The basic principles of the implementation of the religious policy of the People's Republic of China in the period from XVI to XVIII National Congress of the CPC

Pomelova Yuliya PhD in History Educator, the department of History and Theory of International Relations, Institute of International Relations and World History, National Research Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod 603005, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanova str., 2, office 325 sup.nn@mail.ru Other publications by this author

China's position affects the development of the global world community and is interesting for other countries. Understanding the socio-cultural processes that have taken place in China is important not only for political life within this country, but also for countries bordering the PRC and maintaining international contacts with China. Moreover, China, which is dynamically developing in all spheres, claims a more significant place in the world community. The principle of Deng Xiaoping's foreign policy of "hiding opportunities and keeping in the shadows" has ceased to be relevant for China, which is powerful in the economic, political and military spheres.  It was replaced by the concept of the "community of the common destiny of mankind", which marks the implementation of a multi-vector and active foreign policy, which was put forward in 2011. Xi Jinping ^[1] and developed in his subsequent speeches.

During the seventy-year history of the CPC state policy, five generations of leaders associated with the leadership periods of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping have been replaced at the head of the party-state apparatus. Consistent economic growth and the successful passage of the 2008 crisis have consolidated China's role as one of the main world powers and strengthened the sense of national respect and importance. Since the XVI National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the coming to power of the "fourth generation" of party and state leaders, socio-cultural priorities have become more frequent among the goals and objectives of modernization, and the approach to solving internal problems of the PRC has become more complex. Attention to social and cultural issues was caused both by the undoubted economic success of the PRC and by extraordinary events, such as, for example, the SARS epidemic in 2003 and the earthquake in Wenchuan, Sichuan Province, which showed the vulnerability of the PRC's social system and the possibility of involving religious institutions in solving social issues.

After the XVI Congress of the CPC, it was necessary to formulate more specific characteristics of the future social development of the PRC. For the first time, the concept of a "harmonious society" was mentioned in September 2004 in the decisions of the IV Plenum of the CPC Central Committee of the XVI convocation ^[2]. The concept of a "harmonious society" and the ways of creating a "harmonious culture" were described in detail in 2006 in the Resolution of the CPC Central Committee on the most important issues of creating a harmonious socialist society. According to this document, a harmonious socialist society is "a society full of vitality and energy, and at the same time a society of unity and harmony" ^{[3, p. 29]}. A special emphasis in the document is placed on the formation of social harmony, it is assigned the role of "an essential attribute of socialism with Chinese characteristics, an important guarantee of the wealth and power of the country, the revival of the nation and the happiness of the people" ^{[3, p. 1]}. The concept of a "harmonious society" is aimed at forming the unity of the "multinational Chinese people", harmonious should become relations between different social strata, including interreligious relations. The concept of a "harmonious society" continues the policy pursued by the leaders of the "second" and "third" generation, in particular, in preserving the main role of modernization and development.

During the presidency of Hu Jintao, all public relations related to religious issues were regulated. The most significant document of the period under review is the Regulation "On Religious Activity" of 2005, adopted by the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The new version of the regulation was adopted in 2017. The "Regulation" defines the basic conditions for the functioning of religious communities: from registration to the organization of mass events and the construction of new religious facilities ^[4]. Moreover, legislative acts were issued at all territorial and administrative levels, which underlines the special importance attached to the religious sphere during the period under review. For example, the central level includes the Regulation "On Religious Activities" adopted by the State Council in 2005 and comprehensively regulating the activities of religious communities, the provincial level includes "Measures to implement the 2005 Regulation "On Religious Activities" in the Tibetan Autonomous Region from 2007", the district level includes "Temporary measures for the management of Tibetan Buddhism in Aba County".

Naturally, the practical task of managing religious institutions in China was not innovative and has been fixed almost since the Han era. The need to regulate religious issues during the period under review is caused, among other things, by the gradual development of religious communities in the period after the Cultural revolution and the refusal of the party leadership from the belief that religion is not necessary and at a certain stage of social development, the masses of the people "will overthrow idols with their own hands" ^[5] without the direct participation of the CPC.

The tasks of conducting religious policy at this stage are very obvious both in the medium and long term. First of all, the state's domestic political interests included maintaining stability in regions with a large proportion of ethnic minorities living, preventing opposition sentiments among Chinese citizens. In the long term, if the religious policy is successfully implemented, "normal" religious activities carried out through patriotic associations contribute to increasing the manageability and consolidation of the "multinational Chinese people".

However, the comprehensive regulation of religion does not lead to its simplification, but to the creation of an increasingly diversified and difficult to manage religious system. The religious system of the PRC can be conditionally divided into the following categories, having developed the model of a triple "religious market" in China, proposed by Professor Yan Feng of Purdue University ^[6].

The first category includes five state-recognized organized religious associations. The Chinese government officially recognizes five religions: Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism and Taoism. Followers of each of the five religions join the official patriotic religious association, which is their official representative in the state apparatus.  According to Document No. 19 of the CPC Central Committee of 1982, Article 7, one of the main tasks of patriotic religious associations is "to help the broad masses of believers and religious figures in constantly raising their patriotic and socialist consciousness, ... (and also) to be a link for party and government work to attract, unite and educate people in religious circles" ^[7].

During the period from the XVI to the XVIII All-China Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), patriotic associations were under the ideological and administrative control of the State Administration for Religious Affairs of the PRC, which regulated the implementation of religious policy at all administrative and territorial levels. The department, in turn, was subordinate to the Working Department of the Unified Front of the CPC Central Committee, which also had its own regional branches. The State Administration for Religious Affairs was dissolved in 2018, transferring all religious issues to the management of the Working Department of the United Front of the CPC Central Committee, which is now the main link between the leadership of the CPC and religious groups, as well as national minorities in China.

Of course, in the perception of the Chinese authorities, freedom of religion is not the same as the right to profess and practice any religion or carry out any religious activity. For Chinese citizens, freedom of religion is the exercise of "normal" religious activity within the framework of the law, that is, the voluntary participation of citizens in the activities of a religious community organized under the control of official religious associations. Normal religious activities and beliefs in the PRC are protected by law. According to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China of 1982, "the state protects the normal exercise of religious activity" ^[8]. However, the meaning of "the normal exercise of religious activity" remains uncertain and may have a fairly broad interpretation.

The state generously sponsors patriotic associations and their religious communities, but at the same time regulates all possible spheres of their activities, and also obliges them to contribute to the support of the existing political system among believers and not to interact with representatives of foreign countries.

In the second category, we have included organized religious groups banned by the state. The most famous example, of course, is the organization "Falun Gong", the campaign against which created a legal basis for restricting the activities of "societies of heretical teachings". For example, the "Information Message of the Ministry of Public Security No. 39 on various issues concerning the identification and prohibition of cult organizations" defined the characteristics of the "society of heretical teaching": a. the creation of an illegal organization for the purpose of religious practice, qigong practice; b. the deification of leaders; c. the creation and dissemination of superstitions and heretical beliefs; d. the use of various means to create and spread superstitions and heretical beliefs in order to recruit and control members of the organization through deception and the emergence of doubts; d. violation of public order, damaging the lives and property of citizens" ^{[9, p. 22-23]}. The Criminal Code of the People's Republic of China also prescribes types of punishments for carrying out the activities of "organizations of a sectarian and heretical nature" ^[10]. 

The third category, in contrast to the extreme positions of legality and illegality, is a gray, shadowy area of religious regulation. This category includes religious activities and religious organizations with an uncertain legal status. First of all, folk beliefs, such as veneration of ancestors, belief in spirits, following feng shui. Such religious beliefs are not amenable to regulation due to the widest possible prevalence and lack of a management system. The gray area also includes illegal activities of adherents of legal religious groups, for example, Christians who are parishioners of underground "home" churches. 

In the system of a hierarchical vertical of power (patriotic associations – the Department of Religious Affairs – the Working Department of the United Front), officially unrecognized religious associations (even such universally recognized world religions as Judaism and Orthodoxy) do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Working Department of the United Front.  The regulation of religious activities taking place outside the five patriotic associations, including the "people's religion", often depends on the actions of local officials. Moreover, "even within the five officially recognized religions, most of the growth takes place outside of the patriotic associations controlled by the CPC and, therefore, is not under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Religious Affairs of the PRC. For example, "the vast "underground" Catholic Church is about three times larger than the officially recognized Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association" ^{[11, p. 61]}. But the more extensive the "shadow area" becomes, the more difficult it is to regulate it.

Accordingly, if social movements fall out of the control of one state body, control is carried out by other methods and other organizations. The Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China monitors and ensures the implementation of laws by unrecognized religious movements, in particular, "organizations of heretical teachings." Religious movements, officially recognized or not, that pose a threat to state security also fall under their jurisdiction.

 Thus, the state has secured the prerogative of defining "normal" and destructive religious activity, the eradication of "feudal superstitions" and "heretical teachings." In a relatively short period of time, Chinese society has moved from banning any religious practice to allowing certain religions, which cannot but cause contradictions between the freedom of religion proclaimed in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China and the suppression of certain religious groups. Of course, for citizens of the People's Republic of China, freedom of religion does not imply the opportunity to become a follower of any creed and carry out any religious practice. The choice is limited to "normal" religious activities within the framework of patriotic religious associations. For the party-state authorities, freedom of religion presupposes a wide choice of religious policy tools to control this sphere of public life.

In particular, during the period under review, the CPC supported the ethical and philosophical teachings of Confucius as a tool for preserving social stability, hierarchy, consensus, respect for authority and opposition of Chinese culture to the Western system of values and customs. The principles of Confucianism were used to ensure the necessary legitimization of the political regime. In general, the understanding of the state as the greatest value is characteristic of the political culture of the People's Republic of China. The Confucian idea of the perception of the state as a large family can be traced in the modern paternalistic nature of power. The Confucian Renaissance had a deep socio-political conditioning, while the apology of Confucianism in the PRC in the 2000s and 2010s was - and still is – under the powerful ideological and institutional Marxist-Leninist auspices of the CPC. During the period under review, Confucianism was intentionally, however, not officially, elevated to the rank of the state religion, which claims to represent the whole of China in the outside world, as well as the most recognizable there.

Thus, the religious processes of the PRC are regulated at three levels: the separation between "legal" religious activities and the activities of "societies of heretical teachings"; the reform of recognized religious associations, restrictions on activities, control through national associations; and the third level – the creation of a national identity acceptable to the state, including a religious component constructed from the existing traditional culture, a fusion of neo-Confucianism and popular elements of "folk religion".

The political course regarding religion remains unchanged, having been formed based on the danger that the Chinese leadership sees not only in destructive cults, but also in adherents of Tibetan Buddhism, in Uighur Muslims, "underground" Catholics or Protestant "house churches". In fact, any believer in the PRC does not inspire confidence in the authorities. The worship of another deity is a violation of the hegemony of the party–state power. This attitude is explained not only by the historical conditions of the penetration of Christianity into China or Marxist ideology, but also by the lack of awareness of officials working in the religious sphere. All officials working in the State Administration for Religious Affairs of the State Council of the People's Republic of China are members of the CPC, which means they are atheists.

Summing up, it should be noted that the pragmatic religious policy implemented in the period between the XVI and XVII Congresses largely consisted of establishing comprehensive control over the religious sphere of public life. The predominant choice of methods of strict regulation among all other methods of managing religions tells us about distrust of religion as an instrument of destabilizing forces hostile to both communist ideology and the Chinese nation-state. The combination of this distrust with the desire to use the religious factor in creating a "harmonious society" causes the existence of many unresolved problems of a political and religious nature.