China's Christian Problem - and its Opportunity
China's Christians are persecuted now, but they could be very useful in the future
Over the last few years, international attention has rightly turned to the plight of the Muslim Uighur minority of the far western Chinese province of Xinjiang. Amidst evidence of mass incarceration, and cultural limitations like the banning of long beards and veils, one of the most keenly sensed losses has been the crackdown on their religion. Thousands of mosques have been damaged or destroyed in the largest assault of places of worship since the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, and in September it was reported that Uighurs under the age of 65 have been banned from conducting their daily prayers.
Yet it is not just Muslims who are being persecuted in China. Christianity is also under immense strain in the People’s Republic.
Christianity has a long history in the Middle Kingdom. According to an inscription, Christianity reached the country in AD 635 when a Nestorian monk named Aluoben, probably Persian in origin, reached the city of Xi’an. It appears that Christianity then flourished in a number of cities across the Empire until the 840s. Bent on ridding China of foreign influences, the Tang dynasty Emperor Wuzong launched an attack on all foreign religions, particularly Buddhism; Christianity was caught up in the national purges and it faded away.
There was a brief revival in the thirteenth century when the Mongols captured and ruled China, stemming in part from the Mongol Emperor’s desire to form an alliance with Rome. As the Mongol’s power faded, so did Christianity – again – and it wasn’t until Western missionaries, both Protestant and Catholic, started to arrive in the mid-nineteenth century that Christianity properly started to take root.
Despite decades of atheistic Communist rule Christianity is now flourishing in China. The Beijing government estimates that there are 44 million Christians there, mainly Protestant but with approximately 10-12 million Catholics too. In fact, the actual overall number is probably much higher because of the many underground churches that have sprung up in recent years.
In an avowedly atheistic country, Christianity is not warmly welcomed. During just one anti-Christian purge, in one province, Zhejiang, in 2014, 1500 crosses were removed from places of worship, Bibles were confiscated, and pastors imprisoned. Elsewhere churches have been bulldozed and worship actively disrupted.
The reason for the clampdown on Christianity and other faiths is no doubt to stop alternative powerbases to the Communist Party being built up, rather than a hatred of religion per se. After all, there are suspicions that President Xi is supportive of Buddhism, if not an actual Buddhist himself. He has overseen the rebuilding of an important Buddhist temple, and it’s even reported that Xi is now considered to be a living Buddhist deity in the eyes of some (very loyal) Tibetans.
Despite the suppression of certain religious organisations, Xi is not intent on going down the same road as Mao and outlawing all religions. One thought is that Xi is using belief in the same way as Putin has done so in Russia: to shore up his rule. “The government has orchestrated a campaign to ‘sinicise’ Christianity, to turn Christianity into a fully domesticated religion that would do the bidding of the party,” said Lian Xi, a professor at Duke University in North Carolina. To emphasise the point, the official head of China’s Protestant churches says religions in the country must be purged of ‘Western influences’.
Assuming for a moment that this works, and the country’s Christian congregation is free to grow, is it possible that at some point the example of Emperor Constantine is followed and Christianity declared the state religion? Probably not, with the native Taoism and the long-popular Buddhism waiting in the wings. But co-opting Christianity into the national rejuvenation strategy will at least put a leash on the fastest expanding religion in the country.
Another future consequence of Christianity’s growth there is that China will overtake America as the world’s most populous Christian nation. How that will play out geopolitically, particularly in the strongly Christian continents of Latin America and Africa where both sides are pushing for influence, will be interesting to watch.
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See you all on Tuesday for my next letter, the second part of the risk of American financial war against China. Happy Christmas to all.