Religious Freedom in China — what a Surprise

Yesterday, I wrote about China’s Constitution and the right to protest which we now know is very alive and well. Today, I’m going to look at another aspect of the Chinese Constitution. Religion and what’s banned, and morfe importantly, what’s not.

My wife is very interested in Buddhism, I wouldn’t quite describe her as a Buddhist but certainly an active and interested participant. And, last week I was invited, not for the first time, to attend a training session, which I did. I had only one real question when I sat down with the teacher at the end of the session:

If this is allowed, why are organsiations like Falun Gong banned in China.

He told me: some people deliberately disrupt the country’s order; they harm their followers or they do it for money. If any of those factors exist, then the country would ban any religion. Falun Gong’s leader is a multi-millionaire, he encourages his followers to abstain from any pleasures, including sex, even for married followers. He teaches that medicine is poison and only byfollowing his way can help cure an illness, so many people have either died for lack of treatment, or committed suicide which seems to be another thing he does encourage. Given what I do know about Falun Gong, it fits all the criteria of a cult and should or probably would be banned anywhere.

If you want to know how insidious Falun Gong is, Watch Australia’s ABC’s expose of them or read a report linked to it from a former practitioner, Ben Hurley or read his blog and then read what the Chinese official line is, I’ve provided a link to the Chinese Embassy’s response to Q and A in Latvia a country where Falun Gong was taking a hold.

Cults can be very dangerous, do some research into the Tokyo Sarin Gas incident, the Jonestown massacre or the Waco, Texas Siege in the USA, links are provided, and, if you know anything about the Taiping Rebellion where a disgruntled official claimed to be the brother of Jesus Christ or the Boxer Rebellion where they called themselves the “righteous and harmonious fists” here in China, you’ll see why so much care and attention is paid by China’s government into the formation of, and prevention of cults.

Once again, when we look at China with a different lens, we find something is completely the opposite of what we believed. Within 10 minutes- walk of my apartment here there are 3 churches. Two years ago, before I was doing Jerry’s take on China, I made a short video showing these and dozens of other churches and mosques in China. Once you know this, it’s hard to believe that religion is banned here, but it’s even harder to understand why do so many people believe it is!

Article 36 of the Chinese Constitution is very clear, believe, or don’t believe, it’s up to the individual. However, it does add a couple of caveats. You can’t engage in religion that affects public order; in other words, no extremism leading to terrorism. If your religion impairs the health of any citizens that’s a no, no; so, there’s no blind faith in the ability of a religion to heal you without medical intervention; and finally, no interference with the educational system of the State, so, there are no ecumenical schools everyone learns the same thing when they go to school and has an equal chance at the same exams. None of those seem unreasonable.

But there’s one spot where people might take offense, especially if they have strong Catholic upbringing, The Vatican, a city state which is led by the Pope in Rome, has no sway over the direction of religion in China, if you want to be a Catholic in China you can, if you want to follow the Pope’s guidelines you can but the country will make no laws to accommodate you: is there anything unreasonable about that?

I grew up a Catholic and can remember when we were young, my mother scampering around to find change to put into the weekly collection plate on Sunday, it was worse at holiday periods like Easter and Christmas because as well as finding money for the gifts or eggs for her 5 sons and numerous nieces and nephews, my mother also needed to find additional money to put into the collection plates for what was, at the time, the richest organisation in the world, the Catholic church.

It’s no longer the richest organisation in the world but that’s not because the church has given its wealth to help poverty in places such as South America or Africa; it’s because companies Amazon, Tesla, Apple and other organisations have overtaken its estimated 20–30-billion-dollar fortune.

No, the truth is, and I say this as a person who is disillusioned with religion globally, China is a place where, if you want to celebrate your god, your philosophy or your way of life, then the country will not only allow you, they’ve written a law to support you and to prevent anyone else from stopping you.

And if your detractor or debater wants to tell you that’s all ok except for Xinjiang, it’s not.

Xinjiang has more mosques than the Middle East, it has more per believer than any other country in the world, in fact, there are over 24,000 there. There are even more in Gansu, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. There’s also a huge mosque in Xi’an, several in Beijing, and even the oldest Mosque, I think, in Asia is in Guangzhou.

When the detractors say, as they will: “that’s not true, they’ve torn down more than 16,000” Which appears to be the number floating around the internet, you can ask for evidence but it won’t be forthcoming, what will be forthcoming will be headlines from media which quote, ASPI. The organisation that employs a twenty something year old “expert”, who’s never entered China in his life to assess from satellite images what’s going on in a region I’ve travelled through and seen with my own eyes several times.

ASPI reported that as many as 16,000 have been destroyed or damaged, although the extent of the damage isn’t known, it might be that they took off a wobbly minaret and, for some reason, ASPI seem to think of that as cultural erasure!

There is no religious oppression, it isn’t true, ASPI’s own report estimated that there were fewer than 15,500 mosques still operating. The rest have been “destroyed or damaged”, what is true is that many have been renovated and reopened but let’s, for a moment, give ASPI the concession we know they don’t deserve, there are still in their words 15,500 mosques that’s still 12,700 more than the USA has.

I can promise you, religion, if you adhere to one, is alive and well, my friend in Shenyang, Mario Cavolo is a Catholic and attends church regularly, I also have a few friends here in Zhongshan who do they are mostly Chinese and, as I said in the introduction, even my wife is inclined towards Buddhism. So, religion is alive

I’m not sure what else I can say except that, if you’re interested in visiting China and have a religious belief, please, now that the country is opening for visitors and travelling around is a lot less problematic than it was, visit and see for yourself. Once you do, you’ll know and can return and tell your own congregation that they’ve been misled and lied to.