The Chinese Communist Party and Christianity: A Model for Understanding Regime-Religion Relations

Contemporary China has been recognised by the Pew Research Center and Commission on International Religious Freedom as one of the most restrictive environments in the world for religious groups. Since Xi Jinping’s ascent to power, there has been a spate of suppression such as the removal of steeples and crosses, and the use of dynamite to raze churches. Despite this, since the 1970s China has witnessed an ‘unprecedented rise’ in Christian conversions, with some estimates suggesting there are at least 80 million Christians, with much of this figure comprising of unregistered Protestant Pentecostal-style congregants (Yang: 2017). Chinese Communist Party policy limits legal religious activity to Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism, all of which are organised into state-sponsored patriotic institutions. In this authoritarian political context, any religious groups that fall outside of these institutions are generally considered illegal by the state and can, accordingly, be the subject of suppression. Operating outside of the official faiths, independent of patriotic associations, not recognised by the constitution, unregistered churches represent some of the largest, most robust (and thereby most threatening) forms of associational life (Koesel: 2017). This analysis seeks to understand this paradoxical story of religious growth amidst official coercion by evaluating three proposed models of regime-religion interactions.

Possible models

The landscape has been dominated by three approaches, depending on the degree to which church-state relations are dictated by threat/conflict. The findings of this simplified analysis holds that: (a) the dominance-resistance approach focuses excessively on conflict; (b) the institutional perspective overemphasises negotiation without adequately accounting for those who actively provoke repression; (c) instead, the analytical framework of dominance-negotiation acknowledges CCP dominance, and opportunities for negotiation resulting from relations with local officials. It also recognises that there is an incentive within religious groups to resist negotiation with the state, when this risk being perceived by their followers as subordinating faith to political expediency.

Church-state Context

For context, an examination of religious policy reveals the constitutional ambiguity and subsequent ineffectual implementation that leads to a proliferation of ‘illegal’ groups. The constitution’s Article 36 affords ‘freedom of religious belief’ but limits this to ‘normal’ religious activities; what constitutes ‘normal’ is determined by local administrators (Yang: 2011). Though, enforcement is subject to ambiguity as Document 19 states: ‘prohibition should not be too rigidly enforced’ (MacInnis: 1989).

Dominance-resistance

The dominance-resistance model holds the CCP suppresses illegal communities and if some persist it is due to effective resistance and/or ineffectiveness in the regime’s repressive efforts (Yang: 2011). For instance, CCP domination may consist of mandatory indoctrination into atheism, imprisonment, labour camps, torture, economic exclusion etc. (Yang: 2016). Religious resistance may manifest itself in the refusal to register officially. However, while this model is useful for understanding mechanisms of CCP control, and the ideological framing of conflictual relations, it is a model that may perpetuate the simplified narrative that the only regime-religion relationship is repressive. A narrow analytic focus on conflict alone overlooks the reality that the CCP recognises that principally relying on force for domination is counterproductive (Vala: 2017).

Institutional

The institutional model takes negotiation to be the chief theme characterising religion-regime relations (Koesel: 2014). It points to the mutually beneficial serving of interests whereby the regime and religious groups form an alliance because it secures their respective goals. For instance, religious groups may defy registration policies, but comply with local government demands, to reassure them that they pose no threat. Equally, since Jiang Zemin’s administration, party documents have extolled the compatibility between religion and social stability (Ren: 2017). This model acknowledges differentials in state power by highlighting disjunctions between the regime as (a) central policymakers, and (b) the local implementing authorities. This disjunction in governance rests on the constitutional granting of freedom of belief, and on regulations at central/ provincial/local levels, some of which are inconsistent and open to local interpretation (Schak: 2011). Because the CCP sees religion as a force potentially supportive of its economic/ social development, but remain fearful of its potential to mobilise society, they show a tolerance for broader social autonomy in exchange for their compliance with ultimate state control over religion’s position in society more generally (Laliberté: 2011). The Religious Affairs Bureau, tasked with enforcing the constitution locally, is under-staffed, underpaid and grapples with an imbalance as the rising number of religious adherents outstrips personnel. The result: illegal groups are generally tolerated, albeit grudgingly, and with occasional lapses (Hunter and Chan: 1993). It is a political status quo that allows groups to exist, so long as they implicitly respect party leadership (Chambon:2017). However, this paradigm overestimates the bargaining power of these groups, as ultimately the relationship is asymmetrical. It also assumes that, in the negotiation process, groups will avoid confrontation at all costs which does not sufficiently account for overt church-state conflict.

Dominance-negotiation

The paradox that illegal Christian churches sometimes freely operate, given the CCP’s purportedly authoritarian character is captured by the dominance-negotiationmodel (Vala: 2017). It acknowledges the conflictual aspect by admitting the CCP asserts ultimate authority when dictating parameters of religious practice, yet the negotiation aspect accounts for the diversity of relations at work in local interactions. It is a departure from the institutional model in its assertation that religious groups have limits in terms of how far they will align with the state and may actively provoke conflict. This paradigm merges the informal mechanisms of religious oversight, the ultimate dynamic of domination colouring the relationship, and the reality that religious groups themselves have limits when faith trumps politics. As the religious population grows, with oversight delegated to local officials, what results is a relationship in which the CCP maintains its public sense of dominance while privately negotiating with these communities.

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