Published by: World Tibet Network News, Tuesday, August 13, 1996

By William Kazer

BEIJING, Aug 12 (Reuter) - China warned on Monday of the threat of religious infiltration, saying hostile foreign forces were using religion to undermine its socialist system.

The widespread construction of temples and churches had also created a heavy economic burden, it said.

"Hostile international forces resort to ethnic and religious issues to 'westernise' and 'split' socialist countries and step up religious infiltration," the official People's Daily said.

"In some places in China, the rampant construction of temples and churches has exerted heavy economic burdens on local religious believers," it quoted Wang Zhaoguo, a senior Communist Party official, as saying.

Religion had interfered in government administration, judicial matters, education and in marriages, he said.

China has taken a tougher line against religious activities of late after a period of relative tolerance that has permitted a substantial revival of worship around the country.

The shift appears to have been made amid fears religion was loosening Communist Party control and fanning the flames of ethnic separatist groups in regions such as Buddhist Tibet and Moslem Xinjiang, Western human rights workers have said.

In January, religious authorities ordered all places of worship to register with the government.

Beijing has also said a key task was to cultivate young patriotic religious preachers.

Amnesty International said in a recent report that tight rules on religion had led to arbitrary detention of those peacefully exercising their right to worship and it called on Beijing to ease its stance.

The importance of controlling religion in deeply devout Tibet was underscored early this year when President and Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin met the official reincarnation of the Panchen Lama and urged the six-year-old boy to defend patriotism in the region.

Beijing enthroned Gyaincain Norbu as the "soul boy" recipient of the spirit of the 10th Panchen Lama, who died in 1989, arousing a storm of controversy as it superseded the announcement of a different reincarnation by Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

The official media have also bitterly attacked Moslem separatists in the far western region of Xinjiang.

Beijing has tightened border controls in the restive region to prevent the smuggling of weapons and subversive materials from neighbouring Moslem states after a spate of pro-independence bombings and assassination attempts.

Officials in the central province of Anhui issued a warning late last year against illegal activities under the banner of Christianity.

China has also witnessed a revival of Christianity, with many new churches being built, especially in rural areas despite controls on the construction of new places of worship.

China's Catholic and Protestant churches, both controlled by the state, claim several million followers but many more are believed to worship underground.