4 Books on the Chinese Communist Party
There was a big birthday celebration in China earlier this month. July 1 marked the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party.
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China’s Foreign NGO Law
In a recent Christianity Today article on the wave of laws hitting foreign NGOs globally, Morgan Lee refers specifically to China when she writes, “Nearly 20 percent of the world’s population could lose access to the ministry efforts of Western Christians next year.”
Will China’s New Foreign NGO Law Affect Me?
If you’re with a non-profit organization that has activities in China, the new law applies to you, regardless of whether you are actually located in China.
Above or Below the Line
A look at possible responses to the new NGO law.
The New Normal for Faith-Based, Foreign NGOs in China
The Law on the Management of Foreign Non-Governmental Organizations' Activities within Mainland China was passed on April 28, 2016 and will take effect January 1, 2017.
4 Takeaways from Xi’s Speech on Religion
At a long-awaited national conference on religion, held in Beijing April 22-23, CPC General Secretary Xi Jinping outlined his vision for “helping religions adapt to the socialist society” under the direction of the Party. Here are a few prominent themes from Xi’s speech.
Foreign NGO Management Law
Earlier this month a spokesman for China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) announced that the NPC Standing Committee is scheduled to review the draft law governing foreign NGOs operating in China.
Ideology and Orthodox Authority
One of my favorite China books is The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History, by Joanna Waley-Cohen. In it she chronicles China’s historical interactions with the outside world, arguing that China has never been as isolationist as historians have suggested. What the West often perceived as isolationist policies or attitudes were instead China’s insistence that authority must never be surrendered to outsiders.
Two Meetings, Three Hands
Some things just don’t translate well from Chinese into English. Take, for example the annual government meetings that are taking place in Beijing this week. In Chinese the meetings are referred to as Liang Hui (两会), which literally means “two meetings” (sometimes also translated as “sessions”). Using such a term in English to describe a conference, however, leads only to blank stares.
Assessing Political Reform in China
More than 35 years after Deng Xiaoping’s ascendancy to power, a sober assessment of the political implications of Deng’s reforms is much needed. China’s Political Development: Chinese and American Perspectives proposes to fill this gap by bringing together the insights of two dozen eminent scholars, twelve each from China and the United States, to address key aspects of governance reform since 1978.
Church-State Relations in Light of the Cross Demolition Campaign
On July 16, the website of the Pushi Institute for Social Science published a long piece titled "Considering the Future of church-state relations in China after the 2-14-2015 Zhejiang Cross Dispute." It had originally been published in the Christian Times. It’s a rather long piece so we have decided to excerpt two parts.
Continuing Class Struggle and the Politics of Religion in China
In a recent post I wrote about the paradoxical treatment of religion in China’s Constitution. On the one hand, Article 36 of the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. On the other hand, the same article puts clear conditions on this freedom, making it subject to the needs of the state as defined by the Communist Party of China.