Examine government policies, laws, and political developments affecting religion and society in China, with attention to religious freedom and church-state relations.
The rigid control structures comprising the "box" within which China's church currently operates are often assumed to be merely a function of China's Leninist political system. Were this system to be dismantled, one might argue, the "box" would come apart and China's Christians would enjoy genuine freedom of religion.
China's current policy on religion is spelled out in Central Party Document no. 19, "The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on the Religious Question during Our Country's Socialist Period," issued in March of 1982.
If you work for a foreign NGO in China and have had the feeling that it has been under a bit more scrutiny lately, it seems that you are not imagining things.
As far as I know China's NGO sector doesn't have a theme song, but if it did it would likely be the U2 hit single "With or Without You."
I am not a regular reader of Daedalus (although I probably should be), but a few weeks back I downloaded the Spring 2014 edition of the journal Daedalus onto my kindle because the cover caught my eye: "Growing Pains in a Rising China."
Is there religious freedom in China? The answer, of course, depends on the meaning of the term "religious freedom"
In today's blog, Dr. Timothy Conkling discusses the influence of PRC religious policy on the church in China.
It is common journalistic shorthand to attribute any policies, economic action, or military behavior that appears to emanate from Chinese officialdom to "China."
One of the questions frequently asked about China concerns the degree to which Christians in China face persecution, the default assumption being that China has a specific policy of repressing Christianity.
Mention the church in China and the conversation invariably turns toward China's religious policy, the underlying assumption being that the Chinese government is bent on suppressing Christianity. In the most recent issue of ChinaSource Quarterly we take a closer look at this question. As with most things in China, both the stated policy and the observable reality belie a complexity that makes it extremely difficult to generalize about the relationship between church and state in China.
Becoming familiar with China’s regulations on religious affairs can provide an official reference point for informed discussion on this issue.
Huang Jianbo looks at China's basic understanding of religion which affects the formulation and execution of its religious policies. To date, the state has believed that religion is a problem although it has never explicitly stated what kind of problem. The author identifies three possible ways in which the government might perceive religion to be a problem. He then offers three suggestions for altering the thinking and implementing of policies. He concludes by affirming religious policies in China have improved greatly over the past thirty years.