State of Christian Persecution in China

On Aug. 8, I watched the Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies in Atlanta with about 100 Chinese people. They cheered with each spectacular act of choreography and acrobatics. They were dazzled by the thousands of colorful, luminous costumes. They sat stunned by each passing vocal or dance performance. At commercial breaks, they scrambled to answer Olympic trivia questions. As an outsider, I saw a moment of pride unfolding.

And so it should. China has come a long way since most of them have been alive. Many in that room lived through the Cultural Revolution, when young people ruled the nation and sometimes imposed a state of near anarchy in their zealous pursuit of Chairman Mao's ideal of revolution. During that time, all things foreign, intellectual and religious were considered regressive and "counter-revolutionary" and targeted for humiliation and destruction.

Contrast that climate with China's current hospitable stance toward foreign investment, global brands and even iconic American athletes like Kobe Bryant, and it's easy to see the substantial progress over the past three decades since reform and opening helped China begin to shake off its dour international face and march towards political integration.

But just like in the U.S. and every other country, progress simply means strides toward an ideal, not its achievement. China still has ample room for improvement on that eternally wide continuum between totalitarian regime and full-on democracy.

For one, the Chinese economy's dizzying growth has produced a cavernous wealth gap. Many companies are targeting China's emerging middle class, but it should also be said noted that classes of super rich and super poor are being created along with this new consumer market. Peasant farmers still make up the majority of China's population, though many believe that a massive urban migration will occur over the next 20 years, at which point three-fifths of the country's 1.3 billion people are projected to live in cities. That huge movement of humanity will create a whole new set of problems.

During the Olympic run-up, human rights have been the buzz word. Even as the festive echo of fireworks hangs in the Beijing air, many residents have been forced from their homes and businesses. Dissidents have been jailed or cordoned off while the foreign press is present. Farther off, in areas like Xinjiang, Tibet and Sichuan provinces, periodic unrest has forced the government into defense mode, meaning more crackdowns on groups that don't exactly share the Party's point of view.

This has far-reaching implications for leaders of Christian house church networks and foreign missionaries, who often operate outside the realm of legality for the sake of theological and organizational independence. A missionary friend told me that the well-meaning efforts of many believers looking to "win China" during the Olympics were making it difficult for the folks on the ground there, who have to deal with government monitoring and interrogation in a very real way.

So how bad is Christian persecution in China? I often wonder how to answer that question. I've read and heard firsthand horror stories, but its easy to extrapolate incorrectly when working from emotional anecdotes. A few ministries have made it their mission to compile these stories into a systematic and ongoing study of the fate of believers in China.

The China Aid Association is led by former house church pastor and Tiananmen democracy activist Bob Fu. The association tracks stories of persecutio, using the power of public opinion by reporting their untold stories. Recently, the association partnered with Voice of the Martyrs, a group that ministers to the persecuted church worldwide. Fu joined Todd Nettleton, VoM's director of media development, for a conference call moderated by "Charisma" magazine.

A few highlights:

-The Olympics are being used as a massive PR tool by China. "This is our party, our face to the world. Don't do anything to cause a bad impression." That was Fu's summary of the Chinese government's justification for jailing pastors and kicking many out of their homes in Beijing.

-Bush urged to attend house church. Instead, for the second time, the president decided to go to a registered Three-Self church and advocate for religious freedom from the front steps. Bob Fu says it wasn't enough: "By choosing to worship in government-sanctioned church again, it will further validate the government's stance," he said, adding that 80 percent of Chinese believers worship in unregistered house churches.

This point of view ignores many of the diplomatic and cultural issues Bush would face in going to a house church. Fu has the luxury of ignoring such considerations. Bush doesn't.

-Amity Press in China recently celebrated publishing its 50 millionth Bible. Many believe this is a sign of openness. Nettleton points out that most of these are exported, and even if they were all Chinese, they'd only be half of what's needed for all the Christians there.

-House churches that have relations with foreigners and sophisticated networks may be targeted more heavily by the government. The highest ideal in Chinese politics is stability, which the government perveives is threatened by belief.

-China Aid found instances of persecution in half of China's 22 provinces in 2007. Labor camps are still prevalent as a tool of the government to "re-educate" offenders.

-Nettleton rejects the idea that we can't use capitalism as a tool to convert them to our ways. "I think that's a myth, that we're gonna trade them into democracy, trade them into relgious freedom," he said. Personally, I think it's a way to work from the inside.

-With local officials running their own fiefdoms, there's no end in sight for rural and urban persecution, but government policies have gotten more receptive to a general idea of religion.

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW AT THE CHARISMA WEBSITE

Photo: Our bags confiscated at a border stop. Notice the green hats of the border patrol agents. Copyright Trevor Williams, 2008.

Firsthand View: China's Olympic Grand Opening

This is a guest post by Evan Sussenbach, my best friend and a fellow Chinaphile. We've been to the Middle Country four times together, and we've each gone separately once this year. Evan recently returned from a two-week trip to whitewashed, Olympic-crazed Beijing. Though not inside the National Stadium to witness the flashy opening ceremonies, Evan roamed the streets of the exuberant capital city as it ushered in the Games. Here, Evan lends four years worth of perspective to his description of China's "grand opening" to the world.

In my time I have been to some pretty spectacular openings. A few years back, some friends and the male members of my family sat outside Office Max in frigid, sleeting temperatures for the birth of XBox360 into the video game world. I have been to (though I haven't actually stayed all night) a Chick-fil-A grand opening, where karaoke and overly safe and fun disc jockeys dominate the night. And I have now been on the first fast train from Beijing to Tianjin, a commute advertised as lasting 38 minutes, although in reality it took only 25. We timed it.

But by the time I finish this paragraph, the literature will have been updated
and republished to correct this numerical error, and by the time I finish this
letter, there will probably be a faster fast train that will have opened from
Beiijing to the airport, that will get passengers there approximately minus-three
minutes after they have left the station.

That is because I think I am witnessing the largest grand opening in the
history of the world, the opening of Beijing and China - the forbidden "Middle
Country" - to the West. I was handed a map at the airport the other day by
seven friendly, Olympic t-shirt-clad teenagers with Olympic venues, road
names and famous sites. It is already obsolete. My 2003 China guidebook by
Lonely Planet might as well have been published in the 19th century for all the new
changes in prices, how to get places and relevant information.

When I was going to pick up tickets for the fast train to Tianjin, I got lost on
two separate cab rides because neither taxi driver knew where the new train
station was. Buildings are going up around Tiananmen Square at such a fast
rate that every time I go there, crowds gather to see a new hutong-style
shopping mall or Olympic garden piece and anticipate what will be behind the
next set of concealing poster board and barbed wire.

The Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven have been completely repainted.
Every historic site has the Olympic motto - "One World, One Dream" - plastered
next to the entrance and the Beijing running man emblem at each historic
marker.

Perhaps the funniest new thing is the rise of the Fu Wa. Imagine Beanie
Babies gone universal or Izzy (the Atlanta 1996 Olympic mascot) multiplied five times, and you have an idea of the Fu Wa--five very cute, very overhyped creatures (that all look like pandas to me) that have taken Beijing by storm. They are in cartoons, storefronts, Olympic ads, and at the sites, holding lacrosse sticks and riding equestrian horses. They are actually supposed to be representative of four noble animals - the fish, the swallow, the Chinese antelope, and the panda - with the fifth one being symbolic of the torch itself. Their names are Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini. When just the first syllable of each name is taken, it says "Beijing Huanying Ni," or Beijing Welcomes You.

Beijing is certainly doing a good job welcoming me. On publicly run
commercials, government officials are telling the Chinese how to be nice to
foreigners. Taxi drivers are being made to wear white collared shirts and ties.
People are advised not to roll up their wife beaters, keeping their tanned bellies
within their shirts. As I was in a cab to the Tianjin train station, I was given an
English lesson over the cab's radio. "How are you?' "Today is a nice day"
"Welcome to Tianjin."

I am in Beijing for one more day before I go back to Tianjin for the US-Japan
men's soccer game. I have never felt more like an American outsider in a foreign
country as I am here. "Jiayou Meiguo" (Let's go America) said my Chinese friend
Leah today, who went on to explain that she will root for any country
against Japan.

I, like you, will probably be watching the Opening Games on TV, and that will
probably be the official grand opening of China to the world. But this week
leading up to the games has been a delight to experience a world so different
from America getting a face-lift, manners instruction, and a world-class
transportation system to show off "the Jing" to the world.

Note on times: This is adapted from an e-mail written a few days before the opening ceremonies.

Balancing with the Book

Beijing-branded Bibles distributed in China will highlight the government's volatile stance on civil liberties.

China's human rights critics have had ample fodder for attacks in the run-up to the Olympics in Beijing. Concerns over the handling of riots in Tibet, arms deals with a genocidal regime in Sudan and arrests of key religious leaders in unregistered churches and groups all seem to indicate that China has not lived up to the human rights promises it made when awarded the bid to host the Games.

China's defenders, however, have a picture of their own to paint. The government's swift and effective response in aiding grieving citizens the aftermath of the devastating Sichuan earthquake, its designated areas for approved protests during the Games and handling of supposed terrorist threats in remote areas have all been lauded as signs that the country is moving in the right direction. All this, and the fact that China’s economic situation and the daily degree of personal freedoms have improved dramatically since the country opened its borders three decades ago.

The challenge for those examining these conflicting portrayals of the world's most populous country is to figure out whether one is a mirage distorting reality, or whether both have semblances of truth that fuse to form an entirely new image.

In light of a few recent developments and conversations, I can only support the latter idea. With a land as huge, dynamic and varied as China, nothing is set in stone, and the only thing it's safe to be dogmatic about is that dogma here is the height of arrogance and a sure precursor to a lesson in intellectual humility.

The question of the dissemination of the Bible and the treatment of underground Church leaders in China highlights this unpredictable environment. Last year, the Catholic News Agency reported that Bibles were on the government's list of banned items for Olympic athletes. That article, which was actually false, ignited a firestorm of criticism from Christian groups. Authorities quickly denounced the rumor, saying that athletes were allowed one Bible in the language of their country.

Now, in an apparent effort to allay concerns that China is not friendly toward religion, the government has made an extra step that at least looks like freedom. A recent China Daily article announced that thousands of Christian texts will be distributed freely to athletes and visitors to the Olympic Village. Some 10,000 bilingual Bibles, 30,000 New Testaments and 50,000 books featuring the four Gospels have been ordered, as if to scoff at those who warned of China’s intolerance.

This sounds encouraging, but as I kept surfing the Net, I came across an article that noted the crackdown on unregistered house church pastors and foreign missionaries over the past year. According to the article, which cited experts on the subject, the Chinese government expelled more foreign missionaries in 2007 than in the entire 59 prior years of communist rule combined. Voice of the Martyrs, an organization that tracks persecution of Christians around the world, is asking supporters to buy bracelets that remind them to pray for the mistreated Christians of China during the Games.

Only a nation as complex as China would leave us to reconcile the conundrum of a government that simultaneously persecutes a faith and disseminates its texts. The danger from a Western perspective is to chalk the Bible plan up to a ploy and completely ignore its potential for helping to spread the Gospel. And the government would be well-advised to realize that Christians can’t be duped into thinking that printing the Word erases trespasses against it. As a Chinese friend from Shanghai told me tonight, “In China, there are many sides, and you have to look at them all.”

Photo: Mao keeps watch over tourists at Tiananmen. Copyright Trevor Williams, 2006

Tibet, Chinese Law and My Blog

The Internet is a place where ideas float around like dust particles: hanging in the air, waiting to be inhaled and breathed out somewhere else.

I sometimes track which pages on the Internet are exhaling my content to their audiences. Recently, I noticed that a China Law Blog made reference by link to a book review I wrote on Peter Hessler's River Town, a fascinating journey about Mr. Hessler's two years teaching English in a small city called Fuling on the Yangtze River, near the sprawling metropolis of Chongqing (home to 31 million people).

Interestingly, this site was referencing Mr. Hessler for what he wrote about Tibet nearly a decade ago, using one of his articles to give insight into how the Chinese view the Tibet situation. I thought this article and the link to my blog were particularly timely, considering the nasty circumstances on the ground in Tibet and the fact that I, pondering the importance of investigating China from a variety of perspectives, recently finished reading a book from more than 10 years ago and was preparing to write a review about it.

The China Law Blog refers to the importance of reading about the groundswells of a situation and researching what was written on a subject long before it occurs. Nicholas Kristof and his wife, Sheryl Wudunn, heard the rumblings of the continued Tibet conflict (and others) in China Wakes, last published in 1995. The husband-and-wife team of New York Times reporters is particularly qualified to make prognostications about the state of repression in China, as their reporting of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 landed them a Pulitzer Prize.

For insightful reporting from around the world, check out Kristof's blog: On the Ground. Just reading his bio will get your blood pumping (especially if you're an aspiring journalist with an international bent).

The Word on the Chinese Bible

According to a recent article on Time.com, a publishing company specializing in printing Chinese Bibles has produced 41 million copies in the last 20 years, and the total is growing every year as the number of Christians grows in China.

Amity Printing, which prints at a factory outside of the old Chinese Nationalist Party capital of Nanjing, is set to produce 3 million Bibles in the coming year, and the company is planning to expand into a 515,000-square-foot facility, according to the report.

Austin Ramzy, the author of the article and a contributor to Time's China Blog, which I follow, asks a variety of experts to estimate the number of Christians in China, a task that's next to impossible given the government restrictions on churches.

One thing they did all agree on is that the numbers, however difficult to calculate accurately, are getting larger.

An interesting nugget that Ramzy doesn't mention is which translation of the Bible Amity is producing. The standard, government-approved version is called the Chinese Union Version, a rigid, high-brow translation published in 1909, which some say even most university students have a hard time understanding. Since Ramzy mentions that Amity's operations are entirely legal, meaning that they're distributed through government-sanctioned three-self churches, I have to assume that the Union Version (known as the he he ben) is what's being churned out.

Although there are other translations in the works that I've never heard about, I've come in contact with the New Chinese Version, the xin yi ben, on trips to China. I don't think it's quite as colloquial as "The Message," but university students have responded to much better to it than the CUV in my experience. Click here for a more extensive description of Chinese Bible translations.

As with everything else in China, a strange paradox is that the Chinese factory can produce and export Bibles (Amity has the sole license, according to some reports), but people can't bring more than just their own into the country. Word on the street is that a new rule is in place to combat Bible trafficking leading up to the Olympics. Tourists coming into China can only carry one Bible for personal use, not backpacks-full for "distribution or propaganda."

On the official site of the Olympics, the travel page "recommends" that foreigners bring no more than one Bible into the country, and officials galore have made comments expressing the idea that they won't be suppressing any foreigners' religious freedom during the games.

On the other side, Christian soldiers from all over the world are gearing up for what they see as a 16-day evangelical siege on the Chinese capital. Web sites touting plans to reach China during the Games are making missionaries all over the Middle Country cringe. If they struggle to reach their communities while living there, what good will haphazard Americans do on a two-week tract-bombing mission? Newcomers shouldn't think that the Chinese government won't be prepared. They read the Internet (Hello, Big Brother!) and they won't be playing nice. But then again, your biggest risk is probably a light beating or deportation, and if you're looking to make a splash, that's one way to do it.

In all this chaos, one thing is for sure: Next year, people will actually watch the Olympics for once. Let the games begin.