2015-05-25
Chinese Catholics attend a mass to mark the ascension of Jesus at a Catholic church in Tianjin, in northern China on May 24, 2015.
AFP
The ruling Chinese Communist Party has warned that any of its members who harbor religious beliefs or take part in religious activities could become the targets of its powerful disciplinary arm.
In an opinion article published at the weekend, the newsletter of the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), said the problem of religious believers within party ranks is “attracting serious concern.”
“The fact that a small number of party members have forsaken the party’s world view of dialectical materialism and have turned to religion is now attracting serious concern, to the extent that it now falls within the purview of disciplinary work,” the article, published on Sunday, said.
“Marx himself stated baldly that communism, in essence, begins with atheism,” the China Discipline Inspection Report article said.
“There can be no doubt about the fact that the founding ideological principle that Communist Party members cannot be religious believers has been upheld by our party from the outset,” the paper said.
China’s Communist Party members number 86.7 million, some six percent of the country’s population, second only to the 88 million claimed by India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), according to figures released in 2014.
According to the article, party members don’t enjoy any right to religious freedom, a right which many religious believers complain is routinely violated by officials across the country.
“Chinese citizens have the freedom of religious belief, but Communist Party members aren’t the same as regular citizens; they are fighters in the vanguard for a communist consciousness,” the paper said.
“They are firm Marxists, and also atheists.”
“That’s why it has been clearly stated in party rules that Communist Party members may not hold religious beliefs, nor must they take part in religious activities,” the article warned.
Beijing Protestant house church member Xu Yonghai said the article shows growing concern among party leaders that many in the rank and file of the party have quietly ceased to believe in communism, prompted by the political violence of the Mao era and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) crackdown that ended the 1989 pro-democracy movement.
“Since the Cultural Revolution [1966-1976] and June 4, 1989, a lot of people have lost their faith in communism,” Xu said.
“Many of them went on to find an authentic faith, and became Protestant Christians,” he said. “Back in the 1990s, a lot of people wanted to leave the party, but later on they found that they couldn’t.”
“Either they weren’t allowed to, or it was made very difficult for them, so that’s why we now have this problem,” Xu said, adding: “Genuine believers in communism are few and far between, nowadays.”
According to Beijing-based Protestant pastor Liu Fenggang, this loss of faith reaches right to the highest echelons of party leadership.
