Christians face increased risks in China

A church stands beside a busy highway in the southern Chinese city of Wenzhou, its steeple shrouded in construction tarp. Its cross is gone, unceremoniously removed. A short distance away another church, a gleaming new structure only barely finished, has been reduced by wrecking equipment to a crater of rubble in another hillside. Police stand in the pouring rain to keep visitors from driving down the road that passes by.

Across Zhejiang, the Chinese province where Wenzhou is located, Christians have counted at least 100 churches forced to make alterations, knock down wings or remove crosses in recent months. It is the most visible evidence of a renewed Chinese effort to restrict the spread of religion, and particularly Christianity, which had until recently flourished over a decade that saw China soften its enforcement of rules that outlaw anything that officially sanctioned worship.

The changes are visible across China, with Christians being detained, publishers facing sudden restrictions on printing new Christian books and rising concern among those whose faith is again placing them at renewed risk in a country often criticized for religiously-motivated human rights violations.

Its very worrisome, said Bob Fu, the founder of China Aid, a Texas-based group that advocates for Christian rights in China. Mr. Fu, who helped human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng leave China, said he has seen official documents that suggest the Chinese central government sees an imperative to, as he put it, contain the rapid growth of Christianity, or religion.

China is home to one of the worlds fastest-growing populations of Christians 67 million in 2010 (or 5 per cent of the population, compared with 18 per cent for Buddhism), according to the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project. At the time of the Communist revolution in 1949, there were an estimated four million Christians. At its current rate of expansion, China may one day be home to more Christians than any other nation.

Underground churches and seminaries so-called because they are unofficial and operate in a legal grey zone have in recent years flourished in plain sight, some occupying large office buildings and welcoming parishioners by the many hundreds.

But the past year has seen China clamp down on free speech and lock up hundreds of prominent online critics and human rights lawyers. That effort is now expanding to religion, in a campaign that now threatens a much larger segment of the countrys population.

In May, Zhang Chunxian, the Communist Party chief in Chinas far western Xinjiang territory, pledged strengthened management of religious affairs in accordance with the law, according the state-run Xinhua news agency. Those remarks were seen as opening a round of new crackdowns on Muslims in that region. However, it has become clear that they also gave voice to a broader effort to regulate religion nation-wide.

Many attribute the changes to Xi Jinping, who has waged a broad battle since becoming president a year ago on any force he sees as potentially threatening to the rule of the Communist Party.

We can see that the new central government is really much more controlling, said Max, a former pastor who asked to be identified only by his English first name for fear of repercussions as he remains an active Christian outreach worker.

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Christians face increased risks in China