, more than half of
the three million nonprofit organizations of other types in
China do not register or find loopholes for registering in some
other way to gain maximum autonomy.
The lack of legitimacy for the old state-run social system
and this widespread passive resistance to it is evidence to me
of a more equal relationship developing between the state and
society in general as the state is forced to down-size and a
pluralistic society
develops.
So the state can no longer easily suppress or control
social organizations, and even finds them quite useful to
lighten its burden at various levels in providing social
services; thus, they have to begin to address their concerns in
order to get compliance with the regulations.
I am just setting that forth as a comparative context for
analyzing these new state regulations on religious affairs. I
should
emphasize, all of us feel like we are just taking a first cut
at understanding these and their implications. This is not the
final word, by any means.
Compared with previous regulations that focused on the
registration and operation of religious sites, these new
regulations are an improvement in the sense that they are both
comprehensive and transparent. One reason I think this is
important, is that the central government can no longer say,
``Well, those abuses are due to those local officials who do
not know what they are doing.'' I mean, these are now State
Council level, not just Religious Affairs Bureau level,
regulations, so the central government is accountable for
enforcing them.
The new rules are detailed, with 48 articles, and
systematic in addressing religious affairs. I would say that
they do go a ways toward defining what is ``normal'' by listing
all the things that are legal and approved. They do not define
clearly the demarcation point, of course, between ``normal''
and ``abnormal,'' other than registered or not registered.
I think there is a discernible trend in the regulations for
the state to step back from micro-management of religious
affairs to a more general oversight position, giving somewhat
greater autonomy and authority to authorized religious
associations. This is true of other regulations for other
social organizations. But I would say that this ``paradigm
shift,'' if we want to call it that, took place in the 1990s,
not with these regulations. There was a round of regulations in
the early and late 1990s, and now there is another round of
regulations for social organizations, including religious
organizations, that is sort of an update. They are more
detailed, more
systematic, and they are an update, basically, on the rules.
These regulations now have the highest level, State Council,
legitimation for certain kinds of practices that have actually
been won through the perseverance of religious adherents who
started doing things, and that became a de facto part of the
rules. Now they are endorsed at the highest level. For example,
inter-provincial meetings. I mean, I did not even know there
were such things allowed, but they have taken place, so now
they are just slipped in here as things that are now listed as
normal. So, there are a few things like that that are
improvements.
However, most of these practices could already have been
found scattered in pre-existing provincial regulations or the
implementing guidelines, as Mickey and Dan have pointed out.
So, in a sense, these regulations are more of a snapshot of de
facto practices in this area than any step toward more
democratic practices that would meet international standards.
They fall far short of the type of legislation required to
protect constitutional rights, or even improve constitutional
rights, that would be expected of China after signing the U.N.
Covenant for Civil and Political Rights. I think everybody can
be disappointed they did not go much further toward where they
need to be.
Note, the full meaning and import of these regulations will
not be clear until the implementing guidelines are available.
Usually that takes months, but since there is a lot of training
already under way of religious affairs officials, perhaps they
already do have those guidelines, and we just have not read
them. Mickey has heard about the handbook that was prepared for
religious affairs officials, so maybe when we see a copy of
that we will know more.
However, I do think that legal status still will only be
granted to religious groups, not local bodies of believers,
through membership in official religious associations. These
regulations all talk about religious organizations, and by that
they mean social organizations, membership organizations, not
the local, independent congregations. So, I think that is
something we need to really watch closely.
The most important unknown, perhaps, is whether the state
will allow new religious associations to develop and be
registered and operate or whether they are going to stick with
their current five, or maybe add a couple more. That will be
important to watch for.
The cautious nature of these regulations is similar to
others recently implemented, and regulations being reviewed for
updates in the social sector. There are a lot more regulations
that now apply, tax and auditing rules, the donation law, and
so forth, so it is a much more complex situation.
But I would say we then have the good news. There is an
intent to treat religious organizations equally with other
social organizations as a normal part of Chinese society and
culture instead of a special kind of ideological, political
threat that needs to be eliminated. So, we are on the right
track that way.
The bad news is that all social organizations are still
highly restricted under the dual management system, which this
regulation echoes. I will not go into all of those onerous
requirements for registration, the quotas that Mickey has
mentioned, and so forth. But I would say that, even though
there is suspicion of foreign involvement with all social
organizations, there still is even more such suspicion for
religious organizations. So, there is still no level playing
field there. Religious affairs are required to be independent
and self-governing, prohibiting any foreign domination,
``domination'' being undefined; and it seems to me that these
kinds of barricades are anachronistic at a time when foreign-
invested and foreign-run companies are generating more than
half the value of all Chinese exports.
But in any case, I would say, too, that we need to see
whether the current patriotic organizations revise their
constitutions and rules to comply with the somewhat more
moderate language in these regulations, because there are a lot
of internal requirements for members of these associations that
are even less close to international norms.
So I would say the most welcome part of these regulations--
which is their intent, apparently--is to reduce arbitrariness
and abuses by local implementing officials. If this nationwide
training includes the police as well as religious officials and
legal officials, I think that something good can come of that.
Hopefully the content is positive and provides more constraints
on their arbitrariness.
The most important bottom-line concluding thought that I
would offer is that I think these regulations, along with those
for other social organizations, show that the state is under
both internal and external pressure to regularize or normalize
its relations with religious believers. Now, of course, they
would prefer to achieve that via a relationship of control and
top-down edict, but they know it is not going to happen. They
had to take into account wide consultations, at least of the
official religious groups. There are no longer just purely
bureaucratic interest groups drafting and giving ideas and
doing research in this area. There are academic groups and the
grassroots religious organizations and international players
who make their views known as we are today, and all of that is
starting to get into the hopper, putting pressure on the
government to keep moving in the direction of recognizing the
rights of believers.
So I think maybe this is the beginning rather than the end.
There is hard bargaining ahead, perhaps eventually leading to
more equal negotiating to protect the rights of the people at
the grassroots.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hamrin appears in the
appendix.]
Mr. Foarde. Carol, thank you very much. Thanks to all three
of our panelists for presentations rich in themes and material
for us to take up in the next few minutes in our question and
answer session.
Before we begin that, I would just say to those of you in
our audience this afternoon who have not signed up for our
information list on our Web site, to please visit our Web site
at www.cecc.gov and sign yourself up for the periodic e-mail
announcements about our hearings and roundtables, press
releases, and other materials related to the Commission's
mandate.
I would like to go on now to the question and answer
session. We have been conducting these roundtables over the
last three and a half years pretty much in the same way. Each
member of our staff panel will get about five minutes to ask a
question and hear the answer. Normally, we ask our staff panel
to address the question either to a specific panelist, or to
the group in general. Then if any of the other panelists have a
comment to make on it, we are glad to hear their views. We will
keep going until we run out of steam, or until 3:30, whichever
comes first.
So let me exercise the prerogative of the chair and begin
the questioning by addressing a question really to all three of
you.
It strikes me from what you have said, that given the huge
growth that we have seen in religious belief and practice, both
in registered churches and in unregistered groups of both
Protestants, Catholics, and others over the last, say, 10
years, 15 years, or longer, why would the government and the
Party bother with a new religious regulation, given that the
dynamism, it seems to me, is very much in the unregistered
groups? Why try to control them at all? What is the motive for
doing that?
Ms. Hamrin. I have been thinking about this recently and
was struck by a clause in something I read, the term ``the zone
of indifference.'' I think maybe in the 1980s the state was
retreating from its total involvement in every aspect of the
economy and society because it cannot possibly run everything,
manage everything, administer everything. With the
decentralization to lower levels of government, a lot of
responsibilities and authority were just hived off and sent
down, and so the central government did not have to worry about
it.
The problem is, however, that local governments have
started to pursue their own interests, not complying with
national interests. I think that we are seeing, since the
1990s, a recentralization of central authority in many sectors,
including the economy. But the government is trying to use new
mechanisms, such as fiscal and monetary policy rather than the
state planning agency in the economy, and for social
organizations, an effort to use these regulations rather than
just policies sent down to cadres to apply as they wish. So
with the concern about corruption in the last few years and the
new, younger leadership clearly making an effort to get a
handle on it, or at least to slow down the growth of it, we
have got anti-corruption efforts of a number of different
types.
I would say that perhaps these regulations, and the others
for foundations and social organizations, are part of that
effort--to try to get better implementation of policy at lower
levels to reduce the levels of corruption and abuse that are
arousing widespread social outbursts. I mean, there has been
massive social unrest in certain cities over small incidents,
really, but it shows the pent-up anger in the populace.
Mr. Foarde. Useful. Thank you. Somebody else? Mickey.
Ms. Spiegel. I think another piece of it has to do partly
with what Carol said, but partly with the need of the central
government to insist that there is a rule of law in China.
In almost every realm, in terms of publications, in terms
of religion, in terms of social organization, there is a need
to craft something that will appear to be a rule of law that
will partly will solve some of the central leadership's
internal problems, but will also be crafted in a way that
international organizations will buy. I think that is a big
piece of what is happening here.
I also think that in other fields there is tension between
people within the ranks, not necessarily of the central
leadership, but within the ranks of people involved in crafting
policy and in creating policy in China. The tension has been
between those who are trying to push the envelope and those who
are basically hard-liners. I think one of the things that the
government is trying to do here, is to integrate these two, or
to monitor the tension. The leadership needs to pay attention
to both wings or both extremes. I think, that accounts in part
for why the regulations are, in many respects, as vague as they
are. How do you satisfy both constituencies? So, I think that
is another piece of what is happening here. But there is,
clearly--and I agree with Carol--a felt need on the part of the
central government to solidify its hold over the whole issue.
If you look at some of the local regulations--and I admit,
I have looked at them over the years but I have not gone back
and looked at them in the last couple of weeks--there is a
major difference. There is a template, and that template is
adhered to in many respects. But there is a major difference in
the regulations promulgated for certain areas.
The obvious ones, of course, are Tibet and Xinjiang, where
the regulations are much stricter and where there has been a
concerted effort to re-educate cadres, re-educate believers,
and re-educate religious leaders.
So, I think, but I cannot be certain, that some of what has
been tried out in those areas is going to find its way, maybe,
into these new regulations when they are eventually put into
practice. Maybe the terms will be a little bit softer, but I
think the practices will be there.
Mr. Foarde. Good. Thank you. Let me now recognize Susan
Roosevelt Weld, the general counsel of the Commission staff, to
pick up the questioning. Susan.
Ms. Weld. Thanks a lot, John.
When I think about the actual impact of the new religious
legislation that is coming out of China, I wonder whether the
legislation might say one thing while Party policy might say
something entirely different.
Do these regulations add significant predictability to
believers' lives so they will now know what will happen if they
worship in certain places and in certain ways? Do they add
significant predictability as to how the religious affairs
officials and local police will treat them? This is an
important part of what ``rule of law'' means, in one sense?
Mr. Bays. I think it might. I think it is Article 38 that
says state functionaries can be punished or disciplined if they
abuse or mistreat religious believers. If that actually
happened a few times, it might help some local religious
believers' confidence. Of course, they might then step out and
do something that they think they have the right to do and get
clobbered in their local area. But if that provision, that
Article 38 were to be extensively implemented and publicized by
the higher levels of government and a few cadres actually
punished for beating up on believers or arresting them, fining
them, extorting money from them, that might make believers'
lives a little more predictable and a little more pleasant.
Ms. Hamrin. That is a really good question. It just made me
think that we should remember, from a Chinese perspective,
these are rules for a certain sector. These are rules for
religious believers and religious officials. They are not rules
for everybody. This is not a law to protect religious belief
for everybody in China. Therefore, you will have other things
going on in other sectors of society that contradict the
moderate tone, at least, of these rules. So for example, if you
have a Propaganda Department campaign to foster atheism and
materialism in the media and the school system, well, that is
for everybody else, but it is discriminatory against religious
belief. It privileges atheism over religious belief. If you
have an Organization Department campaign to winnow out
religious believers from Communist Party membership roles,
these rules are not for them. If you have the Education
Department instructions to put a freeze on the development of
the religious study centers and the more careful attention and
reporting on materials that you are translating, publishing, or
people that you are interacting with, well, most of these
people are Party members. So, again, these are religious
researchers, they are not religious believers, so these rules
are not for them. I think we have to keep that
compartmentalization in mind in Chinese culture.
Mr. Foarde. Let me now pass the questioning on to our
colleague, Kate Kaup, who joins us this year as a special
advisor during her sabbatical year from her associate
professorship at Furman University in Greenville, SC.
Ms. Kaup. Thanks, John. Thank you very much to all the
panelists for being here.
As you all have noted, these regulations, in many ways, are
not brand new and represent a systemization of existing
regulations, or as Carol called them, a ``snapshot of existing
regulations.'' Since these newest regulations have not really
been tested yet over the last two weeks, I was wondering if you
could very briefly--I know it is a big question--talk about how
well religious freedoms that have already been provided for in
earlier regulations have been observed by the authorities.
Particularly, maybe you could mention how well freedom of
religious belief has been protected in Xinjiang and Tibet. I
said it was a big question.
Ms. Spiegel. It is difficult in Xinjiang and Tibet. There
has definitely been a hardening of attitudes in both areas. In
many ways, I think the Chinese Government, the Communist Party,
have succeeded in winning some of those battles. The problem
is, of course, that you have religious belief and religious
identity intertwined with movements toward more autonomy or
independence.
Now in Xinjiang government officials use the term
``religious extremism,'' which is simply a way of saying, ``if
you are a devout Muslim you are probably a terrorist,'' so we
had better be careful. Really, it has gone that far. The
Chinese Government just made another statement about the
issues.
What has happened in both areas--and, again, slightly
differently in each because you have a monastic situation in
one and mosques in the other--is total secular control of
religion: the organization, the finances, the personnel, the
materials, educational systems, can children receive religious
instruction. There are very specific regulations. It is not
simply left to reading between the lines.
In Tibet and in Xinjiang, there are very specific
regulations about what might happen to a child who somehow
advertises that he or she is a religious believer. As I have
said already, I think a part of what has been tried in Tibet
and Xinjiang may find its way into other provinces. While you
do not have the same situation, this push for autonomy or
independence, maybe there was a testing out of ways to control
religion. I see some of that reflected in the new regulations,
certainly in training of personnel.
For example, in Xinjiang, there was a two-year campaign,
imams--I cannot remember the numbers off-hand--were subject to
very intense patriotic education campaigns. They were
reminiscent of the old criticism, self-criticism method where
you had to think about your own thoughts and your own
activities and criticize what somebody else did. You had to
write a critique of yourself and a critique of the process. It
was a very intense process. I would not be surprised to see
more of that happening in other areas.
The way I read the new regulations, that is implied. It is
certainly not set out, but it is implied. That is, I think, one
of the problems with these regulations. A lot is implied and we
do not know how it is going to play out.
We are still seeing, from recent testimony of people from
Tibetan areas, not simply in the TAR, the same kinds of intense
pressure on believers. People are leaving because, as they say,
what is left is not religion. Monks say, ``we are told what to
believe, we are told what to say, we are told how to say it,
and if we do not do it in that way, we are out--expelled from
the monastery--and we cannot go anyplace else to practice our
religion the way we want.''
Mr. Foarde. Would either of the other panelists like to
address that? Yes. Please, Carol, go ahead.
Ms. Hamrin. I would say, among the Han Chinese, that the
further down in the system you go, the further away from the
emperor you are, the more there has been a remarkable amount of
freedom for the registered groups. They have been growing by
leaps and bounds. They have been building new churches and
having larger scale meetings, and having foreigners coming in,
preaching and teaching, sending people overseas for study, and
more and more materials being published, not just scriptures,
but other materials. They have also been opening bookstores.
Someone recently sent me the catalogue of a couple of Christian
bookstores in small-sized cities, which of course are still
large to us, like Hangzhou or elsewhere, where these were
bookstores not connected to a church, but just had a lot of
material available.
So, I think that regulations at the top and personnel
appointed at the top by the government is one thing, and we
should always look at the bottom up perspective as well. I do
think that the recentralization, though, this effort to try to
get a handle on what had been a larger and larger zone of
indifference, has rolled back earlier progress in certain
areas.
Personnel is one of the big problem areas, and theology and
doctrine, is another. I think in the past, the government was
paying the most attention to organizational structure,
registration of worship sites. But more and more, the
government has been promoting certain kinds of theological
changes and campaigns, even in the Protestant circle, that are
clearly intended to try to get rid of ``supernatural''
elements, ``superstitious'' beliefs, and focus on ethics and
social service, to do something useful to society and forget
the rest of it. I do think that is not a good trend.
Ms. Spiegel. I think one other thing that has been
mentioned in passing, but that is very important, is concern
about large meetings and meetings that go across discrete
administrative boundaries.
That, interestingly enough, was a piece of what Tenzin
Deleg was charged with--not necessarily charged with, because
we do not know what the charges were; nobody has ever seen the
indictment or the verdict--but that was something that he had
done that he had been warned about.
We are seeing that in other places, too, this need to get
permission to come together, to have a religious rally. That is
something that I never saw before--in any of the regulations,
that you had to get permission to go beyond a discrete small
administrative area. Maybe you did, Carol.
I think that is an area to watch because I think it speaks
to the fear of religion. It speaks to the fear that I think the
Chinese Government and the Communist Party have, that another
organization somehow is going to co-opt--and I think that would
be their words--the hearts and minds of the Chinese population.
I personally do not see it that way. I think you can be a vey
good Chinese citizen and still be a fervent religious believer.
Mr. Foarde. Certainly we have heard that from some of the
Chinese pastors that have come to visit us over the last year
or longer, so I agree.
Let me go on and continue our questioning this afternoon
with our colleague from the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights,
and Labor, at the U.S. Department of State, Rana Siu. Rana,
please.
Ms. Siu. Thanks, John. Thanks to the panelists for your
presentations.
Compared to the last question, my question is much more
specific. I would like you to talk about there being a shift
from focusing on sites to groups? Do the new regulations give
legal protections to activities of officially recognized
religious groups to hold religious services in places other
than at an officially-recognized church? When I mention this, I
am wondering, could an official church sponsor ``house church''
services?
Ms. Spiegel. That is a very good question. I personally do
not have any answer. I think that is one of the most confusing
aspects of these regulations, what is a group or an
organization.
At one point, reading it--we were discussing this before
the roundtable, and I do not think anybody agrees with me--it
seems that an organization has to have a physical structure,
that it actually has to have a building, has to have a church,
or a mosque, or a temple, a structure.
It was not clear how venues or sites relate to
organizations. It was not clear if they have to have a
structure. It was not clear if there is room for the house
church. If somebody knows the answer to that or has other
thoughts on it, I would be very interested to hear them because
I think that is the most confusing part of the regulations.
Mr. Foarde. Let us give Dan Bays a try.
Mr. Bays. My conclusion is that what freedoms are
guaranteed are still for the venue. A floating house church
would not be acceptable as coming under this regulation. If the
house church were to formally affiliate with a registered
church, then of course it would become a meeting point of that
registered church and that would probably be all right. I think
it would have to self-register and become a meeting point of a
registered church, I think. But we were talking about this at
lunch as well, and it is difficult to figure out.
Ms. Hamrin. In looking through these regulations and
comparing the social organization regulations with these
religious organization regulations, I became more aware that
when they talk about religious organizations, they mean
membership associations.
So only the associations, not the local individual group or
congregation, can be a legal personage and can do any of these
things. The sites that are registered as part of an association
can do certain things, but there is no independent way to
become a legal personage to do these things on your own. That
is my understanding, that we can all test out.
I do think that the shift of focus to talk about these
religious organizations does suggest that, once they are
registered, once they are legal, that they could then apply for
special kinds of meetings, large-scale meetings that cannot fit
into a specific churchground. This would be possible if you are
registered, you are legal, and you go to the police and you can
apply.
But this is the biggest challenge that the urban house
church people face. They cannot just go meet in a field. They
really have trouble finding places to meet, certainly in large
numbers. I think there may be a shrinking zone of indifference
here. I was told by friends about a couple thousand people who
had rented a hall in an auditorium, for a Christmas Eve
service. That has been going on for a number of years.
This time, though, the security people cutoff all the
electricity and there was no heat and no light, and they were
sitting there in the dark and people were nervous that it was
going to have a bad ending if there was disruption of social
order, and so forth.
But actually, they stayed and continued with flashlights,
and left peacefully and kind of made a statement, saying in
effect ``We will not be intimidated.'' But I do think that is a
critical concern.
Mr. Foarde. Thank you.
Let me recognize Steve Marshall, who is our colleague who
handles Tibet issues and works on political prisoner issues for
us. Steve.
Mr. Marshall. I would like to thank each of you for
insightful observations on a very complex subject. I would like
to return to the Tibetan Buddhism question. I will direct this,
first, to Mickey, but I would appreciate anything that I can
hear from the other panelists.
Tibetan Buddhism is based very much on the monastic
community, and that community is essentially about association,
assembly, and education. The lay community looks to the
monastic community for guidance, and the contact between them
is, again, all about association, assembly, and education.
These new regulations appear to be more finely drawn with
respect to association, assembly, and education. Mickey, what
impact do you think that might have on the already delicate
situation between the lay and monastic community with respect
to Tibetan Buddhism? Thanks.
Ms. Spiegel. First of all, I think, Steve, you probably
have a better answer to that question than I have, but I will
try to answer it. It is hard for me to envision the regulations
pertaining to religion in Tibet, to Buddhism in Tibet, to the
organization of a monastery or a nunnery becoming any worse
than they are now. But I have said the same about other issues,
and time and time again I have had to say, ``Well, why didn't I
think about that? '' It probably can get worse.
From what we are hearing, the monastic community, whether
it is 200 people in a monastery or 20 people in a monastery,
the
attempt really is to cordon it off. The monastery is here and
lay people are elsewhere.
There is certainly no interaction between children and the
monastic community. If anything, there is probably a tightening
of
restrictions on visiting a monastery. Monasteries, more and
more, as you know, have become tourist sites. For many people,
there is no recognition of it as a sacred place.
One of the changes that has happened in the monastic
community is that education even for those who are members of a
monastery has become watered down. This is one of the
complaints you hear over and over again, that, yes, I am a monk
and I am associated with this particular monastery, but there
is nobody to teach me. There has been such a crack-down on the
teachers, therefore, there is a real need to try to go
someplace else to get a religious education. So if you have
that kind of situation, how does the religion spread to the lay
community? Then, there are very specific rules for the lay
community.
It is a unclear whether it is simple cadres who obviously
cannot have pictures of the Dalai Lama and cannot have a place
of worship in their houses. How far that restriction extends to
the lay population, is unclear. The rules appear fuzzy and
nobody is exactly clear what they are.
I would refer back to the Tenzin Deleg case. From the
research that we did, one of the major problems at the
authorities faced in relation to him, was the extent of his
influence in the community. I believe, that kind of influence
is something the Chinese Government and Communist Party does
not want. They want lay control. More than lay control, lay
rather than monastic influence within a community. That came up
fairly recently in an odd way.
I believe it was in Golog Prefecture in Qinghai that a monk
was killed. There was a lot of confusion about who, what, when,
and where, but nevertheless, somebody was killed and there was
unrest within the community. Despite the government's attempt
to resolve the situation, officials finally called in a lama to
calm things down.
In other words, they were admitting that there was monastic
influence within the community. But my guess is they are going
to continue to try to narrow the areas of monastic influence.
Mr. Foarde. Let me now pass the questioning on to our
colleague, Mark Milosch, a senior advisor who has been working
these last couple of years on Catholic issues and Protestant
issues. Mark.
Mr. Milosch. Thank you very much.
This question is for anyone who might be able to help
answer it. I am interested in Article 8 of the new regulations,
the article on schools. Could you give us an idea how far
Article 8 represents a change from previous regulations and
practice and what you think the authorities may have in mind,
and what might be the effect of this article. Will there be a
sudden movement by the faiths to create schools? What do the
authorities expect? What do you expect? How do you think the
authorities might react to various likely developments? I
should say, I am talking about religious schools here.
Ms. Spiegel. As I understand it, there has always been a
two-tier system. You have those seminaries that are recognized
by the Religious Affairs Bureau, and then you have underground
seminaries. I think the new regulations simply make explicit
that officials are going to see to it that does not happen any
more.
It also is very clear that you cannot have a school on
every corner any more than you can have a mosque on every
corner. Officials are very definitely going to limit the
number.
Obviously, they have tried to control the curriculum,
control which students are admitted, that they are patriotic
students, and so on.
I believe this is a codification of what they have been
trying to do for years, and just further tightens control. I do
not see any particular difference, but maybe someone else does.
Ms. Hamrin. This tends to look like recentralization for
authorization at the national level for any religious
institute, whereas, my understanding is, up until now,
provincial-level religious associations were able to set up,
not necessarily seminaries, which do seem to have sort of a
quota, one for the northeast, one for the southwest, but rather
Bible schools. By this I mean a school that would be less than
a full seminary, but something that could be more local,
smaller scale, maybe two years instead of four years. Or
perhaps some just lay training institutes of all sorts, some
for six months, some for six weeks. I mean, there has been a
lot more going on. So this could be an effort to recentralize
approval over all such activities. We do not know what is a
religious institute, all of the above or just the few that are
regional or national in scope. We do not know.
Mr. Foarde. Professor Bays.
Mr. Bays. I think the highlighting of the role of the State
Council here--it is mentioned specifically twice in that one
paragraph--may well indicate a recentralization, an intent to
have closer monitoring and permission from Beijing.
Mr. Milosch. It sounds like none of you see any doors
opening here.
Mr. Bays. If anything, maybe the opposite, because of the
role of the State Council, both in the initial stage and having
the final say-so. Although the regulation does ask the lower
level administrative unit to indicate whether it intends to
accept the application or not before officials send it up to
the State Council.
Mr. Foarde. Good. Thank you.
Let us hand the questioning now to our colleague, Carl
Minzner, another senior counsel on the Commission staff. Carl.
Mr. Minzner. Thank you very much, John.
This question is directed to Professor Hamrin, but I will
invite the other participants to answer the question as well.
I was interested in the comparison that you made in the
beginning of your statement about the resemblance of Chinese
religious policy to economic policy, particularly with the idea
that there were state-sponsored institutions that the
government had been long involved in supporting, and they were
gradually opening up the realm for some more civic associations
to challenge the power of the long-established state religious
organizations. One aspect of this economic context is that,
while the Chinese Government may open up an area for more
private associations, it frequently pursues a strategy of co-
option with respect to those associations that demonstrate
particular strength or popular appeal. In the economic context,
you could cite the example of the ``Three Represents'' strategy
in bringing private entrepreneurs into the Party.
So my question is: in the religious context, is there any
evidence of this co-option strategy as well? Is the government
making an effort to bring in those particular Protestant or
Catholic leaders who are part of these newly-emerging, non-
state organizations that might be in opposition to the state-
sponsored church or the state-sponsored Catholic groups? Is the
government making active efforts to bring those people into the
patriotic church associations?
Ms. Hamrin. I would just say that I think the government's
intention in the civic sector is not necessarily to promote the
competition. I think they did see that was valuable in the
economic sector.
But co-option is intrinsic to the whole ``united front''
strategy, and so all along I do think the government and
Party's intention has been to resurrect these monopoly
religious associations and allow them to develop and set up
local churches, even in some areas that never had churches
before. At the beginning, the associations did not intend to do
that, but the government wants to allow them gradually to do
enough that they can attract people into the fold, and then
that would take care of the problem: everybody would register,
everybody would be part of this one group, and then you can
just put the squeeze on the people at the top of the group to
be responsible for the behavior of all others.
But it just has not worked out that way. So I view these
regulations as yet one more effort to make the system function,
and again we will have to wait and see whether it is going to
work any better than previous efforts.
These efforts at co-option always have a carrot and a
stick, so we are seeing both here. I mean, we are seeing the
stick--they are going after unregistered groups rather than
ignoring and winking at their activities--in an effort to put
the pressure on them to either come above ground or just
disappear.
So, I am sorry--did I answer the question? I wanted to say
at some point, and maybe I could just say it here, I was
talking to someone from the Religious Affairs sector and
learned, to my surprise, that considering religious
organizations as social organizations and registering them with
Civil Affairs is not new. Now, I did not know that any
religious associations were registered with Civil Affairs, but
they are. I asked, ``Why does nobody know about this? '' He
said, ``Well, it is just all very automatic.''
If you were already one of these mass organizations, once
the regulations were put out in 1994, which were government
regulations, not Party policies, then these Party mass
organizations were just automatically registered, and all the
members, all the churches that were part of these associations,
were just considered registered. So it was ``we are going to
shift this whole system from party control to government
control through regulations, and so register everybody.'' That
was news to me, and maybe needs to be tested out and further
investigated.
That is the standard system. All social organizations have
to register with Civil Affairs and be supervised by, or
administered by, the functional agency in the government that
controls that sector.
Mr. Foarde. So, for example, the Health Ministry or
something like that.
Ms. Hamrin. There was huge debate about this in recent
years. Reformers in the State Council Legislative Office and
the Ministry of Civil Affairs, plus the organizations
themselves, were saying that this is just really onerous. In
fact, one of the reasons so many social organizations do not
register, or register instead as businesses, is because they
cannot find a government agency that will sponsor them,
probably because the government agency cannot make money off of
them and they are just a pain.
So in the debates going into the drafting of the foundation
regulations, they debated, ``Should we just do away with this?
'' One earlier draft did, but then when you came down to the
bargaining at the end, to a consensus that everybody can
accept, you put that off for the next round, knowing there will
be a next round. This is continually in negotiation, like any
good Chinese contract.
Ms. Spiegel. There was a meeting in December 2003, to
discuss NGOs. There were Chinese participants; the EU was the
other partner. The Chinese participants said at that time that
the need to have government sponsorship of an organization was
on its way out.
For awhile, it looked like that was going to happen, but it
seems not to be happening now. However, I still see a
difference between the fact that there is some kind of
oversight by a sponsoring organization and the fact that you
have at the whole bureaucracy set-up to oversee religious
organizations. I may be dead wrong.
Mr. Foarde. Dan, do you have a comment?
Ms. Hamrin. One important difference is that Religious
Affairs Bureaus have a vested interest in keeping this system,
because they do not do anything else.
Ms. Spiegel. Agreed.
Ms. Hamrin. Whereas, most other government agencies do have
other business.
Mr. Foarde. Or at least have another function. Right. A
comment, Dan?
Mr. Bays. I just wanted to point out that in 2002,
something happened which has implications for the future and
relates to what Carl was mentioning. Frank Ching, who was
writing then for the Far Eastern Economic Review, had a column
in the first half of 2002 where he stated very confidently
that, at the upcoming 16th Party Congress later that year, not
only businessmen, but also religious believers, would be
allowed to join the Party.
Nothing came of that, but I think that this perhaps
indicates very well how trial balloons can get shot down maybe
by conservative people in the Party. It also indicates that a
substantial part of the Party at that time was willing to
contemplate having religious believers as Party members instead
of going through and purging all the Party members who were
discovered to have
theistic beliefs. So that indicates some flexibility for the
future, perhaps. What it would mean for a believer to become a
Party member, it is a little anomalous, but who knows?
Mr. Foarde. Interesting. Thank you.
Let me recognize Laura Mitchell, our research associate on
the Commission staff, who is also a member of our Religion
Working Group. Laura.
Ms. Mitchell. Thank you. Thank you all for being here.
I would like to know more about how the new regulations
will affect membership of religious groups. I read that the
regulations stipulate that legal action can be taken against
anyone who attempts to compel others to believe in certain
religions. How will this affect the ability of religious groups
to meet with potential new members or discuss their religion
and encourage new membership?
Ms. Spiegel. When I read that clause, I think in terms of
religious officials not being allowed to force people to
disbelieve or
believe in atheism. I would have to go back and look again to
understand the implication for ordinary recruitment. I never
thought of the clause from that perspective. There may well be
some intent to find an additional way to counter proselytizing.
I did not see that, but I will have to look again.
Mr. Foarde. Dan.
Mr. Bays. Eastern Lightning, of course, would fall under
this provision. It is already a xiejiao, already an evil cult.
Mr. Foarde. Both organizations and individuals, according
to the thing. How interesting. Laura, do you have another
question? You have a couple of minutes left.
Ms. Mitchell. How do you think the regulations might impact
local traditional religious practices? Do you think that local
officials will now be more likely to stop traditional folk
religious practices?
Ms. Spiegel. Carol and I were at a meeting--Carol was one
of the speakers--and one of the other people who spoke talked
particularly about that issue. What it seems to be is that
local traditional religion is going to be incorporated into the
system. Originally there were only five recognized religions. I
would guess that, unless there is real pressure on them, local
officials would tend to let it remain as it was. I think
traditional religion is so much a part of the culture in
certain provinces. From what I understand, in some areas many
local officials, if not the leaders, play a big part in
traditional religion I do not imagine there is going to be a
lot of change, but I do not know enough about it to do anything
more than make a guess at this point.
Mr. Foarde. Go ahead, Carol.
Ms. Hamrin. You saved all the good questions for me.
Mr. Foarde. That is right. That is right. We want to keep
you awake. [Laughter.]
Ms. Hamrin. I just think this is an issue to watch very
closely, and it is related to what Dan Bays was talking about
earlier about Party membership. At the local level in areas
where folk religion--or folk faith, which is less organized but
more cultural--is really prominent, and it is not just the
southeast, but around Beijing, and it is growing all over, you
have got Party members and Party officials who are involved in
these local practices, if not some organized religion.
So, just like earlier, when you have so many Party members
leaving the Party and government and going into business, but
still they were Party members, what do you do with them? It is
not a matter of recruiting businessmen. It is, what do you do
with these businessmen who are already in the Party?
It is the same thing here. What about all these Party
people who have joined, or are practicing, religion, or whose
families are? Do you just say, ``all right, that is fine? '' Do
you try to purge them, to somehow roll that back? That is what
they have decided to do, for now, at least. Maybe the next
round will be a different decision.
Ms. Spiegel. They did roll it back in Tibet and Xinjiang.
Whether that reflects the difference in the way religion in
those two provinces is viewed and the way other religions are
viewed, is hard to know. Whether they will be a model is hard
to know.
Mr. Foarde. Thank you. Let us give the last set of
questions for this afternoon to Keith Hand, our senior counsel.
Keith.
Mr. Hand. Those of us who are lawyers like to say there is
no right without a remedy. Professor Bays, you mentioned that
one of the goals of the new regulation is to control
arbitrariness, and also to discipline officials if they do not
follow the rules. Do the rules give the religious believers
themselves any legal cause of action through which to enforce
them?
The second question is should we make anything of the fact
that this was passed as a State Council regulation as opposed
to a national law?
Mr. Bays. For the first, there is nothing in the
regulations that indicates who can bring suit. It sort of
implies that the official's supervisor would know about this
and take action, which is probably not very realistic. But the
legal profession in China is expanding and there are lawyers
doing all kinds of daring things. I can imagine an
adventuresome local religious leader being a lawyer and
bringing suit against a cadre. Of course, he might get beat up
for it by thugs. Anyway, that is probably the area of remedy.
The other question. It probably is significant that it is a
State Council regulation, because maybe that is easier to
change in the future. This is, perhaps, somewhat experimental.
Ms. Hamrin. I was a little surprised when I read that,
explicitly, religious believers are told that they can take
these laws on administrative wrongful action and use those if
they feel local officials have abused their authority, because
I thought, they are citizens of the PRC, of course they can do
that for any kind of administrative wrongful action. But in the
Chinese culture, unless it is spelled out, it will not happen.
It is not like here in the United States, where we
assume,''Well, of course they can, even if they did not say
so.''
I think it is important that they spelled out that people
can take officials to court if there is a problem, or they can
get a second opinion, so to speak, if they disagree with the
administrative opinion. It is important both because they are
more likely to do so in fact, and because officials then know
that and may think twice when they make decisions.
Mr. Foarde. I appreciate that answer, and all the profound
answers we have gotten to the questions this afternoon, as well
the statements from our panelists.
For the first time in several weeks of doing these
roundtables this year, we actually have sunshine streaming in
the windows from outside, and I see now that the shadows are
growing long. So, on behalf of Chairman Chuck Hagel and the
Members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, let
me thank our three panelists, Carol Hamrin, Mickey Spiegel, Dan
Bays, and all of you who came this afternoon to hear them share
their expertise with us.
Please watch our Web site and your e-mail for announcements
about the series of roundtables and hearings that we will have
throughout the spring. Announcements will be coming up soon.
Thank you all, and we will adjourn this roundtable. Thank
you.
A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
----------
Prepared Statement fo Mickey Spiegel
March 14, 2005
As a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, a private,
independent human rights monitoring organization, I appreciate the
opportunity to appear today before the Congressional Executive
Commission on China to present my/our perspective on the evolution of
religious policy in China following the end of the Cultural Revolution
(1966-1997).
From the time the Chinese government rescinded the Maoist imposed
ban on all religious belief, it has steadily reinforced the structure
of laws and regulations directing religious practice. The regulations
that went into effect on March 1, 2005 do not appear to be a break with
tradition, but an attempt to tighten the state's control, codify Party
policies, and strengthen the bureaucracy established to enforce them.
The aim is two-fold: stricter control, less arbitrariness.
In 1982, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party
promulgated Document 19, ``The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on the
Religious Question during Our County's Socialist Period.'' Its
principles continue to underlie religious policy in the People's
Republic of China even as we meet to consider the implications of the
new State Council Decree, ``Regulations on Religious Affairs,'' in
effect since March 1, 2005.
Document 19's original formulation was sparse: ``respect for and
promotion of the freedom of religious belief,'' \1\ but it signaled a
sea change. Promotion of freedom to choose to believe signaled an end
to policies of repression which alienated believers and interfered with
the State's ability to turn its full attention to and to direct the
attention of believers to a mutual goal of rapid modernization. Respect
for a variety of beliefs spoke to the State's determination to curb
cadres who had been able with impunity to intimidate, harass, arrest,
and torture believers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Chinese Law and Government, vol. 33 (March-April 2000) p. 22.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
However, with the promulgation of the 1982 Chinese constitution
which followed hard on the heels of Document 19,\2\ the potential for
limiting the full flowering of religious belief and practice became
immediately obvious. Document 19 limited freedom to believe to five
major religions, Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Catholicism and post-
denominational Protestantism; article 36 of the constitution limited
state protection only to ``normal'' religious activities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Constitution of the People's Republic of China, adopted at the
Fifth Session of the Fifth National People's Congress and promulgated
for implementation by the proclamation of the National People's
Congress on December 4, 1982.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ambiguity of the term ``normal'' permitted a plethora of limits
on religious expression. What developing regulations explicitly allowed
was considered normal; any other activity could be deemed abnormal even
by a local bureaucrat. As a Chinese official said some months ago, what
was illegal was abnormal; what was abnormal was illegal. But such a
formulation continued to make possible arbitrary rule by local fiat,
something the central leadership was determined to disallow even as it
strengthened control over religious practice. At the same time,
prohibition on the use of religion to disrupt public order signaled a
concern, one that continues to this day, that ``hostile forces'' would
use religion as a cover for fomenting subversion.
Guidelines, such as those making ``patriotic'' organizations
responsible for monitoring compliance with state policy, establishing a
``three-fix'' policy that limited evangelism and the use of lay
religious leaders, and instituting a ``three-self'' policy that barred
organizational ties to world religious bodies, gave way to emphasis on
a ``rule of law.'' That new emphasis culminated in 1991 in a policy
directive that carried Document 19 a step further and is still the
centerpiece of religious control. Document 6, ``Circular on Some
Problems Concerning the Further Improvement of Work on Religion,'' \3\
mandated that every congregation, temple, monastery, mosque, and church
had to register with the authorities. An unregistered group was by
definition illegal and its members subject to arrest; a group deemed
legal opened itself to control of its personnel, religious materials,
activities, membership, and finances.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Chinese Law and Government, vol. 33 (March-April 2000) pp. 56-
63.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jiang Zemin extended the impetus toward regulation of religious
activity through law when, in 1993, he stated that religion must adapt
itself to a socialist society. The imperative has been interpreted to
mean that everything from organization of rites and rituals to
underlying theology to the day to day management of personnel,
materials, and activities must meet the changing needs of society as
interpreted by its rulers.
By 1994, regulations codified by the State Council specified the
steps required to properly register and the right of rejection reserved
to those bodies charged with monitoring compliance. Local regulations
made still more explicit what legally registered organizations could or
could not do. There was, however, still room for small groups,
operating discreetly in the shadows, to continue to meet and worship.
That small space, though still in existence in 1994, narrowed again
in 1999, when the Chinese government, in response to the emergence of
Falun Gong, further
reserved for itself the right to determine what in the religions it
recognized constituted orthodox belief and what was heterodox and thus
illegal, and to further determine what belief structures could be
classified as cults and thus ipso facto illegal.
The regulations that went into effect on March 1, 2005 further
codify the rules restraining religious practice in China and the
bureaucratic mechanism used to
enforce those rules. That bureaucracy consists in part of the national
State Administration of Religious Affairs; a hierarchy of religious
affairs bureaus in all administrative units such as provinces,
townships, and counties; the Ministry of Public
Security; and local police units.
Several immediate problems assert themselves. The usual twin
problems of undefined terminology and vaguely worded regulatory
articles make it difficult to understand precisely what compliance
requires and leave considerable leeway for national and local
interpretation. For example, the problem of what is ``normal'' and what
is not remains; nowhere is there an explanation of ``the lawful rights
and interests of religious bodies, sites for religious activities and
religious citizens;'' and the requirement that those same actors
``safeguard unification of the country, unity of all nationalities and
stability of society'' (article 3) leaves the state free to re-
interpret the provision as the need arises and leaves religious
practitioners no redress should they be charged with a violation.
In addition, other than the specific requirement in Article 48 of
the new regulations that the ``Regulations on Administration of Sites
for Religious Activities,'' be repealed, laws and regulations remain in
place that do not specifically target religious activities, but
nevertheless have serious implications for religious expression. The
2005 regulations make no comment on these pre-existing laws and
regulations, nor do they suggest how their implementation will affect
provincial regulations. The usual practice has been for provinces and
other administrative areas to follow national templates in crafting
regulations specific to their jurisdiction.
The most problematic addition to prior regulatory regimes, and one
that I believe clearly signals an increase in State control, is the
requirement that a religious body (nowhere defined) ``shall be
registered in accordance with the provisions of the Regulations on
Registration Administration of Associations.'' The change signals the
need for a religious body to satisfy two bureaucracies, the Civil
Affairs Ministry and the State Administration of Religious Affairs. The
requirement not only adds to bureaucratic oversight but in theory it
requires, inter alia, a religious organization to have a government
agency ``as a professional leading unit,'' 50 members, full time
personnel, and if local, have ``activity funds totaling in excess of
30,000 yuan.'' Most importantly, the regulations state, in article
13(2), that an application may be rejected because one with a ``similar
operational scope exists in the same administrative area.'' In other
words, the state is given the power to decide how many mosques are
enough.
Several other provisions speak directly to an increase in state
control:
<bullet> the requirement that the religious affairs department of the
State Council approve educational institutes, which may reject an
application on the grounds that sufficient institutes exist in a
given locale;
<bullet> involvement of a national religious body in the selection of
students who may go abroad for religious study;
<bullet> the obligatory involvement of three administrative levels
before an application to prepare to establish a site for religious
activities can be approved and the additional requirement that no
application for registration can be made until construction is
complete;
<bullet> apparent elimination of any gray area through which small
local groups without a structure could use someone's home or shop
as a meeting place where like-minded believers could quietly
congregate;
<bullet> acceptance of ``guidance, supervision and inspection'' by
``relevant departments of the local people's government;''
<bullet> restrictions on large-scale religious activities.
An added worry grows out of the requirement (article 27) that
religious personnel be ``determined qualified as such by a religious
body.'' The stipulation brings to mind the on-going ``patriotic''
campaigns in Tibet and Xinjiang during which clergy are compelled to
examine themselves and their colleagues for inappropriate behavior or
thought.
One omission may--but only may--signal a positive policy change.
Nowhere in the regulations is reference made to what belief systems
qualify as religions. The omission may signal that additional belief
systems will be added to the short list as apparently has been the case
for some aspects of popular religion. Conversely, it may signify only
that the government will continue to be the sole arbiter of what is a
religion and what is not.
I am reluctant to consider regularizing religious belief, practice,
or organization a positive development. The premise seems to be that
communities of believers have the potential to challenge Beijing's rule
throughout China, though more so in Tibet and Xinjiang where religion
serves as an identity marker and supports independence sentiment.
I believe, the hope is that the new regulations will lay the
groundwork for religious organizations to perform necessary social
welfare functions that the state itself cannot support--think
hospitals, clinics, old-age homes, senior centers. But I suspect that
China's leadership has crafted the regulations in a way intended to
further isolate religious belief and practice from life's day to day
minutiae. That emphatically is not freedom of religious belief, even as
defined in the dry language of international human rights doctrines.
No, the March 1, 2005 regulations are at best, a cosmetic cover up.
______
Prepared Statement of Daniel H. Bays
March 14, 2005
Summary of main points:
1. These regulations do not seem to constitute a ``paradigm
shift.'' Especially when at the same time on the broader stage major
cases of persecution continue.
2. Purpose is not (except perhaps as a side effect) to enhance
believers' rights or security to practice their religion. It is rather
to regularize, and thus enhance, state and party control. I.e., the
purpose is to reduce arbitrariness in managing religious affairs (which
would be positive for believers), but in pursuit of better total
control.
3. Notorious problems of vagueness of terms and no definition, e.g.
``normal activity,'' ``religious extremism,'' even ``religion'' itself,
continue from past documents.
4. Nevertheless some interesting features, e.g. art. 38 where
``state functionaries'' (but does this mean party members as well?) can
be disciplined for abuse of power, or art. 33 which makes clear that
believers are entitled to fair compensation for confiscated property.
5. Several mentions of aspects relating to religious groups
carrying out social service activities, including use of foreign
donations to do so. Seems almost a tacit admission that the state isn't
doing very well in meeting these responsibilities.
6. There runs through the document a consistent thread of concern
that religious groups might ``come under the sway of foreign forces.''
Not entirely clear who is main target here, Muslims, Tibetans, or
Catholics; or even Protestants.
7. Overall, again not a paradigm shift, just a cleanup by
bureaucrats?
8. This document reminds me a lot of the behavior and assumptions
of pre-Communist Chinese political regimes going back a couple of
millennia: insistence on registration and licensing, deep fear of
heterodoxy, paranoia about religious forces
becoming politically subversive, etc. Note that some groups are in fact
candidates for rebellion.
Some other related observations, some of them along lines of religious
believers ``resisting'' state control:
1. At some point people will start to realize that laws should
protect citizens as well as being instruments of the state. A few cases
starting to show this.
2. Technology and religion's resistance to or evasion of the state.
Web sites being constantly shut down by the state, including many
religious ones, indicating a lot of them are in existence.
3. Continued pattern of, e.g., Protestant groups refusing to
register with authorities, and many of them creating their own non-
state sanctioned training schools and programs for leaders.
4. Will more growth of an urban, better educated, wealthier class
of believers (thinking of Protestants here) result in more security for
the church? Will it result in elements of a Chinese civil society, with
believers manifesting a sense of civic duty and responsibility and
desire to participate in local decisionmaking?
5. Possible role for intellectuals here? E.g. ``culture
Christians.''
6. It seems we may be in a long-term pattern of the state's
declining control over society and elements of society gradually
growing more assertive in claiming their ``rights;'' perhaps it will be
easier to do so with this new religion law. (Or that may be wishful
thinking).
______
Prepared Statement of Carol Lee Hamrin\1\
march 14, 2005
New State Regulations on Religion: The Bargaining Begins
Trends in religious affairs are part of a broader trajectory in
state-society relations that might be called ``outgrowing socialism.''
Following a pattern set by the economic reforms, the state still
protects and gives special support to its monopoly institutions--what
we might call state-organized institutions (``SOIs'') to echo state-
owned enterprises (``SOEs'')--while allowing non-state civic
institutions to spring up in order to meet demand. These smaller and
weaker organizations nonetheless have greater vitality and flexibility
and gradually put competitive pressure on the state agencies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ From commentary presented at ``Religion and Cultural Change in
China,'' a seminar at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC,
February 1, 2005.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thus, the unregistered religious organizations have greatly
outpaced in growth and popularity the five official monopolies--the so-
called ``patriotic'' religious associations. This, despite the state's
unwillingness to grant them legitimacy--and periodic efforts to force
them to register through the monopoly agencies. This adds to evidence
of a more equal relationship developing between the state and society
in general, as the state downsizes and a pluralistic society develops.
The state can no longer easily suppress or control social
organizations, and also finds them useful to lighten the state's burden
in providing social services in ever greater demand.
This is the comparative context for analyzing the new State Council
regulations on religious affairs that went into effect on March 1,
2005, in the place of the national regulations of 1994. (Note that the
1994 rules for foreign nationals still apply). Compared with the
previous regulations, which focused on the registration and operation
of religious sites, there is some improvement in both comprehensiveness
and transparency. The new rules are detailed--48 articles--and
systematic in addressing the establishment and registration of
religious associations, religious activities, personnel, property and
liability. The content of the regulations, however, contains little
that could not be found scattered in existing provincial regulations or
implementing guidelines. It is more of a ``snapshot'' of current
practice than a step toward more democratic practices, including
legislation to protect constitutional rights, that would be expected of
China at this stage of development. Nonetheless, the regulations now
provide the highest level (State Council) legitimation for existing
practices such as large-scale or inter-provincial meetings, publication
of religious materials circulated ``within religious circles,''
acceptance of donations from overseas, and provision of social services
to the community. Note that the full meaning and import of these
regulations cannot be known until the implementing guidelines are
hammered out among contending parties.
The cautious and conservative nature of these regulations is
reflected in other regulations and implementing guidelines under review
for the social sector--such as the June 2004 set of rules for public
and private foundations and the rules for social (membership)
organizations and non-commercial institutions. There are also changes
underway in the donation law and tax and audit rules that will affect
all these various types of social organizations. The application of new
rules on property ownership will be critical to all of them, and
perhaps the most important will be a law on association reportedly
being drafted.
So the good news is that there is a stated intent to treat
religious organizations equally with other social organizations rather
than as some special kind of threat to the polity. For example, in the
model constitution drafted by the China Christian Council to be used as
a template for the constitutions of all registered Protestant churches,
the Council specifically states that churches in China have a dual
nature--that of a spiritual organization and that of a social
organization. As social organizations, churches should ``abide by
China's constitution, laws, regulations, and policies and should foster
social progress, national construction, and the cause of world peace.''
\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Church Order for Chinese Protestant Christian Churches,
December 28, 1996, translation 2001 M.E. Sharpe, Inc., from the
Chinese text, ``Zhongguo jidujiao jiaohui guizhang,'' Tianfeng
(Heavenly Wind), No. 2 (1997).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
However, the bad news is that all social organizations are still
tightly restricted by intrusive state supervision, including strict
quotas for those with national or provincial scope and restrictions
about foreign ties. For example, the new foundation regulations require
that foundations ``must not endanger national security, national unity
or the unity of nationalities,'' reflecting suspicion about foreign
involvement. The new regulations on religious affairs are less subtle,
requiring ``independence and self-governance'' and prohibiting any
``foreign domination.'' Such warnings seem anachronistic, at a time
when foreign-invested companies in China are generating more than half
of the value of all Chinese exports.
The intent of the current regulatory approach seems to be reducing
the arbitrariness and abuses of local implementing officials while
retaining the final authority for defining and applying the rules in
the hands of government. Thus, the state alone will define case by case
such key terms that were left quite vague in the
regulations such as ``religious belief'' or ``normal'' religious
activities that deserve government protection, on the one hand, or the
``state or public interests'' or ``foreign domination'' that would
require government intervention on the other hand.
Moreover, there is no requirement to harmonize the new regulations
with previous laws, regulations or policy directives that may
contradict them, to guarantee constitutional rights. So existing
restrictions, including rules set by the monopoly religious
associations such as not converting or baptizing minors, very likely
will continue. The importance of this lack of coherence can be
illustrated by mentioning just a few current policies that impact
negatively on free religious practice--ongoing security campaigns
against ``religious extremism'' (the new term for cults, terrorism, and
separatism) and ``foreign infiltration'' (undefined); a propaganda
department campaign to foster ``atheism and materialism'' in the media
and education systems (maintaining the privilege of atheism over
theistic belief); an organization department campaign to winnow out
religious believers from Chinese Communist Party membership rolls; and
education department instructions to stop religious activities on
university campuses and put a freeze on the development of religious
study centers. Thus, the actual environment for religious affairs is
highly complex, confusing and intimidating, while implementation is
heavily dependent on the locality in question.
The adoption of these regulations on religious affairs may be most
important as evidence that the state is under internal and external
pressure to regularize or normalize its relations with religious
believers. As with other regulations, we are dealing with a moving
target; the drafters and implementers are well aware that they will be
engaged in ongoing negotiations and hard bargaining with the various
interest groups affected. And no longer are these purely the
bureaucratic interest groups, but include the grass-roots religious
organizations and international players as well.
It seems that religious believers have won some grudging acceptance
by the authorities that they are here to stay and have legitimate
interests that must be taken into account. A lot of hard bargaining
lies ahead, but having established the necessity of negotiating is a
step toward the eventual free exercise of the right of association. In
sum, the new regulations offer no guarantees or even probabilities of
progress but signal some important possibilities.
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