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中國正在扭轉對某些宗教的打壓，但並非全部
https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/china-reversing-its-crackdown-some-religions-not-all
專家簡報，伊恩·約翰遜 2024 年 5 月 14 日上午 11:02（美國東部標準時間）
中國對宗教自由的打壓，尤其是對穆斯林和基督徒的打壓，都是有據可查的，這隻是北京宗教政策的一部分。另一方麵，國家支持“本土宗教”，試圖在共產主義意識形態信仰下降的情況下推廣傳統社會價值觀。
人們在中國武漢的佛教歸元寺燒香。
人們在中國武漢的佛教歸元寺燒香。Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images
中國經常位列宗教自由表現最差的國家之列。考慮到對穆斯林維吾爾族的打壓和對基督教教堂的摧毀，這是有道理的。這些是美國國務院、美國國際宗教自由委員會以及國際人權監督組織關於中國的報告中的常見內容。
但中國政府對待有組織的宗教也有不利的一麵：過去幾年，一些宗教開始得到政府的支持。這適用於中國最大的宗教——佛教，以及中國唯一的本土宗教——道教。政府還支持曾經被視為迷信的民間宗教活動，為朝聖和寺廟提供補貼。
推動這些看似矛盾的衝動的是執政的共產黨對新合法性來源的需求。隨著經濟增長放緩，長期以來以繁榮換取政治默許的社會契約變得難以維持。這導致仍然提倡無神論的中國共產黨公開支持傳統信仰。
中國對“外國”的擔憂
國家明確指出，某些宗教優於其他宗教。有兩個宗教尤其成問題：伊斯蘭教在中國大約有 1700 萬信徒，基督教則根據不同的衡量標準估計有 5000 萬到 6000 萬信徒。國家基本上將他們視為外來宗教，因此不受歡迎。這並不是因為他們在中國存在了很長時間。事實上，自 1601 年耶穌會傳教士抵達北京以來，基督教就一直在中國存在，而伊斯蘭教則是在公元 7 世紀隨波斯商人一起傳入中國的。
相反，中共擔心的是這些宗教的外國關係。穆斯林是伊斯蘭教全球信徒烏瑪（阿拉伯語意為“社區”）的一部分，直到最近，虔誠的年輕中國穆斯林還經常在馬來西亞和印度尼西亞等穆斯林國家學習。此外，伊斯蘭教的五大支柱之一是前往沙特阿拉伯的麥加朝聖。與此同時，基督教徒被認為與海外有著密切的聯係，天主教徒與梵蒂岡有聯係，新教徒與東南亞和西方的海外華人社區有聯係。
相比之下，佛教、道教和民間宗教被視為本土信仰，與海外的聯係較少（主要的例外是藏傳佛教，其精神領袖達賴喇嘛流亡印度）。早在 2014 年，中國國家主席習近平就開始暗示與佛教的本土聯係的重要性。他在巴黎聯合國教科文組織總部發表演講時表示，盡管佛教起源於印度，但幾個世紀以來已經本土化，如今已牢牢紮根於中國文化。習近平還讚揚了基督教和伊斯蘭教對中國的貢獻，但很明顯，他並沒有說它們已經本土化。
這解釋了黨對這些信仰的懷疑態度。中國穆斯林麵臨的問題眾所周知，尤其是新疆地區對維吾爾族穆斯林的強製同化。數十萬維吾爾族人被送往“再培訓營”，官員稱他們的目的是學習就業技能。但監督組織認為，這些營地是背離伊斯蘭教的重新規劃。穆斯林被迫吃豬肉，這是伊斯蘭教禁止的，並放棄一些信仰支柱。在最近一次新疆之行中，《經濟學人》記者戴維·倫尼報道說，一些穆斯林在齋月期間不被允許齋戒，而齋月是伊斯蘭教的義務。
更溫和地對待基督教
黨對基督教的擔憂有所不同。伊斯蘭教是少數民族的信仰，大多被隔離在中國邊境地區（也許有助於解釋這些嚴厲措施），而漢族多數人，尤其是城市白領專業人士，則信奉基督教。從某種程度上來說，基督教對中共的挑戰更大，因為信奉基督教的正是中共實現國家現代化所需要的人。
為了解決這個問題，中共采取了雙重措施：
政策。對於天主教，中共通過外交手段尋求控製，天主教徒數量似乎幾乎沒有增長，隻有一千萬。2018 年，北京和梵蒂岡同意聯合任命中國高級神職人員，北京認為這將減少地下教會的需要。對於可以說是中國最具活力的信仰的新教，中共試圖關閉擁有民間社會結構的大型教會。例如，秋雨聖約教會曾經擁有自己的學校、神學院、書店和慈善組織，但於 2019 年被關閉。它是 2000 年代和 2010 年代初在民間社會繁榮時期成長起來的眾多城市大型教會之一，但後來民間社會被瓦解。
2015 年 7 月 29 日，中國政府工作人員前來拆除教堂十字架，基督教領袖站在教堂上。
浙江省基督教平信徒領袖屠守哲站在中國當局拆除的教堂十字架旁。美聯社
其他教堂也被拆除，通常是字麵意義上的。例如，浙江省東部的教堂曾以鮮紅色的十字架而聞名。在一些城鎮，紅色十字架隨處可見。然而，在過去十年裏，浙江的教堂被拆除，即使信徒仍在聚會，它們在該地區也不再那麽引人注目。總體而言，新教堂的數量停滯不前。新建教堂仍在建設，但通常隻是為了取代城市更新期間被拆毀的教堂。
原住民例外
相比之下，國家對所謂原住民信仰的處理截然不同。總的來說，他們的禮拜場所沒有被拆除或受到限製。統計數據和我的實地觀察表明，佛教和道教的宗教場所和參與人數正在增加。
然而，問題的關鍵在於民間信仰，即中國政府也認可的民間信仰。官方說法稱，民間信仰在中國並不是一種宗教，而是地方和民間神靈的統稱。在二十世紀的大部分時間裏，中國的現代化者——共產黨和他們的前輩——民族主義者——試圖詆毀民間宗教，稱其為“迷信”。中國精英階層大多認為基督教是“真正”宗教的規範，這導致他們拒絕接受傳統上將中國社會凝聚在一起的分散而融合的觀點。據學者稱，二十世紀有多達一百萬座寺廟被毀，尤其是在中共執政的頭三十年。
20 世紀 70 年代末，中共開國領袖毛澤東去世後，傳統宗教生活恢複，但最多隻能得到容忍，反對“封建迷信”的運動又持續了 20 年。然而，到本世紀初，國家開始改變對民間宗教的看法。重建寺廟的當地社區有時會得到當地政府的支持，或者至少讓他們睜一隻眼閉一隻眼。國家認為民間宗教有一些地緣政治利益——例如，中共經常指出對航海神媽祖的崇拜是中國東南部社區與台灣島之間的紐帶，媽祖在台灣也頗受歡迎。
從某種程度上說，中國有多達 220,000 個民間宗教崇拜場所，而佛教和道教寺廟的數量僅為 43,500 個。其中一些民間宗教場所得到了政府的直接支持。北京借用聯合國教科文組織的術語，將許多文化習俗指定為“非物質文化遺產”。指定非物質文化遺產通常需要支付少量補貼，例如對川菜大師、蒙古族呼麥或傳統剪紙大師的補貼。但國家也支持民間宗教活動，隻是將其列為非物質文化遺產。
其中一項活動是每年春天在北京西部的妙峰山舉行的廟會。廟會標誌著 19 世紀大部分時間和 20 世紀上半葉中國最大的朝聖活動之一的結束，當時成千上萬的人每年徒步前往。到 20 世紀 50 年代，廟會被關閉，20 世紀 60 年代，毛澤東主義狂熱分子拆除了寺廟。附近的一個村莊於 1986 年重建了寺廟，作為旅遊項目。村領導隨後聯係了曾經經營所謂“朝聖協會”的北京人，組織遊客參加一年一度的朝聖。許多團體還通過表演踩高蹺、舞蹈和短劇等傳統文化習俗來紀念妙峰山的神靈。第一次恢複朝聖活動於 1992 年舉行。
然而，在過去十年中，國家對朝聖節的支持有所增加。許多朝聖協會現在被指定為非物質文化遺產，整個妙峰山朝聖活動也是如此。這意味著政府將投入資金來翻新
China Is Reversing Its Crackdown on Some Religions, but Not All
https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/china-reversing-its-crackdown-some-religions-not-all
Expert Brief by Ian Johnson May 14, 2024 11:02 am (EST)
Well-documented crackdowns on religious freedom in China, especially against Muslims and Christians, only show part of Beijing’s religious policy. Another side involves state support for “indigenous religions” in an attempt to promote traditional social values amid declining belief in the communist ideology.
People burn incense at the Buddhist Guiyuan Temple in Wuhan, China. Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images
China regularly ranks among the worst-performing countries on freedom of religion. That makes sense, given the crackdown on Muslim Uyghurs and the the destruction of Christian churches. These are the regular features of reports on China by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, as well as international human rights monitoring groups.
But there is a flip side to the Chinese government’s approach to organized religions: over the past few years, some have begun to enjoy government support. This applies to much of China’s biggest religion, Buddhism, and its only indigenous religion, Taoism. The government has also endorsed folk religious practices that it once deemed superstitious, subsidizing pilgrimages and temples.
Driving these seemingly contradictory impulses is the ruling communist party’s need for new sources of legitimacy. With economic growth slowing, the long-standing social contract of prosperity in exchange for political acquiescence is less tenable. That’s caused the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which still promotes atheism, to give overt support to traditional faiths.
China’s Concerns About ‘Foreignness’
The state has clearly identified some religions as preferable to others. Two faiths in particular are problematic: Islam, which has roughly seventeen million believers in China, and Christianity, with an estimated fifty to sixty million, based on different measures. The state essentially views them as foreign and therefore undesirable. This isn’t because of the length of time they have been in China. In fact, Christianity has had a permanent presence in the country since Jesuit missionaries arrived in Beijing in 1601, while Islam arrived in China along with Persian traders in the seventh century.
Instead, the CCP is worried about these faiths’ foreign affiliations. Muslims are part of Islam’s global umma (Arabic for “community”) of believers, and until recently, young, pious Chinese Muslims often studied in Muslim countries, such as Malaysia and Indonesia. In addition, one of the five pillars of Islam is the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Christians, meanwhile, are thought to have strong overseas ties either to the Vatican, for Catholics, or to overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia and the West, for Protestants in particular.
By contrast, Buddhism, Taoism, and folk religions are seen as indigenous faiths with fewer overseas ties (the main exception being Tibetan Buddhism, whose spiritual head, the Dalai Lama, lives in exile in India). Chinese President Xi Jinping began alluding to the importance of local ties to Buddhism as early as 2014. During a speech at the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) headquarters in Paris, he said that even though Buddhism originated in India, it has indigenized over the centuries and now is firmly rooted in Chinese culture. Xi also praised Christianity and Islam for their contributions to China but, tellingly, didn’t say they had indigenized.
This explains the party’s skepticism toward these faiths. The problems facing China’s Muslims are well known, especially the forced assimilation of Muslim Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region. Hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs have been sent to camps for “retraining,” with officials saying they are meant to learn employable skills. But watchdog groups argue that the camps serve as a reprogramming away from Islam. Muslims have been forced to eat pork, which Islam forbids, and give up some of the pillars of the faith. During a recent trip through Xinjiang, Economist correspondent David Rennie reported that some Muslims were not allowed to fast during the holy month of Ramadan, which is obligatory under Islam.
A Softer Approach to Christianity
The party’s concerns about Christianity are different. While Islam is practiced by ethnic minorities and is mostly sequestered in China’s borderlands (perhaps helping to explain the draconian measures), Christianity is practiced among the Han Chinese majority, especially urban, white-collar professionals. In some ways, the CCP faces a greater challenge from Christianity because the religion is practiced among the very people the party needs to modernize the country.
To deal with this problem, the party has adopted a two-fold policy. Toward Catholicism—which seems to be hardly growing, with just ten million adherents—the party has sought control through diplomacy. In 2018, Beijing and the Vatican agreed to jointly appoint senior clergy in China, which Beijing believed would reduce the need for an underground church. For Protestantism, which is arguably China’s most dynamic faith, the party has sought to close down big churches that have civil society structures. For example, the Early Rain Covenant Church, which once had its own school, seminary, book shop, and charitable organizations, was shut down in 2019. It was one of many urban mega-churches that grew up in the 2000s and early 2010s as part of a flowering of civil society that has since been broken up.
Protestant lay leader Tu Shouzhe stands next to a cross severed by Chinese authorities at a church in Zhejiang Province. Associated Press
Other churches have also been cut down to size—often literally. Churches in eastern Zhejiang Province, for example, once were famous for their bright red crosses. In some towns, red crosses were ubiquitous. Over the past decade, however, Zhejiang’s churches have been decapitated so that they no longer have such a prominent presence in the region’s landscape, even if the congregations still meet. In general, the number of new churches has stagnated. New construction takes place, but usually only to replace churches demolished during urban renewal.
An Indigenous Exception
By contrast, the state’s treatment of the so-called indigenous faiths is strikingly different. By and large, their places of worship have not been torn down or given restrictions. Statistics and my on-the-ground observations indicate that Buddhism and Daoist religious sites and participation are increasing.
The dragon in the room, however, is folk religion, or minjian xinyang (民間信仰) in Chinese, which the government also endorses. Officially, this does not exist as a religion in China but instead is a catch-all designation for local and popular deities. For most of the twentieth century, China’s modernizers—the communists and their predecessors, the nationalists—tried to discredit folk religions by labeling them “superstitious.” Chinese elites largely held Christianity as the norm for a “real” religion, causing them to reject the diffuse and syncretic views that traditionally held Chinese society together. According to scholars, up to one million temples were destroyed in the twentieth century, especially during the first thirty years of CCP rule.
After the death of founding CCP leader Mao Zedong in the late 1970s, traditional religious life returned but was tolerated at best, with campaigns against “feudal superstition” continuing for another two decades. By the beginning of this century, however, the state had begun to change its view on folk religion. Local communities that rebuilt temples sometimes obtained support from local governments, or at least got them to turn a blind eye. The state sees some geopolitical benefit to folk religion—the CCP often points to worship of the seafaring deity Mazu, for example, as a link between southeastern Chinese communities and the island of Taiwan, where the deity is also popular.
By some measures, there are as many as 220,000 places of folk religious worship in China, dwarfing the 43,500 Buddhist and Daoist temples. Some of these folk religious sites get direct government support. Borrowing terminology from UNESCO, Beijing has designated many cultural practices as “intangible cultural heritage.” The designation often involves a small subsidy, such as to a master of Sichuan cuisine, Mongolian throat singing, or traditional papercutting. But the state also supports folk religious practices just by giving them intangible cultural heritage status.
One such practice is the temple fair held each spring on Miaofengshan, a mountain west of Beijing. The fair marks the end of what was one of China’s largest pilgrimages for much of the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth, when thousands of people made the trek each year on foot. By the 1950s, the fair had been shut down, and in the 1960s, Maoist zealots tore down the temple. A nearby village rebuilt the temple in 1986 as a tourism project. Village leaders then contacted people in Beijing who used to run what are known as “pilgrimage associations,” to organize visitors for the annual trek. Many of these groups also honor Miaofengshan’s deity by performing traditional cultural practices such as walking on stilts, dances, and skits. The first revived pilgrimage was held in 1992.
Over the past decade, however, state support for the fair has increased. Many of the pilgrimage associations are now designated as intangible cultural heritage, as is the entire pilgrimage to Miaofengshan. That translates into government money to renovate the temple, police to help guide crowds, and firefighters to make sure the vast amounts of incense burned don’t spark a fire. It also means positive media coverage and, for the association, money to hire buses to the temple.
Beijing’s Turn to Tradition
Religious policy toward traditional faiths isn’t uniformly supportive. State regulations on religion ban minors from entering places of worship, a rule that applies to temples as well as churches and mosques. The state’s heavy hand can also be seen by the enormous national flags that most temples now fly, often in their main courtyard. When I went to the Miaofengshan pilgrimage last year, I saw an enormous billboard with a hammer and sickle and the oath of allegiance that all new CCP members take when joining. It seemed jarring, and many of the visitors I chatted with felt it was out of place.
But in some ways, the Chinese state’s embrace of religion shouldn’t be too surprising. Beijing needs new sources of support, especially given China’s slowing economy. In addition, the disasters of communist rule in the twentieth century mean that for at least fifty years, few people have bought into the state’s main ideology, communism. Under Xi, China has pushed a return to communist values, urging the country’s nearly one hundred million CCP members to “return to the original mission.” Some of the party’s stated values include widely accepted virtues such as honesty, integrity, patriotism, and harmony. But belief in communism is low, forcing the state to turn to traditions.
In doing so, the CCP draws on China’s imperial past when ruling. Imperial officials often decided which faiths were orthodox and heterodox, regularly banning sects that violated norms. Indeed, traditional China was a religious state, with the emperor serving as the mediator between heaven and earth, and his main palaces—including the Forbidden City—representing the empire’s spiritual focal point.
China’s modern-day rulers have drawn on this past but also on the lessons of modern authoritarian states. Similar to how Russian President Putin evolved from KGB operative in Soviet times to defender of the Russian Orthodox Church today, Xi is positioning himself as a champion of Chinese traditional values. It’s unlikely Xi will ever be seen praying in a Buddhist temple, as Putin worships in churches. But in its own way, the Chinese Communist Party is taking a page out of the same authoritarian playbook, where endorsing traditions as a source of legitimacy is seen as a way to compensate for problems at home.
