The chairman of the national committee of the CPPCC, Jia Qinglin’s (pictured) comments come amidst rising tensions and expectations from China’s rapidly growing Christian population. The state “should fully follow the policy on freedom of religious belief, implement the regulations on religious affairs, and conduct thorough research on important and difficult issues related to religion," Jia said on March 3.

"We should guide religious leaders and believers to improve their lives, and make full use of their positive role in promoting social harmony," he said. The state will also liberalize its control of the growing professional classes, he said according to a report released by the official China Daily. The CPPCC needs to "maintain close ties with members of the emerging social strata, such as private entrepreneurs, accountants and lawyers,” he said and should “show concern for their interests, open up channels for them to articulate their views, and guide them to conscientiously assume social responsibilities and effectively promote socialist development with Chinese characteristics."

Founded in 1949, the CPPCC “consists of elite members of the Chinese society who are willing to serve the think tank for the government and for the country's legislative and judicial organs. As an open forum where the ruling [Communist Party of China], non-Communist parties and people without party affiliation discuss state affairs freely and on an equal footing, the CPPCC has been the manifestation of China's socialist democracy,” a Chinese government handout states.

The government minister stated that according to official figures kept by the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) there were 10 million Protestants and 4 million Catholics in China. The Church Christian Council/Three Self Movement and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association are the country’s only official Christian bodies and the statistics cited by Jia likely refer only to those groups.

According to the émigré organization, the China Aid Association, the number of unofficial Christians is 10 times as large. SARA director Yie Xiaowen reported there were 110 million Protestants and 20 million Catholics in China by the close of 2006. The news was given to briefings held at Beijing Universities and the Chinese Academy of Social Science last year for party cadres, academics and government officials.

At the close of the Chinese revolution in 1949 there were an estimated 750,000 Chinese Protestants, many of whom subsequently fled to Taiwan and Hong Kong following the defeat of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces.

Despite overtures from SARA, relations between the Vatican and the Chinese government remain frosty. Last month during a trip to Washington Yie Xiaowen and the vice president of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association Anthony Liu Bainian expressed the hope that Pope Benedict XVI might visit China during the Olympics. “The distance between the two sides is getting shorter and shorter,” Ye said.

However three Catholic bishops have disappeared into the Chinese Laogias, the state’s system of forced labour camps, while the remaining underground bishops are in forced isolation, the official Patriotic bishops are kept under close watch, several bishops have died at the hands of the police and a large number of priests have been jailed. "If we don't arrive at a decent level of religious freedom, what can the Pope do in Beijing?" a Vatican spokesman told Reuters last week.

Persecution of China’s “House Church” movement continues, the China Aid Association, and has seen a marked rise as China prepares for the Olympic Games. The latest incident of persecution reported to the West occurred on Feb 18 when a police raid on a Bible class for House Church led to the arrest of 70 pastors in the city of Shangqiu in Henan province.

The Chinese government’s evolving of policies toward religious freedom emphasizes the pragmatic benefits of a settled religious landscape, while seeking to stamp out individual or collective expressions of religious conscience outside of government-approved norms.

Ding Wenfang, a member of the CPPCC’s national committee and vice president of the China Islamic Association told China Daily religious believers should strengthen national unity and promote religious harmony.

“The unity of the 56 ethnic groups in China and religious harmony are necessary to build a harmonious society,” he explained.



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