Why Beijing and the Vatican are eager to close a deal - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Despite fierce opposition, both the Vatican and the central government in Beijing seem very eager to sign a deal on reestablishing diplomatic relations. Journalist Ian Johnson, who broke the story end January, and author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao tries to figure out why both a so eager to push ahead, he tells at PRI. The real issue for both is about social control, he says.

PRI:

 The Vatican has centuries of experience in China. It was Jesuit priests who first established a permanent place for Christianity in China starting in the 16th century. Francis is the first Jesuit to become pope, and he appears eager to heal the divide running through Catholicism in China by normalizing relations between the Vatican and Beijing. 

Those diplomatic ties were severed in 1951, soon after the communists took control of the mainland. Life for Chinese Catholics has been complicated, to say the least, ever since. For the Chinese government, re-establishing diplomatic relations with the Vatican would be a victory for public diplomacy. But the real motivation for Xi and his government is about social control, says Ian Johnson. 

“Beijing just issued new regulations on religion that call for even tighter control on religion,” says Johnson, author of “The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao.” 

“This is not really a socially reform-minded administration that’s willing to open up or take a gamble. I think if a deal presents itself, that’s great. They’ll do it. But if not, they’re probably happy to walk away.” 

Another attractive possibility for Beijing in all this is related to Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province. The Holy See is one of just 20 states with diplomatic ties to Taiwan. If normalizing the relationship with mainland China coincided with breaking the Vatican’s recognition of Taiwan, that would be something Xi could celebrate. 

For his part, Francis would like to heal the rift running through Catholic life in China. He'd also like to grow the church in that country. There are an estimated 10-12 million Catholics in China. By comparison, Protestants — and this is a low estimate — number around 60 million there. 

Legally, China does recognize Catholicism as one of the country’s five official religions. The authorities in Beijing even help appoint some Catholic bishops in China. This has long been a sticky issue for the Vatican. 

In recent weeks, the pope has shown he is willing to be flexible on this issue. Papal authorities asked two underground Chinese bishops to resign and make way for candidates approved by the Chinese government. 

“Many Catholics don’t feel comfortable going to the officially recognized Catholic Church, because many of those bishops and the priests under them, who they appointed, were not approved by Rome,” Johnson says. 

“Some people think, ‘I’m not being loyal. I’m not being a good Catholic. I’m not being loyal to the pope if I go to these official churches.’” 

“It’s a difficult situation, and it slows the growth of the religion,” Johnson adds.

 More at PRI 

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.
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Why Catholicism is shrinking in a increasing religious China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Protestantism, Buddhism and Taoism grow fast in China, but followers of the Catholic faith are dwindling.  Author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao reports from the countryside on why Catholicism finds it harder to find a solid footprint among Chinese looking for moral values, for the America Magazine.

Ian Johnson:

A key reason for this divergence goes back to the issue of localization. The church’s reluctance to indigenize until the mid-20th century contrasts with the explosive growth in the number of indigenous Protestant leaders as early as the 1920s and ’30s. Many were jailed by the Communists, but their followers formed the basis of today’s huge Protestant “house church” movement. For better or worse, Protestantism in China travels lightly, with self-taught pastors forming churches and attracting large congregations in only a few years. 

This sort of spontaneous institution-building is harder to realize in a more formally structured faith like Catholicism. This is especially true because of China’s state control over religion. In the 1950s, the Communist government set up patriotic associations to control all five religious groups in China—Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, Protestantism and Taoism. These committees now manage mosques, temples and churches, appoint key clergy, and run seminaries. 

For groups like Protestants, government control is a burden, but they are more decentralized, so they can ignore hierarchies and flexibly respond to demand. Put simply, any pious believer can form a Protestant church and declare himself or herself head of it. 

That is harder for Catholics to do. After the Communists set up the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association in 1957, state officials began appointing their own bishops. Many Catholics began to feel uncomfortable about attending churches under government control and some stopped going. Others set up an underground Catholic Church in certain parts of China. This church does not recognize the “patriotic” church’s legitimacy. But even the underground church has a fairly rigid hierarchy, with appointments requiring approval by highers-up in China. 

Over the years, the split between the “open” and the underground church has become less pronounced, especially after Benedict XVI’s letter to the church in China in 2007. In it the pope essentially said the underground church should not be a permanent institution (“the clandestine condition is not a normal feature of the Church’s life”) and that Catholics can participate in services offered by the state-recognized church. 

But state control over religion is still problematic, hampering growth and regularly spilling into public view. In 2012, for example, the government appointed Thaddeus Ma Daqinauxiliary bishop of Shanghai. But Bishop Ma announced his resignation from the Patriotic Catholic Association at his episcopal ordination Mass—apparently a protest against the government’s regulation of religion. He was put under house arrest at the Sheshan Seminary, where he largely remains today, a situation that shut down one of the country’s most important seminaries for over a year.

More at the America Magazine.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on cultural change at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

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China's search for happiness - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Most of China has left poverty behind, but people are still not happy. The search for moral values is now taking over the desire among China's citizens, says author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao in PRI. How turning to religion can change the country.

PRI:

“As one guy who told me, 'We used to think we were unhappy because we were poor. Now, we’re no longer poor, but we’re still unhappy,'” says Ian Johnson, a long time correspondent in China, most recently writing for The New York Times and the New York Review of Books, and author of the new book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao. 

If it’s tempting to pull out the old saying "money can’t buy happiness," many Chinese are more interested these days in figuring out what can. And so, a search for meaning has intensified in recent decades, as the descendents of those who once revered Mao Zedong and the Communist Party, and Chinese emperors before that, now embrace new centers of meaning, and new communities that share their values... 

“A lot of it is driven by this feeling that there are no shared values in Chinese society anymore,” says Johnson. “People constantly talk in social media –—and this is uncensored (by the Chinese government), it’s OK to talk about it — this lack of minimum moral standards in society, that anything goes, as long as you don’t get caught.” 

Another driver, Johnson says, is a desire for community in a society that has rapidly urbanized, with rural Chinese moving to new cities, and old urban-dwellers losing their neighborhoods to demolition and construction of new developments. 

The Communist Party officially recognizes five religions — Buddhism, Daoism, Protestantism, Catholicism and Islam, and tries to control each under the umbrella of the state, forbidding most ties with foreign centers of power, such as the Vatican. The party has long been wary of competing parallel power structures, including "house churches," gatherings of Protestant Chinese who seek to practice their faith outside of the strictures of Communist Party rules. Many such adherents still remember and respect Watchman Nee...

Turning to religion or spiritual practice is one way Chinese are now looking for meaning, but, as in the past in China, what starts with finding a new moral center, can lead to a yearning to shape new relationships and rules in society. China is still finding its moral compass and its direction, some 40 years after Mao’s death, and what started as a search for meaning may yet lead to more sweeping societal change. It’s a prospect that makes the Communist Party nervous, and keeps it vigilant. 

“I think all religions have an over-arching idea of justice and righteousness, and heaven, ‘tian,’ that ‘s above all else,” Johnson says. “It helps create among people that it’s not the government that gives us rights and laws. It comes from something higher. And I think that’s the change that could come to China in the future.”

More in PRI.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on China's cultural change? Do check out this list.