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_WORLD WATCH______________________________
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Campaign against religion confirmed
Beijing reportedly called for crackdown
Keston News Service has obtained documentary evidence—taken from newspapers controlled by the Communist regime—to confirm the destruction of unregistered religious buildings in Wenzhou, in southeastern China, at the end of last year. The evidence shows that a carefully planned campaign against “feudal superstition,” lasting from the end of October to December last year, was unleashed throughout the municipality, destroying hundreds of Buddhist, Taoist, and Christian temples, shrines, and churches, with the explicit approval of the Communist Party.
Several Christian house-church leaders in the region, mainly Protestants, claimed that the catalyst for the campaign was a visit by President Jiang Zemin in early 2000. He was reportedly horrified by the sight of hundreds of Christian churches and Buddhist shrines, many of them unregistered with the authorities.
The brother of one Wenzhou house-church leader said the original decree for the destruction of shrines and churches had been issued in July of last year, requiring Christians, Buddhists, and Taoists to demolish their “illegal” structures. Not surprisingly, they had not obeyed. It was not until the end of the year that the municipal authorities took massive action. Although Keston has been unable to corroborate the report that Jiang Zemin instigated the program, there seems little doubt that an anti-religious campaign of this virulence could not have been unleashed without at least the acquiescence of the central government.
Wenzhou is known in Christian circles throughout the country as the “Jerusalem of China” because of the huge increase in the number of Protestant Christians since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. According to a local pastor in the state-supervised Christian Council, registered Protestants number over 600,000—or about 10 percent of the population. This figure does not include the large numbers who worship in the unregistered churches, and who for years had enjoyed a degree of freedom.
The first report of the church destructions in Wenzhou that reached the West was broadcast by Radio Australia on December 12, 2000. It claimed that “450 Catholic and Protestant churches, as well as Taoist and Buddhist temples” had been destroyed. The next day the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post confirmed that “449 Christian churches and Taoist and Buddhist temples” had been “closed and in some cases even blown up.” Although these reports differed slightly on the exact timing of the campaign and the number of churches involved, they pointed to a deliberate series of attacks on Christian targets.
In fact, a series of articles published openly in the local Wenzhou daily (Wenzhou Ribao) in November shed considerable light on the campaign. For example, on November 13, 2000, the newspaper announced a major effort by the authorities to eradicate illegal religious activities. On November 24, 2000, the paper published an article in which all the legally registered “patriotic” religious organizations in Wenzhou (Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, and Taoist) dutifully expressed their approval of the campaign. In various reports over the course of the month, the official newspaper eventually accounted for more than 500 churches that had been destroyed by government officials.