Showing posts with label religions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religions. Show all posts

Thursday, May 16, 2024

Why China started to support traditional faiths – Ian Johnson

 

Ian Johnson

Foreign media too often focus on China’s crackdown on religion, but former foreign correspondent Ian Johnson, author of Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future, sees an opposite trend as China’s government started to support traditional faiths, in an effort to gain new legitimacy, he writes in the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Ian Johnson:

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…

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.

Much more at the website of the Council on Foreign Relations.

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 stories by Ian Johnson? Do check out this list.

Thursday, February 16, 2023

Faith and value systems in China – Ian Johnson

 

Ian Johnson

China veteran Ian Johnson describes how faith and value systems in China have been developing over the past century and how the government and the communist party acted on religion at the USCCA.

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.

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

China’s new religious policies – Ian Johnson

 

Ian Johnson

Scholar Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, looks back at how China’s government has embarked into new policies on religion at the conference of the 28th International Conference of the US-China Catholic Association, “China, Christianity, and the Dialogue of Civilizations”

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

Are you looking at more political experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.


Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Prosperity causes China's religious revival - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson
An upsurge in  folk religions, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and other forms of spirituality is caused by China's development into an industrial superpower, argued journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao earlier this week at a speech at , according to the Yale Daily.

Yale Daily:
Johnson spoke before a crowd of about 50 students and faculty Monday about this six-year venture. 
“I’ve been thinking about writing this book for over 30 years, since I first went to China in 1984,” Johnson said. “I had gone to China to learn Chinese and look at this country that was just opening up.” 
During China’s period of economic reform, foreign media mostly focused on the nation’s rise as it joined the World Trade Organization, hosted the Olympics and came into the world as an economic superpower, Johnson said. 
However, he explained that these global perceptions failed to accurately represent the national sentiment at the time. 
“For many Chinese people, I think China was already entering a newer era, an era of uncertainty and anxiety,” he continued. 
At the start of the 21st century, Chinese citizens’ excitement about their massive gains in material wealth began to fade, Johnson noted. As scandals about tainted food and political corruption hit the country, Chinese people began to question cultural values, he said. 
At the same time, China’s economy was soaring and rates of urbanization were picking up. Racked with uncertainty about the grounding of their society, moving from agrarian lives with familial and community support to big cities, some Chinese citizens began to see religion as a means of adjusting to a more complex world. 
“What religion is for a lot of people in China is a way to recreate community,” he said. 
“People are moving to these big, anonymous cities, and they feel that they lack something. These religious communities, whether they’re Christian or Daoist or Buddhist, in some way help recreate structure.”

More at the Yale Daily.

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.

Monday, June 26, 2017

The success of Fo Guang Shan - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson
Religious groups in China have had different degrees of success, depending on their relations with the authorities. Among the Buddhist Fo Guang Shan, has been the most successful, writes author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao in the New York Times. Has Fo Guang Shan changed China, or is China changing Buddhism, he asks.

Ian Johnson:
Fo Guang Shan is perhaps the most successful of these groups. Since coming to China more than a decade ago, it has set up cultural centers and libraries in major Chinese cities and printed and distributed millions of volumes of its books through state-controlled publishers. While the government has tightened controls on most other foreign religious organizations, Fo Guang Shan has flourished, spreading a powerful message that individual acts of charity can reshape China. 
It has done so, however, by making compromises. The Chinese government is wary of spiritual activity it does not control — the Falun Gong an example — and prohibits mixing religion and politics. That has led Fo Guang Shan to play down its message of social change and even its religious content, focusing instead on promoting knowledge of traditional culture and values. 
The approach has won it high-level support; President Xi Jinping is one of its backers. But its relationship with the party raises a key question: Can it still change China?
Fo Guang Shan is led by one of modern China’s most famous religious figures, the Venerable Master Hsing Yun. I met him late last year at the temple in Yixing, in a bright room filled with his calligraphy and photos of senior Chinese leaders who have received him in Beijing. He wore tannish golden robes, and his shaved head was set off by thick eyebrows and sharp, impish lips. 
At age 89, he is nearly blind, and a nun often had to repeat my questions so he could hear them. But his mind was quick, and he nimbly parried questions that the Chinese authorities might consider objectionable. When I asked him what he hoped to accomplish by spreading Buddhism — proselytizing is illegal in China — his eyebrows arched in mock amusement. 
“I don’t want to promote Buddhism!” he said. “I only promote Chinese culture to cleanse humanity.” 
As for the Communist Party, he was unequivocal: “We Buddhists uphold whoever is in charge. Buddhists don’t get involved in politics.”
Much more in the New York Times.

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 stories by Ian Johnson? Do check out this list.