Alex Buchan has a source inside the Communist Party in China.<\/p>\n\n
The Hong Kong-based reporter calls him a \u201chigh-ranking official\u201d active in Chinese efforts to monitor and control religion. This source is a secret Christian. Buchan won\u2019t say whether a recent meeting took place in Hong Kong or during the journalist\u2019s latest trip into China. However, the contents of this anonymous interview will cause discomfort on both sides of America\u2019s fierce debates on religious persecution.<\/p>\n\n
Americans must realize that Chinese officials deny that \u201cdiscrimination\u201d equals \u201cpersecution,\u201d said the source. Chinese Christians automatically lose many educational and economic rights. They can practice their faith only in settings controlled by the Communist Party, which also judges whether they are \u201cheretics.\u201d That\u2019s discrimination.<\/p>\n\n
Persecution is when believers are \u201cthrown in jail, beaten, harassed, physically abused in some direct fashion,\u201d he said. \u201cNow I may be too far up the tree to know what\u2019s going on at the roots, but I would be very surprised if there were more than a couple of hundred people incarcerated for their Christian faith. \u2026 It is wrong to say there is no persecution, but it is minimal when you consider the Christian community may number more than 50 million.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
So is the glass half empty or half full? Those calling for sanctions will say it\u2019s appalling that hundreds are in jail for openly practicing their faith. Those seeking increased ties with China will say this statement is another sign of progress.<\/p>\n\n
This assumes that anyone reads the interview. If Buchan worked for the New York Times or CNN, it would have been discussed by politicians and pundits during Chinese President Jiang Zemin\u2019s recent U.S. media blitz. After all, news reports often cite mysterious \u201chigh-ranking officials.\u201d However, Buchan doesn\u2019t work in a prestigious newsroom. The veteran British reporter works for Compass Direct, a Christian news service covering religious-liberty issues.<\/p>\n\n
If the New York Times printed this interview, it would be news. But Compass Direct carried it, so it\u2019s merely data on the Internet. Many will doubt that Buchan\u2019s source is real. So, if the cell door slams on a priest in China, and CNN doesn\u2019t report it, does it make a sound?<\/p>\n\n
In a totalitarian society, noted Buchan, it\u2019s easy to quote those who make the laws, such as Communist leaders, and those who obey the laws, such as state-sanctioned clergy. The problem is reaching those, such as his source, who oppose the laws.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cTo dissent openly in China is a huge undertaking, often involving exile and the disgrace of one\u2019s family,\u201d said Buchan. Many Chinese believers \u201cwant to tell the truth, but they want to stay too. So its truth without attribution. Take it or leave it. They didn\u2019t make the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Compass Direct has been breaking stories that occasionally filter into other media. One example: the arrest of Protestant house church leader Xu Yongze for \u201cheresy\u201d and his eventual sentencing to 10 years in a labor camp.<\/p>\n\n
According to Buchan\u2019s source in China, these kinds of repressive acts have increased in recent years, but the overall trend has been towards freedom. \u201cThere is much more religious freedom today than 20 years ago and all indicators suggest that there will be much more freedom in 20 years. \u2026 China is committed to capitalism, which will continue to open the country up to Western ways, and the Maoist ideology \u2014 the motor of past persecution \u2014 is worn-out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
This is essentially the viewpoint of the White House and others who say that economic change will produce improved human rights, not vice versa. But the anonymous official also stressed that China continues to fear, and misunderstand, the power of religious faith.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cBuddhism especially is booming in the provinces,\u201d said the source. \u201cIt\u2019s the fastest growing religion by far. But Christianity is also growing, especially among educated young people. \u2026 To a generation that genuinely thought religion had been virtually exterminated, its resurgence is puzzling. \u2018Where did religion go, if it wasn\u2019t destroyed?\u2019, said one of the Party leaders to me recently. I answered: \u2018It went where it always is \u2014 the heart.'\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alex Buchan has a source inside the Communist Party in China. The Hong Kong-based reporter calls him a \u201chigh-ranking official\u201d active in Chinese efforts to monitor and control religion. This source is a secret Christian. Buchan won\u2019t say whether a recent meeting took place in Hong Kong or during the journalist\u2019s latest trip into China. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n