LA Times: 'Illegal' Houses of Worship Targeted in China Crackdown

Publication Date: Friday December 15, 2000

Page A-1

Los Angeles Times (Home Edition)

Copyright 2000 / The Times Mirror Company

BEIJING -- Scores, perhaps hundreds, of churches and temples in the southern Chinese city of Wenzhou have been shut or destroyed in a religious crackdown that residents say has been intensifying over the past several weeks.

Officials in Wenzhou confirmed Thursday that a number of houses of worship had been closed down, but they denied reports of as many as 1,200 temples and churches being shuttered. The officials did not say how many had been targeted but insisted that "only illegal temples were destroyed."

"Legal temples are still there," a spokeswoman for the city government said. "This is not a big thing."

Especially hard hit in Wenzhou, residents say, have been the city's "house churches," groups of Christians who have not registered their fellowships with the government, as Chinese law requires. Though sometimes called "underground churches," such groups in Wenzhou often operate openly, with hundreds of people gathering in buildings clearly identifiable as Christian churches, residents say.

"We're under heavy pressure right now," said one member of a house church, who asked not to be identified. He said his group had received an official notice from authorities to disband by last Monday.

State-run media have reported that as many as 100 religious centers have been shut. One newspaper in Wenzhou published a small photo of a man taking a sledgehammer to an "illegal" church.

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing officially registered its concern with the Chinese government on Wednesday after reports of the crackdown surfaced here last weekend. There was no formal reply from the Chinese, sources familiar with the meeting said.

The incidents coincide with a general tightening of control by the Beijing regime over religion in China, but the destruction in Wenzhou, as in other parts of China, appears to be orchestrated by local officials.

Zhang Qiyue, a Chinese government spokeswoman, said Thursday that she had no specific information about the incidents in Wenzhou but insisted that, overall, "China has been carrying out a policy of protecting religious freedom."

The crackdown has been escalating over the last several weeks, say church members in Wenzhou, who estimate the number of Christians in just one small district of the city to be about 200,000. More than 7 million people live in Wenzhou and districts under its control.

The local authorities there, and indeed the central government in Beijing, have been alarmed by the rapid revival of religion in a nation still officially atheistic. As Communist ideology has faded, millions of Chinese have returned to practicing the five state-sanctioned religions--Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Islam--as well as an enormous variety of folk religions.

Since last year, the Beijing regime has waged an aggressive campaign against the Falun Gong meditation group, whose members shocked the government by surrounding the central leadership compound in a surprise sit-down protest last year.

Concern about Falun Gong, which the government denounces as [], has spilled over to other religions. Earlier this year, officials in populous Henan province, where Christianity is spreading rapidly, issued an internal document stressing the need to root out "heretical" groups, or those not officially approved by the government.

Some members of Wenzhou's house churches say that their local authorities also have been told to rein in the swift proliferation of Christianity in the area. There was another, brief crackdown in 1997, but between that time and the recent campaign, the local government had seemed to adopt a more laissez-faire attitude, church members say.

Like the current crackdown, the 1997 campaign occurred around Christmas.

Buddhists also have suffered in the latest campaign. On Wednesday, the Yangshan temple in Wenzhou was razed because members were practicing "feudal superstitious activities" and on account of illegal money-making there by local Communist Party cadres, the local government confirmed Thursday.

A spokeswoman said the building had to be destroyed because milder actions had "resulted in nothing."

Until now, Wenzhou, in Zhejiang province, has been noted mostly for its rise as one of China's coastal boomtowns. The city's economy, fueled by heavy overseas trade, has exploded since the institution of market-oriented reforms in China.