It never seems to end but it was to be expected. If anything, Christianity has had more lenience than could reasonably be expected under the Chinese regime. I suspect that the authorities are loathe to produce martyrs as they are well aware of the effect. Just make things awfully difficult.
In the meantime,
the Christian missionary octopus will continue to reach out and touch people
throughout the population and this just validates them.
Christianity
has long since proven that they have centuries that no one else has. That alone must give the Chinese pause as
their present dynasty is slipping into late life.
Campaign
Underway to Demolish Christian Churches in China
One of the most memorable scenes in Lewis
Carroll’s classic “Alice in Wonderland” is the Queen of Hearts shrieking “Off
with their heads!” whenever she is displeased.
Xia Baolong, the Communist Party secretary
of Zhejiang Province, seems to have taken a leaf from the Queen’s playbook,
when he conducted an inspection tour of the province earlier this year.
Pointing at a cross on a church in the small town of Baiquan, he is reported to
have announced that it was “too conspicuous and splashy.” It was therefore to
be “rectified,” he said. The cross was ripped down and a smaller one placed on
the wall.
Xia’s
peremptory remarks, which continued during the inspection tour, seem to
have cascaded into a wave of church demolitions across the province recently,
under vague provisions of economic development and urban renewal.
On April 28, the target was the
state-approved Sanjiang Church in Wenzhou City. Wrecking crews moved in on that
church, ripping down its facade even as congregants attempted to stop them
through protests. The Telegraph reported a witness saying: “I saw three or four
excavators out front, demolishing the church, and three or four out back,
demolishing the annex building. I also saw a small excavator going inside the
church doing demolition work inside.”
A photograph, unverified, later appeared
online appearing to show that the whole structure had collapsed.
The assault on the Sanjiang Church is just
one part of a campaign that crosses Zhejiang Province and beyond.
In Hongzhou of Zhejiang, 200 people from the
local government came and removed a cross from a small church. “They said the
cross is too conspicuous, and it should be moved inside the church building and
should shrink in size,” said Pastor Sheng of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement
church, which is affiliated with the Chinese state. An official told him the
removal was a “rectification.”
Officials in Yongjia County demanded that
the congregation get rid of the cross, and also the entire top floor of the
church. Reports from Anhui Province indicated that the purge of churches and
crosses was moving forward in other provinces too.
The buildings in Zhejiang Province may be
but the first casualties in an all-out war against churches, and perhaps
ultimately, all religious buildings in China, under the provisions of urban
renewal and economic development campaigns.
Wenzhou’s Christian population, about 15
percent of Wenzhou’s 9 million citizens, has brought it
the nickname “China’s Jerusalem,” a potentially concerning term for the
militantly atheist Communist Party.
The popularity of religious groups has long
been a cause of anxiety to the Party, which launched concerted campaigns
against Buddhism and Taoism in the early years of establishing its rule.
Decades later the popularity of qigong practices, and in particular Falun Gong,
led to another wave of persecution.
Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and
Public Life projects that China will have around 160 million adherents by 2025.
These developments are apparently of great
concern to Party Secretary Xia Baolong, who complained about the infiltration
of “Western hostile forces” (the Christian churches) trying to drive a wedge
between Party cadres, in an
interview with Xinhua, the state mouthpiece, on Feb. 17.
In July last year he addressed the Wenzhou
Municipal Party Committee and warned ominously of underground religious
influence, according
to a Party document.
Hidden in the momentum of modernization,
beautification, and economic development the Chinese Communist Party sees the
opportunity to flatten the churches, cut down the forest of crosses in
Wenzhou’s skyline, and thwart the spread of Christianity in China.
Official Party statements also indicate that
the strategy for the demolition of religious structures is related to attempts
to develop the land they stand on. The plan is discussed by State Bureau of
Religious Affairs Secretary Wang Zuoan, in a
statement broadcast by Phoenix Television at the end of 2013, though
few details are given.
Secretary Wang admonished local officials to
be mindful of the traditions and feelings of the religious peoples as they went
about destroying religious buildings, but did not disguise the intent of the
Party plan, which also provides for tighter regulation of religious bodies and
property as well as an overhaul of the legal status of religious property
holdings.
The provincial attack on churches was
launched soon after Wang advocated religious property confiscation, under the
leadership of Zhejiang Party Secretary Xia Baolong.
The removal of crosses and destruction of
churches are authorized under Zhejiang’s “Three Rectifications and One
Demolition” development campaign, which frequently references structures
designated as “illegal,” a broad and flexible designation used by officials in
China.
The launch of the “Three Rectifications and
One Demolition” programs set into motion provincewide programs. Hanzhou set a
three-year goal of taking down 3 million square meters of illegal buildings,
which would include religious structures. Intensification of propaganda to
guide public opinion about the removal of these illegal buildings, to maintain
“a harmonious atmosphere,” is included
in the plan.
The local government of Jinhua, a city of
Zhejiang, bragged that during one week in March, 549,875.37 square meters of
illegal buildings were
removed, and that they would implement
a “war map” to track progress in the destruction of targeted buildings
and neighborhoods.
But it is documents obtained by ChinaAid
from Ruian City and Shamen Town, in Zhejiang’s coastal Yuhuan County, that most
openly divulge the plans for religious structures.
Internal communications between offices in
Ruian City reference tables of statistics for illegal structures, including
house churches, which are covered under the “Three Rectifications and One
Demolition” campaign. The internal document states, “You should regard the
illegal structures listed as ‘slated for destruction’ under the provincial
system for ethnic and religious affairs. They are key targets in your
investigation and screening.”
No comments:
Post a Comment