DISKUS 3:1 (1995) pp.1-18 Religious Freedom and the Constitution in the People's Republic of China: Interpretation and Implementation Dr. Beatrice Leung Dept. of Social Sciences, Lingnan College, Tuen Mun N.T. Hong Kong E-mail: leungbea@ln.edu.hk Introduction Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, religion has had problems of adjustment and accommodation with the ruling Communist party in China. To some extent this state of affairs has resulted from a Marxist distaste for religious belief. In part it has reflected Marxist suspicions about the political role of religions in Chinese life, especially where such religions have links with the outside world, as in the case of Buddhism, Islam and Christianity which are defined as "world religions". On the international level, the General Assembly of the United Nations as early as in December 1948 adopted and proclaimed the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" which includes the right of religious freedom. In 1961, the United Nations requested the Economic and Social Council to prepare a declaration on the elimination of religious intolerance. Twenty years later in 1981 "The Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Beliefs" was adopted. In fact the term "religious freedom" has been explicitly written into all four Chinese constitutions; in 1954, 1975, 1978 and 1982, and China has openly declared that human rights have been observed and religious freedom has been a long term policy which has been practised in China. But ironically, harassments have been imposed on religions ever since. The arrest of religious adherents, confiscation of church property and termination of social services run by religious personnel have been common. Even under Deng Xiaoping's modernization policy with its relaxation in economic policy, the restrictions imposed on religions have been institutionalized by decrees and regulations. Arrests of religious leaders have been reported and the reasons given for their arrest are non-religious in nature.<1> In the context of the interpretation of religious freedom in the Chinese constitutions, various decrees and regulations have been issued in the period 1982-1994 with the purpose of restricting religions. These decrees are "The Basic Policy and Standpoint Our Country Should Have on the Religious Question During This Period of Socialism" (Document No.19, 1982), the Circular "Stepping Up Control Over the Catholic Church to Meet the New Situation" (Document No.3, 1989), "The Regulations on the Supervision of the Religious Activities of Foreigners in China" issued by the Council of the State in January 1994, and "Registration Procedures for Venues for Religious Activities" issued by the Religious Affairs Bureau and the Council of the State in January 1994.<2> "Religion" in Chinese language is "teaching" [jiao]. The People's Republic of China (PRC) claims that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with its ideology is the source of teaching authority. As religions have the connotation that they have the right to teach their adherents about religious doctrine, a tension between two different understandings of "jiao" or "teaching" exists between the CCP and religions. This article aims at proving that the Chinese interpretation of religious freedom depends on the CCP's attitude on ideological matters, and that the militant approaches towards enforcing ideological matters in Mao's era have also been followed by the harsh treatment of religious believers in Deng's time of modernization; the interpretation and implementation of China's religious freedom depends on state policy that operates in an environment of economic relaxation accompanied by "anti-peaceful evolution." This paper only concentrates on Christianity and does not put much weight on Buddhism and Islam, because these latter two sectors of world religions relate to more complicated questions in China such as the Tibet question, and the ethnical problems of national minorities in the northwest with strategical importance. The questions related to Buddhists in Tibet and Muslims in Xinjiang and Qinghai are never the same as those of Christians who are located among the Han people who are scattered in the southeast and central part of China Constitutional Law : In Western Democracies and in the Communist Party State Stanley A. de Smith defines the nature of constitutional law by stating that the constitution and related administrative law are primarily concerned with political authority and power - that is the location, conferment and distribution of authority and power among the organs of a state. It is concerned with matters of procedure as well as substance of the administrative law. It also includes explicit guarantees of rights and freedom of individuals and incorporates ideological pronouncements and statements of the citizens' duties.<3> And sometimes they incorporate ideological pronouncements - principles by which the state ought to be guided or to which it ought to aspire, and statements of the citizens' duties.<4> In a democratic society the concept of 'rule of law' implies that the rulers as well as the governed should be subject to constitutional law. Jan Triska, a Comparative Law scholar at the Hoover Institute of Stanford University defined the distinction between the constitution of a Communist party state and a traditional western democratic government. His comparison might throw some light on the foundation of our understanding of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) concept of freedom of religion and its way of interpreting it in the constitution. He remarked that, in the tradition of western democratic society, constitutionalism is a venerated concept. It defines a political authority which is exercised according to law which is obeyed by all, including those who govern. By definition a constitutional government is a limited government deliberately adopted by the people governed by it. The constitution limits the powers of the constituent organs; its authority and sanction is the highest in the political system. The constitution is thus endowed with a superior, moral, binding force. As it reflects the will of the people, the constitution therefore receives broad social support.<5> As early as 1967, Jan Triska also argued that the Communist party state constitutions do not limit the respective governments, instead they are themselves limited by the ruling party's principal decision-makers. Man is supreme, not law. Hence the Communist state constitutions are not the symbol of freedom they are in western democracies. They have no great moral force nor are they necessarily broadly supported. They act as the major 'instrumentalities' of the rulers. Constitutions of Communist states serve the rulers rather than limit their administrative power; the norms which they contain are interpreted from the sole point of view of the party or the state as determined by the rulers.<6> This kind of constitution of a single party state is apt to be something of a political manifesto. In such constitutions, however, lip service may still be paid to basic freedoms of the individual, as remarked by S.A. de Smith.<7> Yet violations of basic human rights are common. To date, the western attitude towards constitutions of communist states has not changed much. Scholars of comparative constitutions still hold similar views on the constitution of one-party state of Communist regime such as that "the constitutional structure of the Communist state has always been an elaborate facade behind which one-party rule and totalitarianism have occupied the political scene, and the Statute of the Communist party is a more important document than the state constitution".<8> Moreover, one has reason to wonder how in a Communist state the implementation of freedom of religion can take place as it should when the notion of God is incompatible with the atheist ideology of a Communist Party state. Furthermore, freedom of speech and expression, freedom of assembly and association and freedom of religion and conscience are intimately related as further noted by Professor de Smith. If serious encroachments are made on any of them, some or all will diminish.<9> Religious Freedom in the Chinese Constitution It is true that freedom of religion has been guaranteed by four constitutions since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, including the latest one published in 1982. Articles on religious belief contained in all the past Constitutions run as follows: 1954 Constitution, Article 99 -Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief. 1975 Constitution, Article 28 -Citizens enjoy freedom of speech, correspondence, the press, assembly, association, demonstration, the freedom to strike, and enjoy freedom to believe in religion and freedom not to believe in religion and to propagate atheism. 1978 Constitution, Article 46 -Citizens enjoy freedom to believe in religion and freedom not to believe in religion and to propagate atheism. 1982 Constitution, Article 36 -Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief. No organs of state, public organizations or individuals shall compel citizens to believe in religion or disbelieve in religion, nor shall they discriminate against citizens who believe or do not believe in religion. -The state protects legitimate religious activities. No one may use religion to carry out counter-revolutionary activities or activities that disrupt public order, harm the health of citizens or obstruct the educational systems of the state. No religious affairs may be dominated by any foreign country. It is true that in China freedom in religion has been promised by the state Constitution, but in reality the Communist Party has the right to refuse to give protection to that freedom, as atheism is the ideological foundation of a Communist state. Thus it is illogical to request them to favour religions which pose an opposite ideology to atheism. In fact when law is practised in a Communist state individual citizens take a very secondary place and they are subject to the interest of the Party/state.<10> Therefore the provisions in the Constitution about the need to uphold the socialist order overshadow religious freedom. Take the following articles in the Chinese Constitution of 1982 for example: Article 15 -Disturbance of the orderly functioning of the social economy or disruption of the state economic plan by any organization or individual is prohibited. Article 28 -The State maintains public order and suppresses treasonable and other counter-revolutionary activities. Article 25 -The State promotes family planning so that the population growth may fit the plan for economic and social development. Evidence reveals that the Chinese authorities in the 1990's continued to associate Christian activities with undesirable western influence. There were a series of campaigns which violated the internationally recognized right to freedom of religion as stated in Articles 18, 19, 20.1 and 26.3 of The Universal Declaration of Human rights; Articles 1.1, 1.2. 2.1, 5.2 and 6, of the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief; and Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Many Catholics and Protestants reject the notion that the party should control religion, especially when the Party regards any activity outside the religious bureaucracy as automatically illegal. Many of them refused to accept the restrictions, especially on two issues. Protestants did not like the practice of a "post-denominational" church as demanded by the government; instead they turned to "house church".<11> Many Chinese Catholics refused to cut off their relations with the Holy See as demanded by the government, thus they turned to the underground church and refused to attend services held at churches run by the government-sponsored Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA). Arrests and trials of bishops and priests in China take place not for religious reasons, but for other reasons. In 1990 more than 32 bishops, priests and lay Catholics were arrested after a clandestine Bishops' conference held on November 21 1989. A religious cadre in Beijing confirmed that these arrests were not because of their religious beliefs but because they had founded an illegal organization.<12> In Hebei province the late Bishop Fan Xueyan was from 1958 until he died in 1993 often in and out of prisons, house arrest and labour camps for his Vatican links, his ordination of priests and alleged receipt of foreign currency. An official comment said that he had "colluded with foreign forces to jeopardize the sovereignty and security of the motherland".<13> These are but two of the many reported cases in 'Freedom of Religion in China' whose editor claimed that "the cases (above) may represent a fraction of the total".<14> The Development of law From Mao to Deng Law in a New Regime: Promoting People's Democratic Dictatorship: Given the desire of Mao Zedong who designed the People's Republic of China (PRC) to have a political, social and economic life which would be completely different from the previous Nationalist Government, the constitution and other law codes established at that stage were meant to deal with new events in the new regime with the purpose of consolidating the new regime. The Common Programme, a provisional Constitution which was set up in September 1949, sufficiently reflected the legal orientation of the new regime when its Article 7 stated that counter-revolutionary elements were to be suppressed and reactionary elements compelled to reform themselves through labour. It implied that this design in the legal apparatus was in the context of Mao's plan of promoting people's democratic dictatorship. This concept was expressed in Mao's famous talk "On the People's Democratic dictatorship" in which he claimed that "The state apparatus including the army, the police and the courts are the instruments by which one class oppresses another.... It is violence and not benevolence."<15> Thus from the very early days of the establishment of the PRC, Mao decided that the law court which was a major instrument of the government in enforcing law should take up a tone of "violence" to treat those who were perceived as the enemy to the Party; to be counter-revolutionary. However, the method of practising law to promote people's democratic dictatorship did not reap the satisfactory results expected. This was acknowledged only in 1986, ten years after the death of Mao, by Fa Xue [Legal Studies] a provincial law journal in Shanghai. It stated that "abrogating all previous laws meant that social life had no laws to rely on, this did not help the consolidation of proletarian dictatorship".<16> The late Laszlo Ladany, editor (1953-1982) and contributor of the weekly newsletter on China 'The China News Analysis' discussed the rule of law in Mao's regime.<17> He revealed that in the 1950's a guide book was published for judges who were asked to study Mao's "On People's Democratic dictatorship" with care. Dictatorship was to be exercised and enemies were not allowed to speak freely or act freely.<18> At that time there were no written laws or legal codes, because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) did not rely on "dead letters" but on"concrete policy", that is to say, all must act according to the state's policy.<19> Legal Personnel: Training and Practice Ladany went on to report that there were not enough judges in the early 1950's when there were too many cases to be dealt with. The very few judges left over from the previous regime were instructed that court documents and verdicts could not be written in traditional legal style. The newly appointed judges, without legal training, could only use colloquial simple language in dealing with court records and verdicts.<20> Later, when students were sent to study law in some Chinese universities, no policy of criminal law or civil law was taught in the law faculties at universities, but only Party policy - Policy of Criminal Cases and Policy of Civil Cases, the Party Guidance and the Line of the Masses were taught. In other words the sayings of Mao became law, and the verdicts of the courts quoted not laws but the sayings of Chairman Mao.<21> Under this type of legal training, the result is all Chinese judges have to exercise the Party Line, directives and Party policy but not the policy of law in their legal practice. Maybe this kind of conceptualization as well as the practice of legality in China can be called "the rule of law with Chinese characteristics" which focuses on one thing - to be the instrument of the rule of the Party. The Rule of Law in the Chinese Context Even the source of authority in Chinese Law is the Party and its ideology. The Chinese government claims that the rule of law has been existing since the time of Mao. The newspaper Renmin Ribao in 1978 defended the existence of the rule of law in Mao's era by defining the role of law as well as contrasting it with the chaotic period when violence overshadowed the practice of law. It stated that "Laws are the tool of one class for ruling over the other..... Laws are the tools of dictatorship. If there are no laws, as happened under Lin Piao and the Gang of Four, people's houses can be destroyed - as was done by the Red guards - people can be arrested, imprisoned, beaten to death or subjected to fascist torture, Good cadres and masses suffered this way. Can you forget this?"<22> For the Chinese government, except in the chaotic period of the Cultural Revolution, law has been practised. When socio-economic life became much more active in the modernization era of Deng Xiaoping, and the old legality in Mao's day had been ruined completely in the Cultural Revolution in the vacuum of lawlessness, the Criminal Code with 192 articles was introduced in 1979.<23> Peng Chen, the head of the Legislative Commission of the People's Congress became the champion of legality, responsible for the launching of this new Criminal Code. In introducing the new law at the People's Congress he reiterated the same instrumentalism of the legal orientation which was found in Mao's time. He stated "The people's security organs, the people's procurators and the people's courts are the tools of the proletarian dictatorship for the protection of the people and for dealing severe blows to the enemies."<24> The introduction of the Criminal Code could not cope with the increasing socio-economic contacts with the west, whose legality both in conceptualization as well as in practice not only has been well established but also was unknown to the Chinese. Deng intended that modernization in law, politics and culture should go hand in hand with economic modernization. Thus, Deng in the 12th Congress of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) held in September 1982 called for the modernization of the "socialistic legal system" to be put into practice.<25> Zhang Kan, an expert in Chinese law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, has commented that Deng's emphasis on "the rule of law " in this context was only a device to mobilize law by making it an instrument to run the country more effectively amidst the chaotic rule after the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four.<26> According to Zhang, the framework of legality of that time was within the political context of the "four insistences" (the insistence on socialism, dictatorship of the proletariat, leadership of the Communist party, and Marxist-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought) - the 'rule of Law" meant under the leadership of the Communist Party the practice of 'rule of law' was taking place.<27> In this context of concept and practice, the Chinese Constitution has not departed from the CCP's traditional handling down from the time of Mao. It reconfirms J. Triska's view that the Chinese Constitution, like other Communist party state constitutions, does not limit the respective governments. Instead, they are themselves limited by the ruling party's principal decision-makers. Man is supreme, not law. Hence the Communist state constitutions are not the symbol of freedom as they are in western democracies.<28> Consequently, it means that when the policy of the state or the ruling party constitutes any conflict with the Constitution, the constitution always gives in to the state/party policy. In practice there are at least three ways to reflect the overshadowing of the constitution by the CCP. Firstly, in theory, the CCP exerts its power to interpret the constitution in the interest of the Party. Secondly, the CCP has lopsided regulations and policies which have been made for its own interest and ignores the constitution and its governing power. Thirdly, in practice, the CCP had no obligation to observe the constitution, as in the era of the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four, until the appearance of the 1982 Chinese Constitution. This Constitution for the first time since the establishment of the PRC through Article 5 clearly requests that all political parties including the CCP must abide by the constitution and the law, and no one can be above the constitution and the law. Article 5 of the 1982 Constitution reads: "All state organs, the armed forces, all political parties and public organizations and all enterprises and undertakings must abide by the Constitution and the law. All acts in violation of the Constitution and the law must be looked into. No organization or individual may enjoy the privilege of being above the Constitution and the Law." <29> For the success of modernization, the political leaders in Beijing tried to promote the rule of law, making the constitution supreme for the first time in the history of the CCP to safeguard the hard won success from economic reform. Yet in interpreting law amidst the enforcement of law, inevitably, legal officials of Deng's era like their predecessors in Mao's period are used to putting legal justice under the party's ideological considerations as well as state/party policy. Interpretation of Religious Freedom and Prosecution of Religious Believers In the matter of religious freedom, this is a phrase which has different ways of interpretation in the democratic west and in China. However, in the modernization era, a comprehensive policy called Document no.19 was issued in 1982 by the Party Central on the official concept and practice of the religious question.<30> In this official document the ultimate aim of the policy of religious freedom was to put religion into an orbit set by the party as well as not to allow religion to spread so vigorously, so that freedom of not believing religion could be further promoted in China. It stated: "The basic policy the Party has adopted towards the religious question is to respect and to protect the freedom of religious belief. This is a long term policy; it is a policy that we must continually carry out and implement up until that future time when religion will itself disappear.... Naturally as we go about the process of implementing and carrying out this policy which emphasizes the guarantee of freedom which people have to believe in religion, we also must, at the same time, emphasize the guarantee of freedom that people have not to believe in religion. These are but two indispensable aspects of the same question.." <31> The Party admitted that it had gone wrong in some aspects in dealing with religion. In Document No.19 it states that: " Since the founding of the People's Republic, our Party has walked a winding road in dealing with the religious questions..... Since 1957 leftist errors in its religious area gradually developed and in the mid-sixties progressed even further." <32> In China there has been a standardized interpretation of religious freedom employed since Mao's time by the government/party. A religious cadre Luo Zhufeng in his writing on 'Religion Under Socialism in China' echoed the party's interpretations on religious freedom which is that it is not for the purpose of cherishing the internationally recognized right to freedom of religion, but to curb the freedom of religion instead. He stated: "Respecting and protecting the policy of freedom of religious belief is a long term policy. There has always been a unified explanation of freedom of religious belief: that is, each citizen has the right to believe in religion and also has freedom not to believe in religion; he has freedom to believe in this religion or that religion; within the same religion he has freedom to believe in any sect; and he has freedom to change from nonbelief to belief, and from belief to nonbelief. Neither the state nor any organization or individual can forcefully interfere with people's free choice in matters of belief. The state will conscientiously protect people's freedom to believe in religion. The state power of a socialist country should not be used either to promote or to ban religion.... The citizens' right to believe in religion and propagate theism, as well as not to believe in religion and propagate atheism, is the right of freedom of religious belief granted by the constitution. All freedoms are relative, limited by objective circumstances, and can be implemented only within certain parameters. Freedom and discipline, rights and duties, all are categories with dialectical relationships.... Freedom of religious belief, like other democratic rights, has clear cut contents and definite limits. Religious believers, like other people among the masses, must fulfil the duties of citizens while enjoying freedom of religious belief... Therefore we have to know well the limits of civil rights as applied to freedom of religious belief and hold a dialectical view on the relationship between discipline and freedom." <33> Within this framework of interpretation of religious freedom, there are regulations issued which turn out to 'curb' the religious practice by western standards. In the context of "each citizen has the right to believe in religion and also has freedom not to believe in religion; he has freedom to believe in this religion or that religion", first of all, the government decided that in China children of believers were not allowed to be baptized or go through a ceremony to enter the religion of their parents until the age of eighteen. The reason given by religious cadres is that the traditional practice of baptizing a child into a Christian sect or letting him or her go through a ceremony to enter a religion is an act of imposing a religion on the child when s/he is still in infancy when s/he cannot freely choose a religion. The state prefers the child to choose his/her religious belief at the age of eighteen. Religious instruction then was not to be given to children below eighteen. Under this practice in the name of religious freedom, religion, especially Christianity is not so free to hand down from generation to generation as the west has been doing. For Chinese Christians, both Catholic and Protestant believers, this way of implementing religious freedom turns out to be one of the many ways of curbing their religious belief. On the other hand, since some in the west advocate the freedom of choice in religion the Chinese practice of not allowing religious adherents to hand down their religious beliefs from generations to generations appears to be acceptable. In the context of "Respecting and protecting the policy of freedom of religious belief is a long term policy", the CCP requests religious believers to respect the atheism which has been practised under the domain of the CCP. That is why the propagation of religion should be within the campus of religious houses, because the whole nation/society except the religious houses is practising atheism which demands the respect of religious believers in the name of religious freedom. For most Christians, the church is a mission; propagation of faith is the duty of Christian churches. For thousands of years the church has adhered to the teaching of Christ who asked His disciples "Go, then, to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples: baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit".<34> But in the name of respecting believers and nonbelievers, in China religion including Christianity cannot be practised or propagated as freely as in many states in the West, although China always proclaims that religious freedom has been a long term policy. Chinese Interpretation of Religious Freedom at Different Stages Religious Dissent in the 1950's In the early 1950's, for criminal cases, the targets were "anti-revolutionaries" who were commonly referred to in a broad term as "non-conformists" and "dissenters" from the orthodox viewpoint of the Party. This explains why religious believers who hold an opposite world view and ideology to the atheist Party have been taken as dissenters or non-conformists. Even though "religious freedom" was written explicitly into the Chinese constitution in 1954 and 1957, many Christians were accused of being anti-revolutionaries, rightists, and were jailed for non-religious reasons, while the provisions on "religious freedom" in the Chinese constitutions have been neglected almost completely.<35> Take the case of the late Bishop Dominic Deng Yiming of Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong province, for example.<36> He was arrested in 1957 amidst the political movement of purging rightists. For the first month of his detention he received daily interrogation, and the subject matters of questioning were around religious themes such as his rejection of the Three-Selfs Reform Movement and the government-patronized Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, Deng's indifference to the "Anti-American and Supporting Korean" Movement, Deng's reception of foreign aid and Papal directives, and Deng's relations with foreign missionaries who worked in Guangzhou under Deng's jurisdiction.<37> Then without going through any process of prosecution and having any verdict, Deng was jailed for twenty years, exceeding the maximum sentence for any criminal except for those offenders committed for life sentence and death sentence.<38> In this case, jailing Deng without trial was utterly wrong in legal procedure but was not uncommon practice in China. It reconfirmed that the standard of legality among legal personnel was so very inadequate and poor that they failed to perform their duty properly in the practice of law at that time. Moderate and Militant Approaches:The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution In this political context the effectiveness of practising freedom in religion under the Chinese constitution depends on two factors: (1) the degree of ideological control in the Party and (2) the understanding and upholding of Party ideology by legal personnel. The guidelines given to religious affairs cadres after 1951 were neither to prohibit nor to assist the development of religion. The tone and explanation of these guidelines suggested that they were directed mainly at Christian churches. Generally this has been regarded as a moderate line that lasted until the Great Leap Forward. From 1949, controlling infiltrating and regulating devices were applied to religion. Foreign missionaries who were suspected of being spies were arrested for reasons of national security. Missionary institutes funded by foreign money were closed down and all foreign missionaries expelled. This was because there were strong feelings of anti-foreignism and anti-US Imperialism when Chinese armies fought the American-dominated forces in the Korean War.<39> In general, the treatment of religions by China at that time was rather moderate, with an emphasis on the safeguarding of national security which was taken as the first priority for the new regime. Right after the 1949 Revolution, Li Weihan, the head of the United Front Department, explained that the CCP knew the political impact of religion, consequently the policy of religious freedom was devised as the basic policy of the party. Religious freedom policy was a means to encourage religious believers to work together with high motivation for the liberation of the whole nation, for social reconstruction, and ironically even for the withering of the roots of religions.<40> Militant lines with moderate methods based on Marxist dialectics in religious policy were applied. CCP crushed the Chinese Muslim revolt and suppressed those Muslims mercilessly in 1950, 1952 and 1958 revolts, while at the same time applying tactical leniency in dealing with the rest of the Chinese Muslims.<41> The arrests of the Catholic bishop of Shanghai (Gong Pinmei) and the bishop of Guangzhou (Deng Yiming) in 1955 and 1957 respectively took place because these two church leaders had resisted the government's demand of cutting off relations between the Chinese Catholic church and the Holy See.<42> The militant approach based on classical Marxism-Leninism came in 1958 when Mao thrust the whole nation into the Great Leap Forward in which the political attitude was switched to the left. Chinese political theorists claimed that the country had advanced further down the socialist road towards the advent of Communism. Religion was seen as a clearly unwelcome survivor from the past, and became the target of sharp contradiction with the proletariat.<43> Many evidences show that Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution were the worst enemies of religion. These hundreds of thousands of revolutionary teenagers were hooligans in the western sense. Christian churches together with other places of worship were desecrated and religious articles and literature were destroyed by the Red Guards in August 1966 at the peak of their frenzy as an action to destroy the 'Four Old Practices'(old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits of the exploiting classes).<44> Deng's Open Door Policy The Open Door policy in the Deng Era of modernization began with the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee of the CCP in December 1978. The Open Door policy was accompanied by a revitalization of intellectual life and the relaxation of many social policies. Religious leaders, especially Christian pastors and Catholic priests and nuns, after their release from jail just practised religious activities without bothering to obtain permission from the government. The CCP leaders preferred to have regulations with more freedom to circumscribe these religious believers in the orbit set up by the CCP rather than allow them freely to practise religions outside the surveillance of the Party. A very comprehensive regulation, Document No. 19, was issued to re-emphasise religious freedom with more concrete guidance and with such a great degree of freedom that it aroused the suspicion of many cadres and the worry of the Party. It reiterated that "religious freedom" should be properly enforced or implemented.<45> There followed some fanatical practice of religious activities including the opening of churches and rebuilding of temples and reopening national monitored religious organizations because the control of CCP had been weakened, Document No.3 was issued because the implementation of Document No.19 had been problematic. After the June 4 1989 massacre at the Tiananmen Square, China experienced at least one year of 'white terror' of arrests of the pro-democratic youth. Evidence reveals that the Chinese authorities in the 1990's continued to associate Christian activities with undesirable western influence. There was a series of campaigns which violated the internationally recognised right to freedom of religion as stated in Articles 18, 19, 20.1 and 26.3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Articles 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 5.2 and 6 of The 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief and Article 18 of the International Covenant On Civil and Political Rights. At the present juncture, China is suffering from an ideological vacuum, when Communism as an ideology has almost lost its attraction. Many sons and daughters of Chinese high officials have confessed to the author that they would not embrace Communism because they do not believe it is a workable ideology leading to the utopia as promised by Karl Marx. The control of ideological as well as political matters to stabilize the legitimacy of the ruling party is on the top priority of the national agenda of Beijing in the 90's. For the first time since 1949 the State Council convened a meeting on religious work in 1990. Li Peng the Premier gave a keynote speech in which he called for the tightening up of the control of religions which are agents of 'peaceful evolution and foreign infiltration'. He said: "By keeping a cool head, we see that imperialism and reactionary forces at home have never given up their strategy of 'peaceful evolution' to topple socialism. Therefore, the struggle between infiltration and anti-infiltration, subversion and anti-subversion, 'peaceful evolution and anti-peaceful evolution will in the days to come be... in front of us for a long time." <46> Conclusions In spite of the fact that the term "religious freedom" has been written in every Constitution of the People's Republic of China, due to the particular nature of the Communist Party state the constitution cannot curb the power of the ruling party but instead is at the service of the ruling party. Right after the 1949 Revolution, the Chinese law and legality had been turned into the instrument of the CCP to enforce the proletarian dictatorship. Thus, the interpretation and implementation of Chinese law including the constitution has been within the framework of the party line or state policy of that particular period of time. The training of legal personnel does not aim at the imparting of the knowledge of law and the western concepts of legality. Instead, the party line and state policy are the important components of the training curriculum. All in all, religious freedom has been very sensitive for Beijing's leaders, because religion in Chinese language means "teaching" [jiao]. The PRC claims that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with its ideology is the source of teaching authority. Thus, any religion can cause a clash of authority with the CCP, especially those religions which have their own organizational structure. This can pose a challenge to the CCP which presupposes that any civil organization within the Chinese boundary should be docile to the Party. Given this foundation of church and state relations in China on the one hand and the peculiarity in legal orientation on the other, the interpretation of the constitution and its provision of religious freedom cannot reach the internationally recognized standard, if indeed it is not completely put aside, in enforcing religious policy. There has developed a rhythm of relaxing and tightening in relation to religion at different periods of time in the course of political development in the PRC, according to the tune of the ideological control of the party of that particular time. There were intervals of moderate and militant approaches in dealing with ideological matters in the 50's in the Great Leap Forward, in the Cultural Revolution and in the modernization period of Deng, and in the enforcement of religious freedom. Our hypothesis which appears at the beginning of this article that "The Chinese interpretation of religious freedom depends on the CCP's policy on ideological matters" has been proved to be true. Moderate and militant approaches in enforcing ideological matters have been recorded in Mao's era, as well as in Deng's time of modernization; and this has a direct and explicit impact on the interpretation and implementation of China's religious freedom. However, with the rapid socio-economic development in China, the CCP's control of religion has been weakened, when the whole country appears to be suffering from the crisis of faith in Communism. The whole nation is facing problems resulting from a society with an ideological vacuum because Marxism-Leninism which since 1949 has been the only orthodox ideology appears to be inactive among the Chinese. Yet the CCP leaders have to cling to Communism as a political forum for their legitimate rule, even though they know quite well that in reality an ideological vacuum has been created and there is the possibility for religions and other ideologies to fill the vacuum. It is undesirable to make groundless predictions, yet with the socio-political development in China, one has reasons to believe that in the near future the control of the CCP on religion will be prominent as a means to preserve its legitimacy. This is because in the process of economic development in China, before the real fading away of Marxism-Leninism, the grasp at the last straw, as a sign of final struggle, will be the natural reaction of Beijing to try to uphold the ideology which provides them with the legitimacy of rule of the communist Party. Notes This is a revised draft prepared for the XVIIth International Congress of The International Association for the History of Religions, held at Mexico City, Mexico, on 5-12th August, 1995. The author is grateful to Professor Brian Bocking, Bath College of Higher Education, U.K. for his valuable comments and suggestions in the course of preparing this draft for publication. 1. There are many reports on arrest of religious believers. Asia Watch was established in 1985 to monitor and promote observance of internationally recognized human rights in Asia. Its publication has detail record in this matter. See:Asia Watch Committee. Freedom of Religion in China. New York. 1992.(A report on China's observance of human right) 2. The full text of these two documents are covered by Renmin Ribao 4 Feb. 1994. 3. S.A. de Smith. Constitutional and Administrative Law 3ed. London:Penguin Book, 1977.p.18 4. S.A. de Smith and Rodney Brazier. Constitutional and Administrative Law . 6th ed edition. Penguin Books. 1990.pp.6-7. 5. This way of comparing constitutions between western democracies and Communist Party states prevailed among scholars in the west as early as in the 1960's when Communism was spreading. See Jan. J. Triska ed. Constitution of the Communist Party States. Stanford University, The Hoover Institute of War, Revolution and Peace, 1968, Preface. 6. Ibid. 7. S.A. de Smith. Constitutional and Administrative Law. p.30. 8. Gregory Mahler. The Western Political System. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.p.372 9. S.A. de Smith. Constitutional and Administrative Law . p.30. 10. Zhang Youyu, "Yige Bizu Renzheng Yanjiu De Wenti" [A problem which must be researched seriously] Zhongguo Faxue [The Legal Studies in China] 2(1987):1-10 11. Chinese Protestants including Methodists, Anglicans, Baptists, and Presbyterians demanded by the CCP, responded to the "three selfs" policy by dropping their own denominational ties and uniting in a single 'post-denominational' church. The Chinese Christian Council, representing the one church was admitted to membership in the World Council of Churches in Feb. 1991, with the permission of the Chinese government. 12. South China Morning Post December 17, 1990. This religious cadre openly condemned this bishops' conference on various occasions especially when he was interviewed by reporters. 13. Asia Watch Committee. Freedom of Religion in China. New York. 1992.(A report on China's observance of human right)p.17. There are many reports on arrests and trial in this same report of this Committee. pp.13-26 14. Ibid. p.13 15. Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung. vol. IV, pp.411-28. 16. Fa Xue [Legal studies] (Shanghai) 6 1986:18-19. 17. Laszlo Ladany, a veteran yet controversial Sinologist after publishing the China News Analysis for nearly 30 years (1953-82) died on September 1990 with an insightful manuscript on Law and Legality in China unpublished. Marie-Louise Nath and Jurgen Domes, two German Sinologists, wrote the introductory and concluding chapters and helped to publish the work by Hurst & company in London in 1992. In his swan song Ladany employed his expertise in law together together with his 40 years of studying China. In this book he gave a concise analysis with depth on the legal development of China under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, opening a new horizon on the study of Chinese law in Communist rule. 18. Laszlo Ladany. Law and Legality in China. London:Hurst. 1992. pp.56-7. 19. Ibid. pp.56-7. 20. Ibid. pp.56-7. 21. Ibid. pp.79-80. 22. Renmin Ribao 7 and 24 Nov. 1978. 23. Laszlo Ladany. Law and Legality in China. p.84 24. Ibid. 25. Deng Xiaoping The opening speech of the 12th National Congress of the Chinese Communist party. [Document of the 12th National Congress of the Chinese Communist party] Hong Kong: San Luen. 1982. p.2 26. Zhang Kan. Zhongguo Faji gi Yanquan yu Kaigei [The Chinese Legal system:the Present and Reform] Hong Kong: Ming Pao Press. 1988.p.13 27. Ibid. 28. See note 3. 29. The Constitution of the People's Republic of China (Promulgated for Implementation on December 4, 1982) Beijing: Foreign Language Press.1983. Art. 5. 30. "Zhonggong Zhangyang Guanyu Woguo Shehui Zhuyo Shiqi Zongjiao Wenti De Jiben Zhengce" [Document 19, The Basic Policy and Standpoint Our Country Should Have on the Religious Question During This Period of Socialism]. Feiqing Yuebao 10 (April 1983) 31. Ibid. section 3, 32. Ibid. 3 33. Luo Zhufeng (ed) D. MacInnis (trans.) Religion Under Socialism in China London: M. E. Sharpe.1991.pp.138-9 34. Matthew. 28:20. 35. The were many reports and records in Kung Kao Po (1950-57) (Hong Kong Catholic Weekly News) on the persecution of Catholics in China. Since Hong Kong is a British ruled port at the southern coast of China, for the last forty years Hong Kong has been a favourable place for the study of China due to its freedom under the British rule as well as its accessibility to China. Taiwan Catholic scholars collected all the major conflicts including detailed records on numbers and names of death, expulsion, imprisonment of Catholic leaders and compiled a comprehensive account on church-state relations in mainland China. See Lo Yu & Wu Yan (eds.) Dalu Zhongguo Tianjujiao Sixinien Daxiji (1945-86) [A Report on Major Events in the Catholic Church of Mainland China] . Taibei: Fu Jen University Press. 1986. Two Catholic writers had explicit descriptions on the oppression of Christians in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. See Xin Jibai, Zhong Guo Tianjujiao Ke Qi Jiaonan [The Chinese Catholic Church and Its Persecution] . Hong Kong Giyau Press. 1954. Hang Tui Gei, Leiming Chen de Zhongguo Tianjujiao [The Chinese Catholic Church Before Dawn] .Taibei: Qingcheng & Guangqi Press. 1963. 36. Bishop Deng Yiming died in exile in the USA on 27th June 1995. 37. Bishop Dominic Deng Yiming after being jailed for 22 years without being prosecuted by the government was released in 1981. This was because China was trying to improve her image in the international community to attract foreign aid for the inner modernization programme launched by Deng Xiaoping in 1979. Dominic Deng wrote his memoir in 1987. See Deng Yiming, Tian Yi Mo Ce [How Incurable His Way] 4ed. n/p 1994.pp.125-6. 38. Ibid. p.157 39. A religious affair cadre spent 1949-59 working as a senior cadre in a provincial Religious Affairs bureau in south China. He used a pseudonym to write on the implementation of Chinese religious freedom policy. See Xiao Feng, "Zonggong Zenyang Dueidai Jiaohui he Zongjiao Tu" [ How did the CCP treat the church and religious believers]. Zhishi Fengi (Xianggang 1971) 65 (16 Nov.1970): 13-14 pt.1; 66 (16 Dec.1970): 21-4 pt.2; 67 (16 Jan.1971): 30-2pt. 3, 68 (16 Feb.1971) 29-30 Pt.4. 40. Li Weihan, Tongyi Zhanxian Wenti Yu Minzu Wenti [Questions on the United Front and Nationalities]. Beijing. Renmin. 1981. p.174. 41. Beatrice Leung. Sino-Vatican Relations: Problems of Conflicting Authority. Cambridge University Press. 1992. pp.84-88 42. Deng Yiming. Tian Yi Mo Ce [How Incurable His Way] 4ed. n/p 1994.pp.125-6. Also in gong Pinmei's "Letter of Appeal" in Beatrice Leung. Zonggong Yu Fendigang [The CCP and the Vatican] Taiwan: Fujen University Press.1995. Both Deng and Gong have detailed and clear statements on the reason why they were arrested and jailed. 43. Ya Hanzheng. "On Freedom of Religion". Hongqi no.28.1959, and Yao Xian et al. "Zhengque Renshi He Chuli Zongjiao Wenti". [Correctly Understand and Deal with Religion] Hongqi no.126, 1964. 44. Li Jinwei, Hongweibing Shilu [Facts About Red Guards] Xianggang: Shijia Huaqiao. 1967.p.230 45. Special Commentator. Guangming Ribao 30 Nov.1980 46. Bridge. No.49, Sept-October 1991, p.3 Cited in Freedom of Religion in China. p.6 END