countries were allowed to attend our church. I replied that the U.S. is a country with religious freedom, so, yes, they were. Nevertheless, however strange her question might seem, I can understand why she had asked it. During the seven years we lived in Beijing, China (which ended just about two months
ago), we attended a so-called international church sanctioned by the Chinese government. As one of the conditions for the church being allowed to operate on
Chinese soil, the church was required to ensure that no Chinese citizens attended the church’s services. This was done by asking for proof of non-Chinese
citizenship (usually a passport) as people were entering the sanctuary (veteran
journalist David Aikman in his excellent book about Christianity in China, Jesus in Beijng, talks about this).
Having observed such a policy in action in China, our daughter, perhaps not
surprisingly, wondered if the same conditions applied in the U.S.
This episode really helps illustrate a point that sometimes needs to be reiterated about China. We hear much about how much China has changed in recent years, how it is becoming more like the rest of the world. And there is certainly some truth to such assertions. At a certain superficial level this is clearly true—Chinese cities more and more resemble cities in the West, with McDonald’s restaurants and flashy shopping malls seemingly everywhere. Moreover, there have been some changes that are more than superficial. Chinese people on
the whole now have more personal space to live their own lives than in the past. Nevertheless, what has not really changed is the Chinese government’s readiness to restrict basic human rights in order to maintain its control. One of these rights is freedom of religion.
To be fair, religious believers in China enjoy much more freedom to practice their faith than was the case a few decades ago. On the whole, since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, governmental restrictions on religion have eased. However, restrictions on the activities of believers persist, and the government continues to arrogate to itself the right to decide what sort of religious activities are legal and which are not. Hence, it cannot be said that China has full and unfettered religious freedom.
One of the Chinese government’s greatest fears seems to be that Chinese believers might somehow come under the influence of foreigners. The Communists appear never to have totally thrown off the suspicion that there is some insidious foreign plot to overthrow the Chinese government and religious believers seem likely agents to further such a plot (think of Chinese Catholics and their presumed allegiance to the Pope—a foreigner). Hence, foreign religious believers cannot be allowed to have any potential control over their Chinese co-religionists. Most likely it is this sort of thinking that leads to the requirement for passport checks at the international church in Beijing. However, such a policy leads to an irony--it would seem to me.
There is a much-told story in China about a sign which used to be posted at the entrance of a park in Shanghai, which was for the first half of the 20th century dominated by foreigners. The sign read (at least in the version of the story one usually hears in China): “No dogs or Chinese allowed”(my understanding is that the list of prohibitions on the sign was actually lengthier than this and that the prohibitions on dogs and Chinese did not appear together—regardless, the prohibition was, understandably, deeply insulting to the Chinese). This sign is often cited in China as evidence of how foreigners lorded it over the Chinese in their own country during the period of national humiliation that began in the second half of the 19th century and continued through the first half of the 20th century. In the Chinese government’s version of modern Chinese history, it wasn’t until the success of the Communist revolution in 1949 that the Chinese people were able to take back their country from foreigners (Mao famously announced, “The Chinese people have stood up!”). The irony (to me, at least) is that the Chinese Communists complain about foreigners in the past preventing Chinese people in their own country from having contact with foreigners, but now it is the Chinese government, by pursuing what is in effect a policy of religious apartheid, that is preventing Chinese citizens from interacting with
foreigners.
I wonder if Chinese officials ever think about the hypocrisy involved in this policy. If so, they seem to be less worried about the negative image it creates for China than about possibly losing their control over the activities of Chinese citizens. However, this worry just serves to illustrate how insecure the Communists remain after decades in power. It seems to me that a genuinely self-confident government would be more willing to trust its own people. I hope and pray that someday that will be the case in China.
Image: Xishiku Church in Beijing, from commons.wikimedia.org