RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN CHINA: CASE STUDY OF RURAL JINTANG

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 CHENGDU 000289 SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP/CM, DRL/IRF E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PHUM PGOV ECON SOCI CH SUBJECT: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN CHINA: CASE STUDY OF RURAL JINTANG COUNTY, SICHUAN REF: A) 07 Chengdu 272; B) Chengdu 102; C) Chengdu 270 CHENGDU 00000289 001.2 OF 004 ¶1. (U) This message is contains sensitive but unclassified information. Not for Internet distribution. ¶2. (SBU) Summary. Sichuan's rural Jintang County has a small Protestant community of 1000 persons organized under one "patriotic" church (a legally registered religious venue),with about 30 house churches (illegal, unregistered but affiliated), a recent trip by Consul General indicates. The community has applied to open a second, official church; a lack of funding, not corruption or bureaucratic resistance, appears to be behind any potential rejection. County government's attitudes in Sichuan toward churches vary widely, from outright hostility to welcoming. Maximum memberships of tolerated albeit illegal house churches in Sichuan before local authorities crack down are apparently 30 members in rural areas, and 15 in urban settings. Church members described physical and verbal abuse of Christians during the Cultural Revolution. Like much of rural China itself, the members of this Protestant community were predominantly elderly and poor, with a sprinkling of grandchildren left behind by a middle generation that has left the villages for jobs in cities. End Summary. Introduction: Chengdu Expat Christians Visit Rural Sichuan -------------- -------------- ¶3. (SBU) In the run-up to the December 10-13 visit of DRL/IRF Emilie Kao to Chengdu, Consul General visited December 5 a Han-Chinese, protestant community in Jintang County, located 1.5 hours northeast of Chengdu, as part of a group from the International Christian Fellowship of Chengdu (ICFC). (Note: after several years of unfettered but unofficial operation, ICFC recently came under pressure from the Chengdu government -- exerted through its landlord -- to regularize its situation. Consul General has been working with the Municipal Government to assist ICFC in this regard. End Note.) ¶4. (SBU) Rural Jintang County, in several respects, seems typical of rural Sichuan: in late fall, the landscape was shrouded in a light fog, making the rolling hills of vegetables and mandarin oranges appear like a blurred, impressionist painting. We witnessed a mini-duck processing line, with a husband plucking wing feathers off live ducks, chopping their heads off, the wife next to him boiling the ducks, continuing the plucking process, and then piling up the naked carcasses only two yards from terrified, live ducks. This ICFC group, coming from English-speaking countries as diverse as the United States, India, and South Africa, made its way to a "meeting place" (euphemism for a home church) along winding dirt paths, alternately climbing hills, or along narrow, elevated paths between flat, irrigated fields. Government Reviews Applications for Churches, OKs Ordinations -------------- -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Jintang County's protestant community has 1,000 members, 31-year old church leader Ms. Cao told CG. While there is only one Church building in the county that is registered as a religious venue (zongjiao changsuo),there are about 30 affiliated house churches under it where Christians meet. This community has applied to establish a second "patriotic" church recognized by the government, but this process has been lengthy, Ms. Cao said, and should take "several months - but less than 2-3 years." Cao claimed that (at least in Jintang County) the process was according to the law, and that government officials (of the Religious Affairs Bureau) did not ask for bribes. The officials were, however, insisting that the community have a sufficient capital fund before they could begin operation. (Note: a UK anthropologist in the ICFC group, who teaches at a local university, told CG that Chinese government regulations for establishing churches did, indeed, require a minimum amount of capital. End Note.) CHENGDU 00000289 002.2 OF 004 ¶6. (SBU) The American head of the ICFC delegation, who has spent years in Sichuan supporting house churches, explained to CG that Ms. Cao was the co-leader, along with an elder male pastor, of Jintang's protestant community. Ms. Cao, always cheerful and energetic, told CG that she had not graduated from high school because economic difficulties in her family forced her to quit school in the mid-1990s, leave Jintang, and seek employment in Chengdu for 9-10 months at a stretch. As a child, she explained, her mother had converted to Christianity, something that had enraged her father. Now 31 years old, Cao had begun her own work as a lay leader in the church nine years earlier, and after 2-3 years of theological training under the elder pastor, had been ready to be ordained for quite a while. She explained that the delay in her ordination was because the pastor (and other church elders) was "too busy." This situation had nothing to do with the government, she insisted, which would eventually examine her qualifications to be a pastor in the patriotic church, but was unlikely to question these. ¶7. (SBU) Note: The Three Selfs Patriotic Church has a seminary in Nanjing. The self in the Three Selfs: self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating stress independence from foreign influence. The Three Self Church was founded in 1951; all protestant denominations in China were folded into this non-denomination protestant church in the late 1950s. The Three Selfs Patriotic Association and the Catholic Patriotic Association are the only Christian churches recognized by the PRC government. Reftel A, a report on official religious restrictions and the religious affairs bureau mission and goals in the Yunnan provincial capital of Kunming, applies generally to Sichuan as well since the Sichuan regulations are based on national regulations. Reftel B discusses two Sichuan urban congregations, one catholic and one protestant, in the southern Sichuan city of Xichang, that the consulate visited last June. End Note. Government Attitudes Toward Churches: Varies Greatly By County -------------- -------------- ¶8. (SBU) Government officials in Jintang Country were fairly positive in their attitudes toward her Christian community, Cao said. She explained that, as long as the church groups "did not break the law" and were "consistent with the directions of the government," then there were no problems. In Jintang, she said, government officials perceived that local church groups actually contributed to China's stability (wending) and harmony (hexie). ¶9. (SBU) Cao added, however, that in other counties in Sichuan, treatment of Christian groups varied widely. The American delegation head agreed that this was the case, citing two examples. In Nanjiang County, a seven-hour drive northeast of Chengdu, government officials were strongly anti-Christian; for this reason, ICFC had targeted the county for donations of school book bags in order to win favor with local officials. By contrast, in Yilang Country, a four-hour drive northeast of Chengdu, local officials were even more positive about Christian groups than in Jintang. This was because of the leadership of the church there, a kind-hearted local man with a reputation for helping strangers, had dedicated his life to doing good works in the county. So strong had his "relationships" (guanxi) become over the years, and those of his son who is also now a pastor, that country officials actually gave the church for free a large parcel to rebuild on after its sanctuary partly collapsed during the May 2008 earthquake. [Note: Underground churches are illegal everywhere, but tolerated within limits in many places, quite similar to the situation of Chinese NGOs, which do not have a solid legal basis, but are tolerated to varying degrees by local officials. This situation maximizes official power since they can arbitrarily enforce the law whenever they wish, producing the very large variations in religious freedom from place to place. End Note.] 30 House Churches Under One Patriotic Church, But Limits to Membership -------------- - CHENGDU 00000289 003.2 OF 004 ¶10. (SBU) At least in the rural setting of Jintang, there appears to be little difference between the day-to-day operations of its single (legal) "patriotic" church, a registered religious activities site, and the 30 illegal unregistered "meeting places" that are de facto satellite house churches under it. Cao explained that Jintang authorities do not bother members of their "meeting places" as long as their memberships do not exceed 30 persons. This 30-person figure appears to be a province-wide threshold above which authorities are under pressure from the central government to crack down on unofficial house churches. When CG stated that he had heard that in Chengdu the municipal government had limited membership in house churches to 15 (not 30) members, Cao agreed that the government probably had two limits in size of house churches: 15 members in urban areas, and 30 in rural areas. End Comment.) The Cultural Revolution: Christians Suffer for Their Faith -------------- -------------- ¶11. (SBU) The American delegation leader told CG that, among the 20-30 pastors and 20 lay leaders that she knew in various churches in Sichuan, about half came from families where one or more parents had also been Christian. These multi-generational Christian families had suffered greatly during the Cultural Revolution she said. One Sichuan Christian spoke to this American of how both of her mother's arms had been broken because of her faith. One Pastor had told her how Communist (perhaps Red Guard) leaders had beaten his father severely and screamed that he risked severe consequences if he "spoke of Christianity outside of his house." ¶12. (SBU) At one of the "meeting points" an elderly gentleman in his 70s or 80s spoke of his conversion to Christianity about 25 years ago after having been visited by Christians from Shanxi Province. He told the ICFC delegation that he knew of a case during the Cultural Revolution where a Christian woman's hands had been nailed to a stool as punishment. (Note: This man's adoption of Christianity would been in the mid-1980s, well after the Cultural Revolution had ended, and just after China inserted freedom of religion in its 1982 Constitution. See also reftel C for former President Carter's comments on religious freedom in China, made during his recent, October 19 visit to Chengdu. End Note.) Christian Community Typical of Rural China: Elderly and Poor -------------- -------------- ¶13. (SBU) While we have heard that many members of house churches in urban China are young, economically better off, and well educated, Church members that we met in Jintang County were elderly, poverty stricken, and poorly educated. The meeting point that the ICFC delegation met it was in a small home surrounded by agricultural fields. It was drafty, had no heat, was barely wired for electricity, and had only a latrine. The walls appeared not even to be made from brick, but instead of a mud composite crooked with age. The "church" had a strange mixture of unframed posters, faded and warped. In the front "altar" there were two images of Jesus, one above a peace dove and the world, another above the Chinese character for "wealth" (fu). One the side wall were two more Christ images, accompanied by another poster of Mao talking before a crowd, and two posters of what appeared to be 10 People's Liberation Army (PLA) generals riding side-by-side on horseback. ¶14. (SBU) The ICFC delegation then separated and visited four different families. The woman that we met was probably aged beyond her years, with tanned, weathered skin that made her look in her 60s. Her life was one of the grinding poverty -- the "forgotten China," still poor, rural, and backward that Chinese leaders like to remind the world of when fending off trade and climate change negotiators, and appealing for aid. When we were departing, a large crowd gathered to send off the delegation, one that might have been representative of tens of thousands of CHENGDU 00000289 004.2 OF 004 Chinese villages. Virtually all were elderly, taking care of a few grandchildren. The middle generation had virtually abandoned the village to seek jobs in Sichuan and coastal cities. The only exception that day was a teenage girl, a second-year high school student that CG had met, still clutching her bible from a publishing house run by China's patriotic churches, as well as two hymnals. BROWN