Published by: THE WORLD UYGHUR NETWORK NEWS October 16, 1997

10/13/97, Beijing Xinhua, FBIS Transcribed Text

BEIJING, October 13 (Xinhua) -- The head of the State Council's Bureau of religious Affairs said here today that because of the Chinese government's policy, various religions are alive and well and are going through what many believers call a "golden period". According to Ye Xiaowen, Taoism, Islam, and Christianity have 85,000 places of worship nationwide and some 3,000 religious groups. The country has 10 million Christians, compared with only 700,000 in 1949, he said. In the Tibet Autonomous Region, he noted, there are over 1,700 places of worship and 46,000 monks and nuns living in lamaseries and monasteries. In northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region alone, there are 23,000 mosques that are home to approximately 30,000 religious officials, and since the early 1980s, more than 40,000 people have made the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Ye went on to say that Chinese believers have all kinds of religious activities, chanting sutras, preaching, or being baptised, both at home or in sites of worship and they have religious festivals that are protected by Chinese laws. In Tibet, sutra halls and statues of Buddha can be found in almost every Buddhist's house and prayer flags are a common sight. Each year Lhasa, Tibet's capital, has a million pilgrims.

Nevertheless, he said, some religious organizations have appeared in China since 1980s engaging in illegal activities under the pretext of carrying out religion, and although there are only a handful of people, they have done considerable harm. This is attributed to the fact that China is still at a primary stage of socialism when there are remnants of feudalism.

They may mislead people when the country is undergoing great social changes and is opening to all kinds of intellectual and cultural influences, Ye said.

The heads of these organizations are mostly pleasure seekers with no jobs, he added. They either distort religious doctrine, deceiving people and getting them to resist the law or cheat people out of their money and get them together for sexually promiscuous activities.

"The general public, including religious believers, hate these people bitterly," said Ye, "No country in the world can tolerate criminal activities under the guise of religion, and China will not." He said that Chinese government has cracked down on some of these religious groups because of its obligation to protect the people's interests and safeguard the dignity of the law and that this is to better protect religious freedom and normal religious activities.

The Communist Party, as the party in power in China, has been implementing an earnest policy of religious freedom, and although it consists of atheists, it has never stopped the people from believing in religion.

"The Communist Party of China is in favor of abiding by the law on religious development and opposes suppressing religion with administrative power," he said.

Although there are various religions among the 1.2 billion Chinese, he said, they have the fundamentally same interest in building a more powerful, more democratic, and more civilized country and in safeguarding national sovereignty and dignity.

Moreover, with this common interest, the Chinese people should consider the difference between theists and atheists as a matter of secondary importance, and should not let it escalate into antagonism, he said. There should be mutual respect and mutual understanding in seeking common ground but preserving differences.

China has a long history of religion mingled with Chinese culture, which has a central theme of forgiveness, peacefulness, and "not doing unto others what you would not have them do unto you." Religion has also contributed to the Chinese culture, and the Communist Party cherishes all traditional culture, including religious culture, he added.

"Feudal rulers throughout the history viewed religion with lenience and respect, and unlike in Western countries, in the several thousand years of Chinese civilization there has never been any large-scale religious persecution or religious wars," he said.

"Religions with different origins or doctrines can co-exist harmoniously and develop in a healthy way. This is the historical basis under which the Party carries out the policy of religious freedom," Ye concluded.