Washington D.C.—China Aid Association (CAA), a Texas headquartered organization, said Chinese authorities' confidential documents show the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is secretly carrying on a "special administration" targeting Christians, while house churches are the primary targets.
An official from China's State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) denies the above mentioned document and says religious gatherings can still be held with certain conditions and in a designated location, as told to Reuters.
According to CAA, the document was issued on July 24, 2007 by a local district party committee office in Jingmen City, Hubei Province. It was classified as a confidential document and requires all levels of government to enforce the policy and three departments — the United Front, Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau and local Public Security Bureau are required to set up a "Work Plan for Special Administration of Christian Activities."
Although the document disclosed was issued by local authorities, judging from the content, it is part of a nationwide campaign.
Safeguard Society - Restrict House Churches
CAA states the secret document shows the government's intention to establish a nationwide low-level monitoring and management system to restrict the development of house churches.
The document states unregistered Christian gatherings could be used as a breakthrough point to stop the abnormal development and chaotic activities of Christians, to "Fight against infiltration activities by hostile overseas forces under the guise of Christianity and safeguard the stability in our society and in the religious arena." While "unregistered Christian gatherings" means house churches.
Chinese Lack Understanding
Dr. Doering, a senior researcher from the Institute of Asian Studies at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) believes local Chinese officials from different places have different attitudes towards religious gatherings, sometime they are irrational or have misunderstandings, some local officials even believe the harder they strike on religious gatherings, the more rewards they will receive from upper level authorities.
Dr. Doering visited the mainland not long ago; his observation is that many of his Chinese Christian friends have difficulty making public their beliefs. Many Chinese people have doubts about Christians, believing it is a foreign culture, the church forms a community all its own, not as part of family, the party or country.
He further stated that most of his working partners in China are rational people, but they have an attitude that is difficult to comprehend when talking about Christians or religion, which can only be explained by the education they receive or possibly CCP brainwashing.
The Chinese SARA official admitted China has 20 million religious believers, but overseas organizations and experts estimate this figure exceeds 60 million, and many of them are not registered with the government.
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