André Laliberté

Religions, Charity, and Non-State
Welfare in Contemporary China

Working Paper #19

Working Paper Series of the HCAS
“Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities”#19: André Laliberté. “Religions, Charity, and Non-State Welfare in Contemporary
China.” Leipzig University, 2020.
© André LalibertéThis Working Paper has been published online and can be downloaded fromwww.multiple-secularities.de/publications/working-papers or ordered in print via
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Please cite as:
Laliberté, André. “Religions, Charity, and Non-State Welfare in Contemporary
China.” Working Paper Series of the HCAS “Multiple Secularities – Beyond theWest, Beyond Modernities” 19. Leipzig University, 2020.

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Content

1 Introduction ..................................................................................................3
2 Religious Work and Philanthropy from 1949 to 1978 .............................5
2.1 Corporatist Regulation and the Disappearance of Religious
Charitable Activities .............................................................................7
2.2 The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution ..................11
3 Religion and Philanthropy under Deng and Jiang .................................14
3.1 The Return to An Accommodating Policy on Religion in a
Changed Context.................................................................................15
3.2 The End of Class Struggle and the Rehabilitation of Charity........18
4 Religious Charity and Civil Society under Hu........................................22
4.1 Religious Work under Hu...................................................................23
4.2 Establishing the Substance of ‘Harmonious Society’ with
the Help of Philanthropy....................................................................25
4.3 Towards a Restoration of Religious Charity?...................................28
5 Religious Charity under Xi Jinping ..........................................................34
6 Conclusion...................................................................................................40
7 Bibliography.................................................................................................421

Religions, Charity, and Non-State Welfare inContemporary China
1 Introduction
This paper is part of broader research on social welfare, understood in its
broadest sense as social security, education, and health care, which the state
has taken over gradually from religions as it has established its authority
and thereby the ontological and the teleological legitimacy of secularity asa pillar of modernity. The paper explores the Chinese Communist Party’s
evolving attitude towards religious affairs and philanthropy.
In many societies, secularity has been the response to the problems ofindividual freedom, inter-religious conflict, and social differentiation forthe sake of efficiency and due to industrialization. In these societies, thestate, and, subsequently, medical and educational establishments, gradually
wrested social welfare management away from religious institutions. This
process has advanced most in highly industrialized societies, and has taken
different forms based on denominational differences, political alignments,
and class coalitions.1 The process still faces contestation from conservative
forces that would like to see religious associations take charge of a greater
array of social services. This is particularly the case in the United States.
In post-colonial societies,2 there has been considerable variation in thewelfare state’s commitments and ideals. However, most new states havefailed to match the achievements of the liberal, industrialized economies
of North America, Western Europe, Oceania, and Japan. Religious institutions have remained important providers of social welfare and have evenbecome involved in development. This reality has received increasing recognition from international organizations, and there has also been significant progress in research on this subject.3123Kees van Kersbergen and Philip Manow, eds., Religion, Class Coalitions, and WelfareStates (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
‘Post-colonial societies’ denotes both the countries that emerged following the late eighteenth-century revolutions in the Americas, and those that emerged following the post-WorldWar II revolutions in the MENA, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia.
Melani Cammett and Lauren M. Mclean, “Introduction: The Political Consequences of
Non-State Social Welfare in the Global South,” Studies in Comparative International Development 46, no. 1 (2011); Emma Tomalin, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Religions and3

A third category of societies such as Russia and China that experienced
radical social revolution remains largely unexplored.4 These countries andthe societies under their influence promoted a sudden resolution of what
they viewed as the problems created by religion. However, since the fall of
the Soviet Union and China’s turn to neo-mercantilism, they present uswith a theoretically challenging problem. In both cases, the societies haveappeared to retreat to the pre-revolutionary situation, with the Orthodox
episcopate in Russia becoming important again, and traditional forms of
religiosity in China becoming more visible again. What to conclude fromthis observation? A retreat away from the condition of secularity appears
highly implausible after colonialism imposed it worldwide.
A return to the status quo ante is highly unlikely in China. There is toomuch at stake in the current bureaucracies that regulate religious affairs;
many people, especially in the younger generation, cut off from their religious heritage, consider it irrelevant to their lives. Despite this, the vehement
campaigns against Falungong, Christian underground churches, Muslim
communities, and Tibetan Buddhists loyal to the Dalai Lama, suggest that
the Communist Party considers religious actors to be important sources ofchallenges to its authority. The current development in China is perhaps best
understood as a neo-traditional moment. The state, confident in its ability tomaster the technologies of government, can subcontract to religious actors
the delivery of some social services for vulnerable and marginal segments ofthe population without fearing challenges to its legitimacy. The control thestate asserts over discourse on tradition, culture, and history ensures thatsuch outsourcing of social welfare does not imply a return to the politicalinfluence of religion that occurred on many occasions in the past and challenged imperial authority.
This paper explores two key aspects of the provision of social services byreligious institutions. First, it considers the relations between the CCP andreligious institutions in the ideological, political, and legal spheres. Second,
because philanthropy has constituted an important part of religious practicethat historically intertwined religions with the state, it looks at the evolutionof legislation on charity. This will be split into four periods. The first period,
primarily defined by the rule of Mao (1949–1976), saw a complete rejection
4

Global Development (London: Routledge, 2015).
For some exceptions, see Robert P. Weller et al., Religion and Charity: The Social Life ofGoodness in Chinese Societies (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
4

of the approach to religious philanthropy adopted in imperial and republican times. In the second period, shaped by Deng Xiaoping (1978–1989) andJiang Zemin (1989–2002), the CCP partially restored religions as legitimate
actors, and there were also efforts to recreate a culture of philanthropy thatwould develop without any religious influence. The third period, under Hu
Jintao (2002–2012), witnessed something close to a revival of the imperial
and republican practice of monitoring religious philanthropy in order toserve the state. The last period, under Xi (2012–), shows evidence of continuity with Hu’s policy. However, some additional restrictions have beenplaced on religions that are deemed to be ‘foreign.’

2 Religious Work and Philanthropy from 1949 to 1978
In its first three decades in power, the CCP asserted control over religions
and, seeing that they gained legitimacy and influence from philanthropy,
the CCP sought to eliminate the latter altogether, regardless of whether
it was linked to religion. The CCP argued that under socialism, people
should benefit from social welfare as a result of social production. The
CCP leadership recognized that achieving this ideal would take time andthus initially sought to minimize social contradictions and create the best
possible conditions for rebuilding China after decades of warfare. The
government had two objectives: ensuring that religious believers would
not oppose the regime; and stopping them providing any form of social
assistance on the grounds that they derived influence from doing so. The
CCP reasoned that if the social condition of deprivation led people tolook for solace in the promise of a better afterlife offered by a religious
system, abundance under socialism would make religion unnecessary.
Since the withering away of religion would occur naturally as China became more prosperous, its leaders reasoned that the persecution of religion would not be effective and might in fact generate resistance againstsocialism from the religious milieus. While the state avoided confrontation with religious leaders, it sought to ensure that they would obey its
directives and would not oppose its policies. It also guaranteed that theywould lack the resources and the legitimacy to mobilize people against
the state and, to that end, put an end to all charitable activities.

5

Duan Dezhi 段德智, historian of religious work in China, has observed
two stages in the CCP’s policy on religious work between 1949 and 1978:5
The first stage (1949–1957) saw the assertion of the CCP’s control over religion; the second (1957–1978) was a period of mobilization, which aimed
at precipitating the disappearance of religion. Although Duan does not pay
attention to charity per se, his chronology points to an initial period of
re-construction in the wake of the civil war, followed by a period of deterioration and attacks on religions prior to the outbreak of the Cultural
Revolution. The first period provided a basis for the CCP’s policy on religion. The second halted the approach of monitoring the natural declineof religions, replacing it with a more aggressive attempt to eliminate them.
The CCP’s position on religious charity remained clear and unalteredfrom 1949 to 1978: it rejected it altogether. During the first period, it actively sought to dismantle charity and philanthropy, and stopped religious
associations from pursuing such activities. Throughout the Great Leap
Forward, the collapse of production and the general misery undermined
the material foundations for charity. Moreover, the transformation of mentalities promoted by the CCP cadres, the Red Guards and the PLA during
the Cultural Revolution ensured the obsolescence of the concept. If thefirst decade of CCP rule laid down the foundations of its policy on religion and charity, the following two decades represented a series of extreme
measures that only later on the regime would recognize as ‘mistakes’ that it
would repeal. The erosion of the concept of philanthropy throughout thisperiod would make its revival all the more difficult during the subsequent
period of ‘reform and opening.’ Today, even when they praise the traditionof philanthropy in China, the writings promoted by Chinese charitable associations remain silent on the 1949–1978 period.6

56Duan Dezhi 段德智, Xin Zhongguo zongjiao gongzuoshi 新中国宗教工作史 (Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 2013).
See, for example, the studies commissioned by the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau, which
each devote only one paragraph to the period in their historical accounts of charity in
China. Lu Hanlong 卢汉龙, ed., Cishan: Guan’ai yu hexie 慈善: 关爱与和谐 (Shanghai:
Shanghai shehui kexue chubanshe, 2004); Xu Lin 徐麟, Zhongguo cishan shiye fazhan yanjiu 中国慈善事业发展研究 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui chubanshe 中国社会出版社, 2005).
6

2.1 Corporatist Regulation and the Disappearance of Religious
Charitable Activities

The first stage of the CCP’s policy on religious work identified by Duancorresponds to the first period of Mao’s rule, from 1949 to 1957. Duan labels this period as ‘opposing the infiltration of religion’ (fan zongjiao shentou 反宗教渗透).7 Despite what the name suggests, this was a period of relative openness to religious matters. The Organic Law of the Central People’s
Government, which served as the supreme organ to exercise power before
the adoption of the Constitution in 1954, ensured a large number of rights,
including freedom of religion. In 1951, the CCP United Front Work Department (tongzhanbu 统战部 UFWD) supported the establishment of the
Bureau for Religious Affairs (zongjiao shiwuju 宗教事务局 BRA) to oversee the activities of religions, transmit directives from the government, andcollect information on religious activity, including numbers of followers,
religious practices, and beliefs. In the same year, the Protestant Three-Self
Patriotic Movement created a national committee to ensure that churches
in China would remove foreign influence and become self-sustaining. In
1953, Buddhist clerics and laypeople founded the Buddhist Association ofChina, and Muslims established the Islamic Association of China. In 1957,
just when the political climate was about to become less hospitable to religions, bishops and laypeople created the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, and Daoist leaders established the Daoist Association of China.
Known collectively as the ‘big five,’ Protestantism, Buddhism, Catholicism,
Daoism, and Islam are the only religions the CCP recognizes.
The CCP subscribed to the theory of the ‘five characteristics’ (wuxing五性) of religion. This theory was gradually elaborated by Li Weihan 李维汉, head of the UFWD since 1948, in a series of meetings between 1951
and 1957.8 According to the summary written in 1996 by Ye Xiaowen,
Director of the BRA9, religion is: long-term (changqi 长期), mass-based(qunzong 群众), ethnic (minzu 民族), international (guoji 国际) and complex (fuza 复杂).10 Cadres advocating the theory recognized that religion’sDuan, Xin Zhongguo zongjiao gongzuoshi, 1.
The theory emerged after several meetings of the UFWD between 1951 and 1957. Duan,
Xin Zhongguo zongjiao gongzuoshi, 91–93.
9 The BRA became the State Administration for Religious Affairs (guojia zongjiiao shiwuju
国家宗教事务局 SARA) in 1998, and Ye would remain its head until 2009.
10 Ye Xiaowen 叶小文, “Dangdai woguo de zongjiao wenti: guanyu zongjiao wuxing de zai tantao 当前我国的宗教问题——关于宗教五性的再探讨,” Shijie zongjiao wenhua 4, no. 1 (1997).
7
8

7

influence would be long-lasting and therefore that they should avoid rashaction against believers lest they oppose the party.11 They also argued
that although the number of religious believers was impossible to know,
there were too many of them among the masses and therefore it would
be unwise to confront them.12 Religion and ethnicity, they thought, belonged to two different categories, but in a multinational country suchas China, religious matters often linked with the nationality question, as the cases of Tibet and Xinjiang demonstrated early on.13 Party
cadres also believed that, because of its international nature, religion wasable to influence relations between states and undermine national unity,
especially when foreign countries used religions to infiltrate other countries.14 Finally, party cadres viewed religion as a complex system in whichinternal elements such as sentiments and knowledge are linked with theideological superstructure, while external elements such as behavior andinstitutions constitute aspects of social life the government must take
into consideration.15
To prevent opposition from the recognized religious actors and evengain their support, the CCP initially avoided confronting spiritual leaders
and their followers. This policy also served to reassure Tibetan Buddhist
and Muslim minorities living in territories outside of the area populatedby the Han majority that the state would respect their way of life, which
was closely related to their religion. The establishment of the BRA was an
expression of the state’s willingness to recognize the legitimacy of religion
in a socialist regime, but it also reflected how anxious the CCP was to limit religion’s influence and oversee its expected demise in the long term.
The incorporation of clerics, temple committee members, and other religious personnel into one of the seven national religious associations thatmanaged the affairs of the ‘big five’ constituted a key state policy ensuring
supervision of religion by the regime.16 The CCP UFWD used these
11
12
13
14

Ye, “Dangdai woguo de zongjiao wenti,” 1–5.
Ye, 5–7.
Ye, 7–9.
Ye Xiaowen 叶小文, “Dangdai woguo de zongjiao wenti: guanyu zongjiao wuxing de zaitantao (xu) 当前我国的宗教问题——关于宗教五性的再探讨(续),” Shijie zongjiao wenhua 4,
no. 2 (1997): 1–2.
15 Ye, “Dangdai woguo de zongjiao wenti: guanyu zongjiao wuxing de zai tantao (xu),” 2–5.
16 Buddhism, Daoism, and Islam each had an association, while Protestantism and Catholicism each had two associations, with a distinction made between clergy and laypeople.
8

associations as conduits for conveying its instructions to religious believers. More crucially, it saw the associations as means to help it achieve its
objective of undermining the social influence of religions by restricting
religious activities outside designated places of worship. These policies,
however, related to institutionalized religions with a clergy and a canonicalscripture that the state wanted to recognize. They left unresolved manyother aspects of religious work for religions the state did not recognize.
The vast majority of the population in 1949 abided by the moral codesof Confucianism, believed in supernatural forces that cadres dismissed
as “feudal superstitions” (fengjian mixin 封建迷信), and practiced rituals
often involving communication with gods, ghosts, and ancestors. These
communal religions, with their emphasis on filial piety and ancestor worship, reproduced the patriarchal nature of traditional society and represented an important source of inertia that undermined the new regime’s
ambitions for social change, especially during the Land Reform campaign
of 1950. When the CCP collectivized land it focused its action on ‘landlords’ and ‘rich peasants,’ who were often active in temple committees, andonly occasionally confiscated surplus land owned by temples, shrines andmonasteries for redistribution, or encouraged the destruction of temples.17
Because the CCP had already endorsed the distinction made before by the
GMD between ‘religion’ and ‘superstition,’ it did not see a contradiction
between violent campaigns against ‘landlords’ and its pledge to respect religious freedom. The state simply did not regard the physical destruction of
an important part of Chinese traditional religion as being such because it
believed, in its own words, that it was conducting a campaign against “reactionary forces” and “feudal superstitions.”
The CCP showed no mercy towards a third category of religion.
Although the terminology and the technologies employed differed somewhat from that used under the previous regime, the CCP essentially reproduced previous policies against religious associations that were not recognized by the state. In imperial China, the government had made a distinction
between heterodox (xie 邪), or immoral (yin 淫) practices and religious
associations, and those it considered orthodox (zheng 正).18 The CCP used
17 Vincent Goossaert and David Palmer, The Religious Question in Modern China (Chicago,
IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2011), 151.
18 On this distinction, see Vincent Goossaert, “State and Religion in Modern China: Religious Policy and Scholarly Paradigms,” (paper presented at “Rethinking Modern Chinese
9the more modern taxonomy of reactionary secret societies (daohuimen
道会们 and mimi shehui 秘密社会). It found out about their subversive potential during the War against Japan and the Civil War, and feared that religions such as the Way of Unity (Yiguandao 一贯道) would adopt the same
techniques that the CCP had used when it waged its own clandestine operation of infiltration into the GMD to weaken and overthrow it. The CCP
saw four reasons to worry about Yiguandao in particular: it was extremely
popular in North China, where it spread rapidly; its esoteric practice madedetection difficult; some CCP chiefs and police were members; and, finally, the sect’s teachings stood in opposition to those of communism.19 To
pre-empt any organized resistance by these religions, from 1951 to 1953
the CCP organized a ‘withdraw from the sects’ movement (tuidao yundong退道运动). Such resistance continued well beyond that period, albeit inmuted forms that did not threaten the regime.20
The CCP wasted no time in targeting the philanthropic activities of all
religions, whether officially recognized or illegal, whether local or transnational. The new regime saw in the relationship between civil society andphilanthropy a source of resistance to its control. Moreover, it adopted acrude reading of Karl Marx and denounced charity as a hypocritical approach used by religion and superstition to keep people in servitude.21
As a result, the concept of charity disappeared from the official lexicon
for at least three decades. The CCP’s policy decoupled religious practicefrom philanthropy, an activity that had for centuries seen a very close intermingling between state and religion. The case of Yiguandao illustrated
the importance of charity as a source of influence for religion. Because
it had operated unharmed in the puppet state of Manchukuo, the GMD
had regarded Yiguandao as a treasonous association and imposed a ban on
its activities after victory against Japan. However, aware of its popularity
among the populace, the government allowed the association to continuesocially acceptable activities as the China Moral Philanthropic Association
History: An International Conference to Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Institute ofModern History,” Taipei, Academia Sinica, 2006), 3.
19 Hung Chang-Tai, “The Anti-Unity Sect Campaign and Mass Mobilization in the Early
People’s Republic of China,” The China Quarterly 202 (2010): 403–04.
20 Resistance against the CCP continued into the fall of 1957. See Elizabeth J. Perry, “Rural
Violence in Socialist China,” The China Quarterly 103 (1985): 420–24.
21 Wang Hui, “Changes in the China Charity Federation System,” China Development Brief,
no. 45 (2010): 24.
10

(Zhonghua daode cishanhui 中华道德慈善会). The CCP regarded this arrangement as evidence of Yiguandao’s untrustworthiness, and therefore
imposed a ban to prevent the emergence of a competitor.22
Although the CCP policies differed from the more rigid ones enforcedin the USSR, it had to relinquish its philanthropic activities, which it saw
as a problem. Even before it took power, the CCP had classified charities
as ‘anti-revolutionary forces.’23 Liu Pengfei noted that as soon as the CCP
took power, it dissolved the non-state associations that delivered social services, which it considered “tools used by the ruling class to cheat people
and poison their minds.” It divided them into three categories and devised
ways to deal with each of these groups: It banned, dissolved and closed the
local and provincial charities established by the previous government; it
took over and reorganized non-governmental charities led by local gentry
or merchant elites; and, finally, it incorporated social services operated byforeigners, such as hospitals and orphanages, into the new political system.24 The expulsion of foreign missionaries accelerated with the onset of
the Korean War, leading to the abandonment of the social services they
had offered and the closing of their institutions. The concept of philanthropy disappeared from the local culture and from the collective memory.25 This first period of religious policy laid the foundation for China’s
current policies on religion and charity, with one key difference. In thefirst decade of its rule, the CCP was relatively tolerant of religion, but did
not allow any kind of religious charity. In the period that followed, factions
within the CCP sought the eradication of both religion and charity.
2.2 The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution

The second period of religious policy identified by Duan, euphemistically named ‘tortuous development’ (quzhe fazhan 曲折发展) started in late1957 and lasted over twenty years.26 The period started with the extremematerial deprivation experienced during the Great Leap Forward famineand continued throughout the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. In this
22 Hung, “The Anti-Unity Sect Campaign,” 403.
23 Outi Luova, “Charity paradigm change in contemporary China: From anti-socialist activity to civic duty,” China Information 31, no. 2 (2017): 138.
24 Liu Peifeng, “Development of Charities in China since the Reform and Opening up,” inNGOs in China and Europe, ed. Li Yuwen (London: Routledge, 2011), 73.
25 Luova, “Charity paradigm change in contemporary China,” 138.
26 Duan, Xin Zhongguo zongjiao gongzuoshi, 99.
11period, the iconoclastic and fanatic fervor seen in enthusiastic cadres andyoung people who were keen to accelerate the demise of belief in the afterlife and ‘superstitions’ was more what might have been expected during
an outbreak of religious fever. Although the CCP agreed in principle with
the Marxist maxim that “religion is the opium of the people,” it had learned
from its time in the opposition and in exile that it could also act as the“spark that will light a fire,” as Mao’s approval of the Taiping and the Boxer
uprisings showed. The government took religion seriously from the beginning, from the Jiangxi period until the first decade of the PRC’s existence,
and avoided confronting believers too directly, lest they seek martyrdom
and engage in a bitter conflict with the state. Whatever the reason behindthe change of course at the end of the 1950s, Mao operated a complete
reversal and saw religion as an obstacle on the path leading to socialism,
and those who believed otherwise were often accused of plotting against
the party.
A number of bitter controversies on religious policies erupted at thestart of this period, within the broader context of the ‘anti-rightist struggles’ of 1957–1959. The party’s religious work was the target of attacks at thehighest levels that spared no religion. Hence, only one year after his election as the first President of the Daoist Association of China, Yue Chongdai
岳崇岱, was labelled a rightist and hanged himself as a result. In the same
year, Ma Zhenwu 马震武, Deputy Director of the Islamic Association ofChina, faced false accusations of plotting with Japan to establish an Islamicstate in Ningxia during the War and passed away in 1961, disgraced.27 The
10th Panchen Erdeni, Deputy Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political
Consultative Conference in 1954, faced dismissal and imprisonment in1964 because of a letter he wrote to Zhou Enlai, protesting Chinese policies
in Tibet. Lay and clerical Buddhist leaders, such as Zhao Puchu 赵朴初 andGeshe Sherab Gyatso (Jirao Jiacuo 喜饶嘉措) also endured attacks against
them. The BRA ceased activities between 1965 and 1979. Even the leadership of the UFWD was rebuked having been judged as being too lenient
on religious matters. This culminated in attacks against Li Weihan, whom
the CCP accused of anti-party activities in 1966 before expelling him fromits ranks one year later. The punishment meted out to the leaders of thenational religious associations affected the local associations as well.
27 Duan, Xin Zhongguo zongjiao gongzuoshi, 105.
12

Duan Dezhi devotes much attention to the issue of Tibet, as well as totwo controversies with international ramifications in the Protestant andCatholic churches. However, he does not dwell on the material destruction
throughout the whole period, which would have significantly undermined
religious associations’ ability to continue their activities, let alone mobilize the resources required to offer social services. Besides the reality ofthe material destruction of religious infrastructure, the collective trauma
engendered by the unrelenting ideological campaigns had a heavy psychological toll that gravely undermined social relations. The three years of thegreat famine, which witnessed scenes of cannibalism, the denunciation ofparents and teachers by children, and exposure to the cruelty of mass executions, gravely dented both public trust in the party, and people’s trust ineach other.28 The call for class struggle precluded any idea of compromise
and accommodation for presumed enemies. In that context, the idea ofsocial harmony implicit in charity and philanthropy, which hid relations ofdomination, or worse, gave them some form of metaphysical justification,
became a legitimate target in the eyes of the most dogmatic party ideologues. The attack on philanthropy, understood as part of a broader attack
on wealth, may have resonated with many among the poor, but it gravely
damaged social relations.
Another aspect of the period is the intensity of the fervor expressed bypeople during the Cultural Revolution, which many compared to a form of
religious fanaticism.29 Lucy Jen Huang has outlined the religious elements
present in the mass movements launched by the CCP at the beginning of
the last decade of Mao’s rule.30 Worried about the lack of revolutionary
zeal among the party cadres and the population, after the setback they
had experienced following the Great Leap Forward, Mao and his followers
urged the young Red Guards to continue the “spirit of the Long March.”31
Mao became the central figure of a personality cult, his birthplace a revolutionary pilgrimage site, his utterances in the Little Red Book the sub28 On this tragedy, see the two tomes by Yang Jisheng 楊繼繩, Mubei: Zhonguo liushi niandai
da jihuang jishi 墓碑: 中國六十年代大及黃紀實 (Hong Kong: Tiandi 天地, 2008).
29 See Ninian Smart, Mao (New York, NY: Fontana/Collins, 1974); Stephan Feuchtwang,“Religion as Resistance,” in Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance, ed. Elizabeth
J. Perry and Mark Selden (London: Routledge, 2006).
30 Lucy Jen Huang, “The Role of Religion in Communist Chinese Society,” Asian Survey 11,
no. 7 (1971).
31 Huang, “The Role of Religion,” 698.
13ject of countless debates. There was a messianic quality to the personality cult surrounding Mao. Indeed, local newspapers throughout China,
told of people who were miraculously cured after studying Mao Zedong’s
thought.32 Although the Red Guards and many cadres did not lack abnegation and a sense of self-sacrifice, the idea of compassion often inherent inphilanthropy was lacking. While one might welcome the demise of condescending feelings such as pity that reproduce social hierarchies, the crueltyof the struggle sessions against ‘class enemies’ was a disastrous substitution.
Following the end of the Cultural Revolution and the trial of the Gangof Four, Deng Xiaoping asserted power, overturned many of Mao’s decisions, and prepared the country for a new round of radical economic
reforms, including social welfare reforms. A sense of elation prevailed:during the brief Beijing Spring of 1978, when the CCP promoted its ‘four
modernizations,’ some even went as far as promoting democracy as a ‘fifthmodernization.’ Some of Deng’s reforms necessitated much negotiation
because they required many groups to relinquish privileges, guarantees orrecently made gains. In relative terms, the rehabilitation of religion was aneasier matter to tackle. The CCP granted full rehabilitation to Li Weihan,
who served as Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese
People’s Political Consultative Conference from 1978 until 1983. Religion,
driven underground by the political campaigns of the previous two decades, bounced back to an embarrassing degree, rebutting the predictionthat had been made about its rapid demise.

3 Religion and Philanthropy under Deng and Jiang
Duan Dezhi outlines two periods during the overlapping administrations of Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin when they separately or jointly
oversaw religious work policies. He describes the first period, from thearrest of the Gang of Four to the brief freeze in the politics of reform andopening that followed the crackdown in Tiananmen Square, as a ‘(post-)
disorder rectification’ (boluan fanzheng 拨乱反正) period.33 The second
period, which lasted from 1991 to 2001, he characterizes as a second cold
32 Huang, 702.
33 Duan, Xin Zhongguo zongjiao gongzuoshi, 151–206.
14

war, with renewed concern about religions infiltrating the party.34 Overall, there are more commonalities between these two periods than during
the two under Mao.35 Religion mattered to the regime because it constituted a source of stability and a way to prevent tensions from accumulating in society in a context of growing discontent caused by economic
reforms and some of their adverse consequences. Showing tolerance forreligion also signaled to the international community a change of approach on the part of the CCP. After the fall of the Gang of Four, the policy of absolute control over religion experienced a brief respite. However,the crisis experienced by the CCP in 1989 led to a loss of confidence in its
ideology and a return to what Ji Zhe terms a ‘secularization without secularism,’ where the neo-totalitarian state took a utilitarian approach to religion. The disastrous results of the personality cult surrounding Mao
having discredited the original socialist ideology, the CCP under Dengand Jiang promoted the ‘secularization’ of socialism. In this context, disenchantment with politics went hand in hand with a state use of religion
within the parameters it had defined.36 At the beginning of that period,
no social basis of wealthy philanthropists existed, but this changed significantly at the end of that period.
3.1 The Return to An Accommodating Policy on Religion in a Changed 		Context

The policy of reform and opening had some positive repercussions for religious life, but it also reinforced the CCP’s capacity for control.37 The policyof rectification, or redress, included overturning the excesses of the previous policy on religion and the publication in 1982 of Document 19, which
formalized the role of the government in religious affairs.38 It signaled a
34 Duan, 207–64.
35 Duan’s chronology reflects the official distinction between the second and third generations of CCP leaders, led respectively by Deng and Jiang, but because Deng’s authority
and influence continued into the 1990s, this distinction is somewhat arbitrary.
36 Ji Zhe, “Secularization without Secularism: The Political-Religious Configuration of
Post-89 China,” in Atheist Secularism and its Discontents: A Comparative Study of Religion and Communism in Eurasia, ed. Tam T. T. Ngo and Justine B. Quijada (Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 109.
37 Merle Goldman, “Religion and the State: The Struggle for Legitimacy and Power,” The
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 483 (1986): 151.
38 CCP Central Committee, “The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on the Religious Question
during Our Country’s Socialist Period,” 1982. In 1982, Li Weihan, the proponent of the‘five characteristics of religion’ theory, was Vice Chairman of the party Central Advisory15

clean break from the excesses of the Cultural Revolution and heralded a
return to Li Weihan’s moderate line on the five characteristics of religions,and religion’s compatibility with socialism. However, the adoption of thatpolicy also meant maintaining the mindset behind the pre-1957 policy
against infiltration by religions. This approach included both opposition
to a ‘religious craze’ (zongjiao kuangre 宗教狂热) and resistance to interventionism from abroad.39 The latter revolved around three main controversies: the predication of Witness Nee; the popularity abroad of the Dalai
Lama; and disputes with the Vatican over the nomination of bishops.
CCP General Secretaries Hu Yaobang (1982–1987) and Zhao Ziyang(1987–1989), who are both widely regarded as the more open and liberalleaders of the CCP, did not have a specific policy on religious affairs. Theyboth focused their attention on the central issue of implementing the ‘four
modernizations’ in agriculture, education, science, and military affairs,as they faced resistance on economic policies and political reforms fromtheir more conservative colleagues. Their laissez-faire attitude on religion
created a climate that made possible the release of the more accommodative Document 19, just before the abolition of the People’s Communes.
The document, which still constitutes the equivalent of a ‘basic law’ for the
CCP and the government, admits that the Party went too far during the
Cultural Revolution, but it does not repudiate its policies on Yiguandao
and foreign missionaries. The document guarantees the right to believe,
but it also asserts the right to promote atheism.40 It proclaims freedom of
religion as the “freedom to believe,” but it imposes a number of restrictions
on practicing religion.41 For example, it warns against preaching to or initiating people under the age of 18 and forbids any religious activities outsideof places of worship. At various points, Document 19 emphasizes a desire
to ensure that religious believers can perform ‘normal religious activities,’
and that the government promotes the ‘normalization’ of religion, without
giving more specific details. This left some leeway when it came to how
the document was interpreted by both religious associations and the government. This ambiguity and the experience of religious associations after
Commission, headed by Deng Xiaoping.
39 Duan, Xin Zhongguo zongjiao gongzuoshi, 188–206.
40 For detailed discussions of this document, see Pitman B. Potter, “Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China,” The China Quarterly 174 (2003).
41 Beatrice Leung, “China’s religious freedom policy: The art of managing religious activity,”
The China Quarterly 184 (2005).
16

1949 slowed down the growth of religious charity, with people unsure as towhether philanthropy constituted a ‘normal religious activity.’42
The government encouraged the reconstitution of the ‘big five’ national
associations, but the religious landscape had changed considerably in the few
years between 1966 and 1982. As Elizabeth Perry describes, while the CCP
had eliminated communal religions as sources of resistance to the state in
the 1950s, it found that once control over them had relaxed in 1978, they
resumed activities, but for different purposes. Some of them even started toprovide leadership at the local level and sanctioned feuds between enemy
lineages and communities in the countryside.43 Another development thatconcerned the authorities was the growth of Protestant Christianity. Thisparticularly became apparent in the immediate aftermath of the crackdown
on June 4th, when many, having lost faith in the possibility that the CCP
might support political reform, found solace in Protestantism.44 A further
cause for concern for the party was the realization that church leaders wereplaying a critical role in the political transitions then underway in South
Korea, Taiwan, and South Africa.45 Especially jarring in the eyes of leadersin Beijing was the collapse of socialist regimes in Poland and East Germany,
facilitated by the action of churches.
The administration of Jiang Zemin, which saw Deng Xiaoping gradually retreat into the background, made possible a greater institutionalization of religion but also provided a basis for greater control. The first law,on religion (zongjiaofa 宗教法), aimed to regularize the conditions for theregistration of religions, while the second, on the establishment of better
rules for internal governance (zongjiao lifa tixi shexiang 宗教立法体系设
想), sought to ensure that religions complied with the government’s regulations. Jiang had to deal with three issues that revealed important changes
in China’s religious landscape. The most important, near the end of his
mandate, had to do with the rise of qigong and the immense popularity oforganizations such as Falungong. The CCP felt so threatened by the lattermovement and a few other similar ones that it passed legislation against
42 Document 19 does not include a single mention of charity or philanthropy.
43 Perry, “Rural Violence,” 432–36.
44 See Yang Fenggang, “Lost in the Market, Saved at McDonald’s: Conversion to Christianity
in Urban China,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 44, no. 4 (2005): 430, 435–36.
45 Although the outcome of these transitions from 1987 to 1989 was uncertain, it was known
that in Seoul, Taipei, Leipzig, and Pretoria, the security forces’ response to demonstrations had been restrained.
17‘evil cults’(xiejiao 邪教), and launched an aggressive campaign against its
adherents that remains in force at the time of writing.46 A second source ofanxiety related to what the CCP saw as the three independence movementsof Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan, and their alleged religious component.47
Finally, the CCP under Jiang also singled out the United States for supporting independent churches and for giving a voice to religious dissidents inrelation to human rights violations.
Because of its self-imposed rigid and narrow definition of what constituted a ‘real religion’ vs. a ‘cult,’ the CCP found it difficult to deal withreligious movements that were somewhere between religion and science.
The case of qigong, which had existed even at the time of Mao, became
intractable only after Jiang consolidated power. The practice of the ancient
form of gymnastics had been encouraged from above as a relatively inexpensive and efficient form of health care. However, the claims of some spiritual masters that their knowledge exceeded that of existing ‘science’ led to
criticism from the medical profession. Despite this, in the last few years of
Jiang’s administration, the popularity of many qigong movements and theirincreasingly visible presence in the public sphere appeared a public healthcare’s failure and thereby became a major political problem.48 The mobilization from overseas by Falungong’s leader Li Hongzhi to protest next to
the CCP headquarters proved too much. The hardening of the government
on religious matters that followed cast a shadow but it did not prevent religious institutions from providing social services.
3.2 The End of Class Struggle and the Rehabilitation of Charity

In the early years of the policy of reform and opening, China was poor, thedirection of the economy and its politics remained unsettled, and despite
the efforts in the previous three decades to alleviate poverty the country
faced a scarcity of resources to meet the needs of the destitute and the poor.
The welfare of vulnerable populations depended both on provision by the
46 The official translation is ‘evil cults’, but ‘heterodox teaching’ is more accurate. See Edward Irons, “Falun Gong and the Sectarian Religion Paradigm,” Nova Religio: The Journalof Alternative and Emergent Religions 6, no. 2 (2003): 258.
47 The Dalai Lama preached autonomy, not independence; the Uyghur leaders did likewise
and their movement did not have a religious leadership. The Taiwan Presbyterian Church
supported self-determination.
48 Patricia M. Thornton, “Framing Dissent in Contemporary China: Irony, Ambiguity andMetonymy,” The China Quarterly 171 (2002).
18

government and on international assistance. In 1981, CCP-sponsoredmass organizations joined forces to establish the first foundation concerned with the welfare of children and youth. The government establishedother foundations in the following years and encouraged wealthy patrons
to do likewise.49 In 1982, it sponsored the creation of the Soong Ching Ling
Foundation, which along with a variety of political objectives such as fostering cross-strait relations, managed charitable work relating to children.
In 1984, Deng Xiaoping’s son established the Foundation for Disabled Persons. By 1987, China had over 200 foundations, 33 of which had a national
scope.50
This official effort to promote charities was a response to suddenchanges in China’s political economy. The demise of the People’s Communes in 1983 exacerbated the existing social inequalities that the Maoist
era had failed to eradicate, the inability of reforms to immediately improvewelfare generated increasing frustration throughout the Deng and Jiang
era. The student uprisings of 1986–1987 and 1989 revealed the social malaise regarding inequalities, and dissatisfaction with the demise of the social protection provided by state-owned enterprises and the government.
The crackdown against the latest of these protests led to opprobrium fromthe international community, and with the fall of the USSR, China ended
up isolated in the international community, with Deng’s policy of reformand opening threatened by conservative forces inside the CCP. After much
publicized visits to the cities of Shenzhen and Shanghai in 1992, Deng used
his residual authority as veteran ‘paramount leader’ to lend his support tothose who wanted to pursue his policies, who prevailed over conservative
opponents within the CCP Politburo’s Standing Committee.51
During that period, as discussed above, Document 19 did not give
clear directives regarding the charitable activities of religious institutions. This did not prevent some individual religious leaders taking initiative to help the less fortunate. In her investigation of philanthropy in
49 These included the Welfare Institute, the Committee for the Defence of Children, theWomen’s Federation, the Federation of Trade Unions, the CCP Youth League, the YouthFederation, the Writers’ Association, the Association for Science and Technology, theSports Federation, the Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, and the Federation ofIndustry and Commerce. Liu, “Development of Charities in China,” 74.
50 Liu, “Development of Charities in China,” 74.
51 For a detailed account of these struggles, see Zhao Suisheng, “Deng Xiaoping’s Southern
Tour: Elite Politics in Post-Tiananmen China,” Asian Survey 33, no. 8 (1993).
19

Jiangsu and Shanghai, for example, Wu Keping found evidence of such
undertakings among Buddhist clerics. She found that Zhenchan 真禅, theabbot of the Shanghai Jade Buddha temple (yufo si 玉佛寺) had donatedto the Children’s Welfare Association for four years before founding theMaster Zhenchan Children’s Welfare Foundation in 1988.52 According to
Wu Keping’s informants, Zhenchan adopted that approach because thetemple could not raise funds for charity under its own name, but individuals could. The first charity inspired by the Protestant Church, theAmity Foundation, started operations in 1985.
Between 1989 and 1992, when the policy of economic reform andopening appeared jeopardized by international isolation and the prevalence of more orthodox views on the centrally-planned economy, religious
philanthropic activities slowed down, especially those that involved foreign
co-operation. That changed in the spring of 1992, when the central government quickly approved the delivery of relief by international organizations,
including religious NGOs (RNGOs), in response to a series of floods that
had affected South China. This approach contrasted with the attitude following the Tangshan earthquake in 1976. In addition to expressing genuine concern for the victims of the natural disasters and thereby partly
undoing the damage done to the CCP’s reputation since 1989, that decision
had a further benefit: it improved relations across the Taiwan Strait. One of
the NGOs allowed by Chinese local governments was the Canadian branchof the Ciji Foundation, a major Taiwanese Buddhist philanthropy. A year
later, a meeting in Singapore between unofficial representatives of China
and Taiwan offered a framework for Ciji to operate in China, a decisionthat would have important repercussions for Chinese philanthropy.53
The central government’s support for philanthropy finally became
clearer with an editorial published in February 1994 in the People’s Daily
praising the concept of charity.54 The same year, the Ministry of Civil
Affairs sponsored the establishment of the China Charity Federation
52 Wu Keping, “The Philanthropic Turn of Religions in Post-Mao China: Bureaucratization,
Professionalization, and the Making of a Moral Subject,” Modern China 43, no. 4 (2017): 428.
53 On this story, which unfolded over nearly three decades, see André Laliberté, “‘Love Transcends Borders’ or ‘blood is Thicker than Water’? The Charity Work of the Compassion Relief Foundation in the People’s Republic of China,” European Journal of East Asian Studies 2,
no. 2 (2003); André Laliberté, “The Growth of a Taiwanese Buddhist Association in China:
Soft Power and Institutional Learning,” China Information 27, no. 1 (2013).
54 Luova, “Charity paradigm change in contemporary China,” 137.
20

(zhongua cishan zonghui 中华慈善总会). Over 240 local associations at
provincial and municipal levels joined the China Charity Federation in thefollowing years.55 The CCP also endorsed fundraising by religious associations, by supporting relevant legislation. Acknowledging that religious believers give to their churches and temples, the government issued specificdirectives on “voluntary offerings of alms, donations, and contributions”
in the Regulation on Governing Venues for Religious Activities.56 The
same regulations, however, limited the scope of these charities, with the
Article 8 stipulation that activities had to remain within the limits of temples, churches, and mosques.57 Despite this, the same year, the Shaolin temple registered the first Buddhist non-profit social organization, the Shaolin
Charity and Welfare Foundation (Shaolin cishan fuli jijinhui 少林慈善福利
基金会).58
Toward the end of the Jiang Zemin period, social inequalities had
grown, enormous fortunes had emerged, and there was a perception that‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ was a front for the emergence of
unfettered capitalism under an authoritarian regime. In a context of growing needs and expectations, private philanthropy was inadequate and left
authorities looking for other options. As Ma Qiusha noted, by the end of
Jiang’s tenure, many local governments had failed to meet urgent needs
for a variety of public services, “so they […] turned to the private sector
for help. The voluntary organizations, private non-profit institutions, andall kinds of social issue organizations are a direct response to this new situation.”59 Two key developments in the second half of Jiang’s tenure contributed to the growth of RNGOs. First, the convening in Beijing of the
4th World Conference on Women of the United Nations in 1995 led theChinese authorities to reshape their definitions of what kind of organizations qualify as NGOs.60 Second, the emergence of Falungong, as discussed
above, contradicted the impression that the CCP had achieved control overreligious affairs, and forced it to reconsider the matter of RNGOs.
55 Zonghua Cishan Zonghui, Zhonghua Cishan Nianjian 2008 (Beijing: Zhonghua Cishan
Nianjian Bianji, 2008).
56 Wu, “The Philanthropic Turn of Religions,” 430.
57 Wu, 430.
58 Wu, 429.
59 Ma Qiusha, “The Governance of NGOs in China Since 1978: How Much Autonomy?,”Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 31, no. 3 (2002): 318.
60 Ma, “The Governance of NGOs,” 307–08.
21

In 1999, the National People’s Congress (NPC) passed a law on Donations for Public Welfare Undertaking. It defined these undertakings asfollows:
relieving disasters, helping the poor, assisting the disabled as well asother social groups and individuals in trouble; education, science,
culture, public health and sports; environmental protection, constructionof public facilities; and other social and public welfare undertakings promoting the development and progress of society.61

Two years later, the NPC passed the Trust Law, which sought to define what
constituted a charitable trust, and, more specifically, to indicate what constituted being in the interest of public welfare. This included six elements: poverty alleviation; disaster relief; helping the disabled; developing education,science, technology, culture, art and sports; developing medical and publichealth undertakings; and environmental protection.62 At the end of his tenure, in 2000, Jiang Zemin promoted his theory of the ‘Three Represents.’ This
statement, incorporated into the CCP charter in 2002, signaled the end ofclass struggle. It also suggested an end to the idea of the CCP as a revolutionary party, instead considering it the ‘ruling party.’63 New thinking about
religious philanthropy appeared plausible in such a context.

4 Religious Charity and Civil Society under Hu
To this day, Hu Jintao’s personal views on religion and charity are as unclear
as those of his predecessor. Hu’s political philosophy, like Jiang’s, consisted
mainly in maintaining the broad strategy of ‘opening and reform’ promulgated by Deng, including his policy on religious work. While Jiang had
made his own mark with the idea of the ‘Three Represents,’ Hu pressed the
CCP to adopt his idea of establishing a ‘harmonious society,’ in a marked
departure from Mao Zedong’s views on class struggle. The harmonious
society ideology seemed to suggest a rehabilitation of Confucianism if notits promotion as a religion. In his survey of the mentions of Confucianismin the People’s Daily, Wu Shufang notes that the CCP appeared eager to
61 Liu, “Development of Charities in China,” 71.
62 Liu, 71.
63 Bruce J. Dickson, “Whom does the party represent? From ‘three revolutionary classes’ to‘three represents’, ” American Asian Review 21, no. 1 (2003).
22

adopt core elements of Confucian morality because they ‘softened’ the appeal of the existing political order. Confucianism also mattered to the CCP
because it allowed the ruling party to appear more clearly as the upholderof ‘Chinese tradition.’ However, Wu cautions that the CCP under Hu was
unlikely to adopt Confucianism as an official alternative to the official
historical materialist philosophy promoted by the ruling party.64 During
the period under observation, most academics had reached a conclusion
about the idea of a Confucian religion (rujiao 儒教): they rejected calls byprominent intellectuals such as Jiang Qing 蒋庆and Kang Xiaoguan 康晓光
to proclaim the Confucian religion (rujiao 儒教) as the ‘national religion’(guojiao 国教).65 A key difference between Hu and his predecessor is that,
under his rule, the idea that religion could become involved in philanthropy had become acceptable.
4.1 Religious Work under Hu

Duan Dezhi sees the religious work of Hu’s government as the continuationof the so-called ‘second cold war’ with continued opposition to infiltration
by religions.66 However, he also sees improvements in the legal sphere, withthe passing of a law (zongjiao shiwu wuli 宗教事务务例) to regularize theconditions for registration and of a law recognizing the usefulness of religion
in Chinese society (zongjiao lifa tixi shexiang 宗教立法体系设想). However,
the CCP also issued directives that advised religious associations to cut links
with any source of external support, by reminding them of the necessity of
upholding the principle of independence in self-management (zhichi duli
zizhu ziban yuanze 支持独立自主自办原则). Near the end of Hu’s mandate,the debate about enlarging the number of officially recognized religions hadconcluded: there was no question of recognizing Confucianism, ‘popular belief,’ communal religions, or any of the redemptive societies such as Yiguandao, never mind Falungong, as religions. Moreover, as Alice Miller’s analysis
shows, there was no convergence between the ‘harmonious society’ ideology
and the utopian themes attributed to Confucius and his followers, such as the‘world of great harmony’ (datong shijie 大同世界).67
64 Wu Shufang, “The Revival of Confucianism and the CCP’s Struggle for Cultural Leadership: a content analysis of the People’s Daily, 2000–2009,” Journal of Contemporary China
23, no. 89 (2014): 991.
65 Wu, “The Revival of Confucianism,” 982.
66 Duan, Xin Zhongguo zongjiao gongzuoshi, 265–338.
67 Alice Miller, “Hu Jintao and the Sixth Plenum,” China Leadership Monitor 20 (2007): 7.
23

In 2004, new regulations on religious affairs mentioned for the firsttime the ‘positive contribution’ of religions to the public good.68 This translated into the promotion of religions in international conferences, suchas the World Buddhist Forum (shijie fojiao luntan 世界佛教论坛) in 2006
(Hangzhou), 2009 (Wuxi), and 2012 (Hong Kong); and its Daoist equivalent (guoji daojiao luntan 国际道教论坛) in 2007 (Hong Kong), and 2011
in Mount Hengshan (Hunan).69 The clearest indication of Hu’s policy on
religious affairs was the series of debates on the contribution of religion to
the public interest in Beijing between 2007 and 2012, discussed below. This
happened in a context of growing concern about social stability and unrest,
and the recognition that the existing social policies had not done enoughto address the grievances of the population about their welfare.
Under Hu, however, religion remained a source of concern for authorities. In 2003 the ‘610 office,’ established by the CCP under Jiang to deal
with Falungong, changed its name to the ‘Central Leading Group on
Dealing with Heretical Religions’ (zhongyang fangfan he chuli xiejiao
wenti lingdao xiaozu 中央防反和处理邪教问题领导小组).70 This bodywas directly under party control, rather than under the Ministry of Civil
Affairs, and operated outside of the legal and state system. The same year,
the body’s mandate was expanded to include monitoring 28 other ‘cults.’
These included Christian churches that rejected the authority of the ThreeSelves Patriotic Church, the official association for Protestants; many
qigong groups; and other groups under spiritual leaders such as Jingkong
净空, a native of Anhui who became a monk in Taiwan and has preachedthe Dharma abroad since.71 The other two major sources of concerns about
religion, in Tibet and in Xinjiang, remained intertwined with problems of
ethnicity.
68 Wu, “The Philanthropic Turn of Religions,” 430.
69 The International Daoist Forum was established in 2011. Its founder retrospectively regarded the International Forum on the Dao De Jing as the First International Daoist
Forum. See Zhuo Xinping, Religious Faith of the Chinese (Beijing: China Social Sciences
Press, 2018), 88.
70 ‘610’ refers to the date of the office’s establishment on June 10, 1999. See James W. Tong,
Revenge of the Forbidden City: The Suppression of the Falun Gong in China, 1999–2005(New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009).
71 Most of the groups were on the list of groups banned in 1995, 2000, and 2014. See Edward
Irons, “The List: The Evolution of China’s List of Illegal and Evil Cults,” The Journal of
CESNUR 2, no. 1 (2018): 33. On Jingkong, see Guillaume Dutournier and Ji Zhe, “Expérimentation sociale et ‘confucianisme populaire’: Le cas du Centre d’éducation culturellede Lujiang,” Perspectives chinoises 106 (2009).
24

4.2 Establishing the Substance of ‘Harmonious Society’ with the Help of
Philanthropy

Under Jiang and Premier Zhu Rongji’s stewardship of China’s economy,
the option of relying on non-state provision of social services had becomecompatible with the view that in state policy, growth should take precedence over wealth redistribution. In 2004, the Shanghai Municipal Foundation for Charity and the Shanghai Research Center for the Developmentof Charitable Activities co-sponsored a conference on philanthropy within
the context of establishing a harmonious society.72 The exploration of charity by a Chinese and international team of scholars saw two main sources
for philanthropy: the state and private corporations (qiye 企业). The discussions on society and charity focused on the abstract concepts of thethird sector and presented the role of NGOs, but not one chapter discussed
the intervention of religions. The comparative studies with Taiwan andSingapore did not make a single mention of Buddhist philanthropy either,a striking omission when one considers that the early twenty-first century
constituted a high point in the activities of such associations.
Publications on charity emphasized the considerable contributions
made by wealthy patrons in 2004. For example, Huang Rulun 黄如论,
head of the Jingyuan real estate corporation, gave ¥211 million in that
year; the second most generous donor that year, Zhang Zhiting 张芝庭,gave ¥128 million, followed by Li Jinyuan 李金元, who gave 66 million.73
This emphasis on philanthropy by prominent individuals reproduced awidespread approach to charity in the U.S. It should be noted that a study
on giving and philanthropy in the U.S. suggests that recent trends in thatcountry towards a concentration at the top by a few extremely wealthy
donors present two major risks. Increased volatility and unpredictability
will make it very difficult to budget for long-term projects, and there isan increased risk of philanthropy being used as an extension of power
and to protect privileges.74 The report’s focus on wealthy individuals suggested that official charities in China did not seek to emulate the other
72 Lu, Cishan.
73 Liu Jing 刘京, ed., 2006 Zhongguo cishan juanzeng fazhan lanpishu 中国慈善捐赠发展蓝皮书 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui chubanshe, 2007), 190.
74 Chuck Collins, Helen Flannery, and Josh Hoxie, Gilded Giving: Top-Heavy Philanthropy inan Age of Extreme Inequality (Washington, DC: The Institute for Policy Studies, 2016), 4.
25

component of US philanthropy, where religions are important providerof services.
Likewise, a report sponsored by the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau(Shanghai shi minzhengju 上海市民政局, SCAB) proposed a comprehensive survey of philanthropy in China, but offered no information at all on
religious charity.75 Under the direction of Xu Lin 徐麟, then director of
SCAB, the report looked at charity in China from a comparative perspective, including observations made in the US, the UK, Canada, Singapore,
and Taiwan.76 The report established a clear link between charity and threestate missions: social insurance (shehui baozhang 社会保障), social relief(jiuzhu 救助), and social welfare (fuli 福利). In the same year, the CCP
launched the first of many consultations to discuss the necessity of a law on
charity, as it became clear that NGO registrations had accelerated. The government wanted to increase accountability and transparency, ensure stateoversight, and manage an increasingly diversified sector, which included
charitable organizations, foundations, private non-enterprise units, and avariety of social groups.77 The proposed legislation revealed that a paradigmatic shift had occurred, with philanthropy, seen under Mao as hypocrisy,
fully restored as a central expression of civic duty.78
Corporate philanthropy was much more limited than that of wealthy individuals. Indeed, in 2006, only eight of the charities set up by Chinese corporations raised more than Sony, whose philanthropy had amassed ¥52 million.79
In Shanghai, China Unicom (Zhongguo lianhe tongxin 中国联合通信)raised close to ¥9 million in 2006. Other major contributors included
Minmetals Development (wukuang fazhan 五矿发展), Sinopec Shanghai
Petroleum (Zhongguo shihua Shanghai shiyou 中国石化上海石油), Hunan
Changfeng Motors (Hunan changfeng qiche 湖南长丰汽车), Yangtze Power(changjiang jianli 长江电力), and the Gemdale Corporation (jinti jituan
75 Xu, Zhongguo cishan shiye fazhan yanjiu.
76 A key supporter of Xi, Xu later rose to become head of the Shanghai Communist Party
Committee’s propaganda department in 2013. He was director of the Cyberspace Administration of China from 2015 to 2018, before becoming director of the State Council
Information Office (xinwen bangongshi 新闻办公室) in 2018.
77 Ruth A. Shapiro, “Changing Laws or Taxing Changes: Policies in Flux,” in Pragmatic
Philanthropy: Asian Philanthropy Explained, ed. Ruth A. Shapiro, Manisha Mirchandani,
and Heesu Jang (Hong Kong: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 78.
78 Luova, “Charity paradigm change in contemporary China,” 138.
79 Liu, 2006 Zhongguo cishan juanzeng fazhan lanpishu, 219.
26

金地集团). All these firms raised over ¥5 million in 2006.80 These numbers

paled in comparison to the commitments made by Huang Rulun and other
wealthy individuals.
The relief effort following the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, widely
known abroad as it occurred just ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games, wasa watershed moment for philanthropy. The number of private foundations
increased substantially in the aftermath of that disaster: Between 2006 and2012, the number of foundations grew from 1046 to 3043.81 Likewise, in
2008, total public donations saw a 300 percent increase from the previous
years after the quake.82 Of the NGOs that received donations from thesefoundations, however, those with a focus on religion, protection of rights
and labor migrants, could not gain much support: When making decisions
about funding an NGO, individuals and companies want to ensure that
their donation will face little risk of opposition from the government, andtherefore they focus on safe issues like education.83 However, the postdisaster relief effort highlighted a difficulty faced by public foundations
when it came to fundraising: NGOs were prevented by law from soliciting
donations publicly. This situation, wrote Wang Hui for the China Development Brief, did not foster the growth of a culture of giving.84
Likewise, in her study on charity supermarkets in Tianjin, Vivienne
Shue shows that after a few years of experiments, these initiatives had not
developed as anticipated.85 Furthermore, and more damaging for charity
in general, the Red Cross Society of China was found to have mismanaged
the Sichuan quake relief funds.86 Although the Society reformed its management, it took time for negative feelings toward it to dissipate. These
separate events deeply shattered people’s trust in state-sponsored charities. Moreover, the over-reliance on a few very wealthy individuals raised
80
81
82
83

Liu, 217.
Global China Philanthropy Initiative (GCPI), “Philanthropy in Greater China,” 2019.
Wang, “Changes in the China Charity Federation System.”
Liu Haiying, “The Impact of Private Foundations on Domestic NGOs in China,” China
Development Brief, no. 42 (2009): 16.
84 56% of public donations were raised by different levels of government, while the Red
Cross Society of China and the CCF (two government-organized NGOs) raised 21% and
15% respectively. See Wang, “Changes in the China Charity Federation System.”
85 Vivienne Shue, “The Political Economy of Compassion: China’s ‘charity supermarket’saga,” Journal of Contemporary China 20, no. 72 (2011): 755.
86 Caroline Reeves, “The Red Cross Society of China: Past, Present, and Future,” in Philanthropy for Health in China, ed. Jennifer Ryan, Lincoln Chen, and Tony Saich (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2014).
27

another issue: encouraging individual philanthropy as an alternative tostate-sponsored philanthropy presented the government with the dilemmaof encouraging the growth of an oligarchy that could challenge the state’s
authority. It is in that context that throughout the Hu administration, academics, officials, and representative of religious associations debated theissue of faith-based charity in China.
4.3 Towards a Restoration of Religious Charity?

The issue of whether religion and philanthropy relate to each other is stilla subject of debate in China. The fact that this debate has gone on for years
highlights the complexity of the issue. Some officials argue that the link
between religion and philanthropy primarily exists in Western societies
while in China philanthropy depends on social relations. This view points
to Confucianism to explain a perceived distinction between inherently individualistic Westerners and more collectively minded East Asians.87 Notwithstanding the separate issue of whether Confucianism is religious ornot, many other Chinese scholars argue that there has been a very close
relationship between traditional religious thinking and philanthropy sinceancient times. As such, it is evident that behind a unanimous façade, diverse views have been expressed in the course of successive meetings on
the subject of religious philanthropy.
In 2005, Huang Jianbao 黄剑波, then a young researcher at the Institute of Minorities and Anthropology at the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences (CASS), published an article about the social capital of religious
institutions that described positively their contribution to social welfare inancient China.88 His article would be the first of a number of publications
he wrote over the years on the subject of belief (xinyang 信仰). Representative of many discussions ongoing in academic meetings during the Hu
administration, such articles discussed the topic of religious charity in thepast, and avoided the implication that it could be relevant to contemporary
China. As late as 2006, Wu Keping reported that many officials did not
87 See, for example: Yang Yongjiao, Zhou Wen, and Zhang Dong, “Celebrity Philanthropy
in China: An Analysis of Social Network Effect on Philanthropic Engagement,” Voluntas:
International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 30, no. 4 (2018): 704.
88 Huang Jianbo 黄剑波, “Fuli cishan, shehui ciben yu shehui fazhan: lun zongjiao zai
dangdai zhongguo shehuizhong de canyu xuyao he keneng 福利慈善、社会资本与社会
发展-论宗教在当代中国社会中的参与需要和可能,” Guangxi minzu yanjiu 广西
民族研究 3, no. 81 (2005).
28

accept the idea that other actors beside the state could provide social services. As an official of the Jiangsu Provincial Religious Affairs Bureau explained to her, NGOs and religious groups are ideologically incompatible
with the government’s socialist ideal so they could not perform such work.89
However, public events soon suggested otherwise. In June 2007, Renmin
University, in coordination with the Hebei Province Xinde Cultural ResearchInstitute (Hebei xinde wenhua yanjiusuo 河北信德文化研究所), the Foundation Aide (Aide jijinhui 爱德基金会), and the Jinde Association (Jinde
gongyi xieban 进德公益协办), convened a workshop to discuss the questionof religions and the public interest.90 A summary of that meeting appearedin the official journal of the CASS Institute of World Religions (IWR):
China Religions (Zhongguo zongjiao 中国宗教).91 The 2007 conference on
religion and charity and the conferences that followed in subsequent years
suggested some government interest. However, state officials also saw theperils inherent in government recognition as religious institutions could
gain credit for their relief work, at the expense of the government. As Wu
Keping noted in a seminar convened at the Chinese Philanthropy ResearchInstitute at Beijing Normal University, the officials present at the event
lauded the participation of religions in philanthropy while acknowledging
the need to “harness them.”92
Notwithstanding the above qualification, the discussions appeared prescient in the context of the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan. Some observers
interpreted the rapid response in delivering relief to victims of the disaster as the emergence of civic engagement in China.93 In November of thatyear, a “second forum on religion and the public interest (dierjia zongjiao
yu gongyi shiye luntan 第二届宗教与公益事业 论坛),” which focused on“emergency crisis and Buddhist charity (zainan weiji yu fojiao cishan shiye灾难危机与佛教慈善事业),” convened in Nanputuo temple. It discussed
lessons from the tragedy and debated how Buddhists had responded. Soon
89 Wu, “The Philanthropic Turn of Religions,” 427.
90 I have tried in vain many times over the years to obtain details of the workshop proceedings but could only find a partial account online. Over the years, I have also interactedwith many of the workshop attendees. Many of them do not have details of the workshop
proceedings.
91 Yu Ning 余薴, “Zongjiao yu gongyi: shoujie zongjiao yu gongyi shiye luntan zaijing juxing 宗
教与公益：首届宗教与公益事业论坛在京举行,” Zhongguo zongjiao 中国宗教 86, no. 6 (2007).
92 Wu, “The Philanthropic Turn of Religions,” 431.
93 Xu Bin, The Politics of Compassion: The Sichuan Earthquake and Civic Engagement in
China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017).
29

after, their websites reported the deliberations online, making them available to the broader public.94 The list of participants suggested an interest
from academics and from Buddhist associations in exchanging experiences
about what the latter had achieved, but it did not suggest much interest
from state authorities above a certain level. Nevertheless, these meetings
revealed that the religious milieus, and not only those that were Buddhists,
had not waited for the government before acting to provide relief.
At the meeting, scholars of Buddhism and religious studies such as Wei
Dedong 魏德东, Wang Jia 王佳, Lin Zhigang 林志刚, and Liu Yuanchun
刘元春, exchanged views with monastics who already had experience inphilanthropy, such as the host Zhengxing 正兴, but also others such as
Chang Hui 常辉.95 Lay Buddhists associated with philanthropy in Taiwan
and Japan presented their views, along with other representatives fromother Buddhist charities in China. The organizers also invited speakers
from other NGOs such as the Chinese Ageing Development Foundation(zhongguo laoling shiye fazhan jijinhui 中国老龄事业发展基金会) to share
their insights. Among the officials present, only Chen Jiande 陈建德, Secretary for the Party Bureau for Nationalities and Religions (minzong dangzu
shuji 民宗局党组书记) for the Xiamen municipal party committee, represented the CCP. The other officials present were state representatives: Lin
Zhizhi 林致知,Vice Director for the Fujian Province Bureau for Religions(fujiansheng minzongting futingzhang 福建省民宗厅副厅长), and Liu Wei(刘威), Vice Director of SARA’s first department (yisi fusizhang 一司副司
长), responsible for research on Buddhism and Daoism. None of them led
their respective organizations.
Other meetings followed, including a third one in Xining, Qinghai, in
2009; and a fourth one a year later on faith-based social services, which
met at Renmin University and focused again on the role of lay Buddhists incharity.96 The idea discussed in these meetings of epistemic communities
94 See Fjnet (fojiao zaixian), “Jiaojie, xuejie guanyu zhongguo fojiao cishan shiye de jitisikao, 教界、学界关于中国佛教慈善事业的集体思考,” 2008.
95 Zhengxing was director of the Nanputuo Temple Charity; Changhui was active in theHebei province Buddhist charity.
96 No details of the proceedings of these events have been published, and little trace has
been left online. See Yisilan zhiguangxun, “300 xuezhe zhuanjia jiqi gaoyuan jiabei jiaoyu
yu zongjiao cishan shixian,” 2009; Gaoxiaowang (zhongguo gaoxiao renwen shehui kexue xiuxiwang 中国高校人文社会科学休息网), “Di 4 jia zongjiao yu gongyi shiye luntan ji‘jushi fojiao yu cishan wenhua’ yantaohui zai zhongguo renmin daxue juxing 第 4 届宗教
与公益事业论坛暨“居士佛教与慈善文化”研讨会在中国人民大学举行,” 2010.
30

of scholars and religious representatives, received cautious and indirectendorsement in the CCP. For example, Gao Hong, who worked in a local
branch of the Party School, which trains cadres, published a paper in 2010
suggesting that Chinese society could benefit substantially from Buddhist
charities. Using the example of Shanghai-based Buddhist philanthropy, sheargues that the practice of charity affirms the religious values of adherents
to that religion, and the co-operation between entrepreneurs and lay followers is a good example of welfare supply and what she terms ‘institutionalized good deeds.’97 The article did appear in a relatively less prominent
journal published in Gansu, an impoverished province in the Northwest,
far away from Shanghai, the focus of the case study, and from Beijing,where the central government makes decisions. However, considering therole of religious charity in fighting poverty and the location of the journal
in a province known for its difficult conditions, it may appear most relevant to the local authorities.
Some other meetings also happened in addition to those sponsored byRenmin University. In 2011, Shanghai, which has a long tradition of exchanges with Protestant churches, hosted a conference on religious charity
and social development, extending invitations to international experts.98
At the conference, there was convergence between secular and religious
institutions on the issue of justice, perhaps not surprising in the birthplaceof the CCP, a city with the largest proportion of Catholics in any provincelevel division of the PRC, and where many Protestant missionaries had
resided. As was the case at previous events, Buddhist perspectives received
much attention, with no fewer than 16 interventions regarding Buddhism.99
Christian perspectives, however, received an equal amount of attention,
if one includes the interventions about Hong Kong. This contrasted withthree interventions about Daoist charity, and one about Islamic philanthropy. The event also offered a unique opportunity to hear perspectives
on two religions other than the ‘big five,’ Judaism and Bahai’i, which both
had a presence in the city.
97 Gao Hong 高虹, “Fojiao cishan shiye yu shehui fuli wenti yanjiu- yi Shanghai fojiao xinyang shixian weili 佛教慈善事业与社会福利问题研究—以上海佛教信仰实践为例,” Gansu
shehui kexue 甘肃社会科学 3 (2010): 158.
98 Tao Feiya 陶飞亚 and Liu Yi 刘义, eds., Zongjiao cishan yu zhongguo shehui gongyi 宗教慈
善与中国社会公益 (Shanghai: Shanghai daxue chubanshe, 2012).
99 Of the interventions about Buddhism, four looked at Taiwan-based Ciji.
31

There were many events in 2012 that suggested a greater state interest in
religious charity. There was a 6th forum devoted to the issue of religious-basedsocial services, which was attended by the Taiwan-based Ciji.100 In the same
year, the government also convened a forum on Protestant churches. The 8thof its kind, the forum considered the social relevance of churches in Chinesesociety.101 The debates explored the capacity of China’s different religions andlistened to a mixture of academics as well as representatives of the religious
milieus. It was also in 2012 that SARA launched the first “religious charity weeks” which were supposed to become yearly, during which religious
institutions at all levels raised money for philanthropy. The sums collected
at the end of that event amounted to 260 million RMB.102 This represented
more than the money raised by large Chinese and transnational enterprises.
As Wu Keping found out in her investigations in Eastern China, however,religious actors had mixed feelings about these initiatives, some looking at
it as due recognition of the importance of religion, others as a way for thegovernment to extract money from them.103
A major development occurred in the last year of the Hu administration,
as officials at the top recognized what had already been happening in thepreceding years with the tacit approval of some local leaders. In 2012, SARA,
the CCP UFWD, the State Council Commission for Development and Reform, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and the National
Tax Administration, jointly supported the issuance of a legal opinion thatencouraged religious actors to organize philanthropic activities that were in
the public interest. Although not legally binding, this opinion opened theway for religious institutions to provide different social services according
to their abilities. For the religious milieu, it mattered because it not only reflected the pragmatic policies of a few local governments, but, as approval
from the top, could inspire hesitant local governments to follow suit. The
opinion appeared then to herald a major change of approach, but at the timeof writing, it has yet to be turned into legislation.104 It remains unclear how
much Xi Jinping, who was already on the CCP Standing Committee when it
issued the opinion, intends to follow suit with his own policies.
100 Dakongbao 2012.
101 SARA, “第八届‘基督宗教在当代中国社会作用及其影响’高级论坛在南京召开,” 2012.
102 Wu, “The Philanthropic Turn of Religions,” 432.
103 Wu, 432.
104 Magda Hornemann, “China: Changing climate for religious NGOs?,” Forum 18 News
Service, July 12, 2012.
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In addition to the conferences discussed above, which ostensibly included members of all the ‘big five’ religions, Buddhist associations havemet at conferences that addressed their specific concerns. This does notnecessarily mean that Buddhism has received preferential treatment. As
mentioned, Protestant churches also had meetings dedicated to them. Tan
Yuanfang, a researcher in political science and civic education at Guangzhou
University, published a paper in 2012 outlining the difficulties faced by
Buddhist charities, and looked at the achievements of those in Taiwan as
possible solutions to these problems.105 The paper revealed a greater appreciation than before of Buddhist associations’ potential to serve the state
in its social policies during the last years of the Hu administration. It also
expressed a key reservation: the adoption of the management methods
NGOs use in the provision of welfare risks undermining the spiritualauthority of monastics towards their followers.
Numbers from the official religious associations reveal that religious
milieus have not waited for the ‘2012 opinion’ to develop charities. Between 2003 and 2014, Fayin (法音), the journal of the Buddhist Association of China, reported 106 charitable activities performed by Buddhist
associations.106 Tianfeng (天凤), the journal of the Three-Selves Churches
recorded 89 philanthropic activities sponsored by Protestant churches.
Zhongguo Tianzhujiao (中国天主教), the periodical for the Patriotic
Catholic Association, counted 46 such activities for the same period.
Zhongguo Dajiao (中国道教), the official journal for the Daoist Associationof China, counted 48. These numbers provide another example of what
Robert Weller calls “blind-eye governance,” wherein the government tolerates activities that are not subject to legal protection, as long as they do
not challenge its authority.107 The following section looks into debates on
religious charities under Xi and tries to assess to what extent the attitudeunder Hu will continue unabated.

105 Tan Yuanfang 谭苑芳, “Fojiao cishan shiye feiyingli zuzhi zhili jiegou de juxian jiqi huiying 佛教慈善事业非营利组织治理结构的局限及其回应,” Guangzhou daxue xuebao (shehui
kexueban) 广州大学学报 (社会科学版) 11, no. 11 (2012).
106 A list of all these activities is available upon request.
107 Robert Weller, “Responsive Authoritarianism and Blind-Eye Governance in China,” inSocialism Vanquished, Socialism Challenged: Eastern Europe and China, 1989–2009, ed.
Nina Bandelj and Dorothy J. Solinger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
33

5 Religious Charity under Xi Jinping
The transition from Hu to Xi was a staggered process. Although the CCP
Standing Committee changed almost completely in 2012, there was a lot ofcontinuity at the policy level. The leadership of SARA, under Wang Zuo’an,ensured a measure of stability in religious affairs. Appointed in 2009, Wang
remained in that position throughout the last third of the Hu administration and the first half of Xi’s administration. Indicative of the political importance of religious work for the CCP, Wang was also Vice Director of the
CCP UFWD, a position in which he served until March 2018, when SARA
fell under the direct control of the CCP. A similar degree of constancy endured in the other relevant ministries of the State Council responsible forcharity and different aspects of social welfare. Hence, the Minister for Civil
Affairs, Li Liguo, served from 2010 to 2016 in that capacity.108 The healthcare minister, Chen Zhu, remained in his position from 2007 to 2013.109
The minister of education, Yuan Guiren, served between 2009 and 2016.
Finally, minister Yin Weimin remained in charge of Human Resources andSocial Security since its founding in 2008 until 2018.
As seen above, debates on religions and charity continued throughout
the last year of the Hu administration as the CCP prepared for Xi to succeed
Hu. Yet, many of these debates happened behind closed doors, and their conclusions are difficult to access. Very few of them divulge their results to the
public. One rare example is the conference organized by the IWR, under
the auspices of its director Zhuo Xinping in 2012.110 Perhaps indicative ofcontinued resistance to religious charity within the higher ranks of the CCP,
details of the proceedings of that forum convened in 2012 were publishedthree years later.111 Support from the party appeared tepid at best. Apartfrom the Director and Vice Director, who may count as officials, no highranking members of the government or the CCP participated in the event.
The highest official was Zhang Daocheng 张道成, Deputy Secretary Generalof the CPPCC and Vice President of the CCF. Only the BAC, which sent its
108 However, following an investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the CCP demoted him from that position in 2016.
109 In 2013, the Health and Family Planning Commission superseded the Ministry of Health.
110 Zhuo Xinping 卓新平 and Zheng Xiaoyuan 郑筱筠, eds., Zongjiao cishan yu shehui fazhan
宗教慈善与社会发展 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2015).
111 This could also reflect uncertainty in the higher echelons of power as Xi was launching
his campaign against corruption in the CCP and the state administration.
34

Executive Director, Miao Xian 妙贤, and the DAC, which delegated its Vice
President, Zhang Jiyu 张继禹, sent high-ranking officers.
The design of the conference, as it transpires from the details of its proceedings, suggested a strong preference for Buddhism. Besides the conceptual interventions on the nature of charity and the general principle that
religion should serve society, the discussions on the specific inclinationsof religions to contribute to the public interest have tended to focus on theviews of that specific religion.112 The texts on religion and development
have likewise paid more attention to Buddhism than to other religions.
The details of the proceedings present three case studies of charities basedin Beijing, Tianjin, and Jiangsu, as well as the activities of another one in
Tibet, which are all Buddhist. Only one chapter introduces charities fromProtestant churches, which, as shown above, have established almost as
many of these activities as Buddhists have. Observations on religious charities’ contributions to social development also pay more attention to those
operated by the BAC than to charities run by the other religions among the‘big five.’113 The proceedings also present the reflections of international
scholars, who wrote on the theme of religious charity in social development.114 None of these academics came from the global South or an Asian
country, and of the ten, four were members of the Church of Latter Day
Saints, and three associated with the Catholic Church.
In 2013, the annual report on China’s philanthropy development forthe previous year outlined at length the challenges faced by the sector andoffered a rare attempt to provide a comprehensive view on RNGOs.115 The
report submitted by Zheng Xiaoyuan, Director of the IWR, put things inperspective following the ‘Opinion of 2012.’116 According to the report, the112 Of the ten texts on religious ethics and charity, four present reflections from officials, four
focus on Buddhism, one on Daoism, and one on popular religions.
113 The other case texts include observations about charities in the USA, the Church of Latter Day Saints, Catholicism in Hebei, Islam in Ningxia, and the devotion to the Eternal
Mother in Shanghai.
114 These discussions on religious experiences and case studies in an international comparative perspective have looked likewise at three Buddhist charities, and one charity for eachof Catholicism, Islam, and the Church of Latter Day Saints. Two other chapters include
a wide-ranging discussion on charity in the USA, and a consideration of the Catholic
Church in Shanghai before 1949.
115 Yang Tuan 杨团, Zhongguo cishan fazhan baogao (2013) 中国慈善发展报告 (2013) (Beijing: shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2013).
116 Zheng Xiaoyuan 郑筱筠, “2012 niandu zhongguo zongjiao cishan fazhan baogao 2012 年
度中国宗教慈善发展报告,” in Zhongguo cishan fazhan baogao 中国慈善发展报告, ed. Yang
35

activities paid for by foundations with links to religious associations covereda wide range of needs.117 Of the 69 such foundations, most delivered services
that count as social welfare. Seven of these associations provided services
related to individual safety following natural disasters (anquan zainan 安全灾难), 10 provided medical help, 10 provided services in education, andmost of the rest provided services in different aspects of social assistance.
The medical services included emergency medical relief (yiliao jiuzhu 医疗
救助, 8), and mental health (xinli jiankang 心理健康, 2). Several associations
were involved in helping disabled people (canji 残疾, 4), supporting the elderly (laonianren 老年人, 4), supporting children (ertong 儿童, 3), and publichealth insurance (weisheng baojian 卫生保建, 3). Some of the activities could
count as development activities and long-term forms of support: poverty
alleviation (fupin 扶贫, 5); environment (huanjing 环境, 4); rural improvements (sannong 三农, 3); and support for minorities (shaoshu minzu 少数民族). Furthermore, 12 of the philanthropic associations with a religious affiliation were cultural in nature.
In a separate document, Wang Qun noted that the number of religious
foundations grew from five in 2003 to 50 ten years later, most of them
affiliated to Buddhism and supervised by the Civil Affairs Department or
the BRA.118 However, the number of religious foundations remained very
modest in proportion to the total numbers for foundations of all kinds. In
the China Statistical Yearbook, Wang found 954 foundations in 2003, and3549 ten years later.119 Barely 0.5% of foundations had a religious identity
in 2003, a proportion that would change little after.
The sums given by religious associations to welfare activities represent a very small amount compared to those donated by corporations andwealthy individuals. Zheng found that the sum that all Buddhist associations cumulatively raised from 2007 to 2012 amounted to 1.86 billion yuan;
followed by Protestants (350 million); Catholics (250 million); Daoists
Tuan 杨团 (Beijing: shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2013).
117 The information in this paragraph is from Zheng, “2012 niandu zhongguo zongjiao cishan fazhan baogao 2012,” 109.
118 Wang Qun, “A Typological Study of the Recent Development and Landscape of Foundations in China,” Chinese Political Science Review 3 (2018): 314. There is a significant discrepancy between Wang and Zheng’s numbers. Wang uses official numbers from the government while Zheng relies on a research center for foundations, whose site, at the URL, http://
crm.foundationcenter.org.cn/html/2012-07, was down at the time of writing.
119 Wang, “A Typological Study,” 299.
36

(240 million); and Muslims (180 million). However, these numbers are anunderestimation. For example, if one adds the YMCA and its sister organization, the YWCA, two charities affiliated to Protestant Christianity, thismeans an additional amount of 48.81 million yuan raised by Protestantassociations for the same period. Catholics have done likewise with theirown foundation, such as the Jinde 进德 Catholic Service Center, which
they founded in 1998.120
2013 saw four milestones for religious charities, which showed concretely that the government wanted to give religious charities some responsibilities.121 Seven ministries jointly issued a communique enjoining themto improve the work of looking after abandoned babies: in that year, 878
establishments took over that responsibility, of which 60% were temples
and other religious bodies.122 SARA formally issued a communique that institutionalized the ‘religious charity week.’ 2013 also marked a bumper year
in the creation of religious foundations at the provincial level in Yunnan,
and at the municipal level by Buddhists at Emeishan and Shijiazhuang, by
Daoists and Protestants in Wenzhou, and Catholics in Shantou. Finally,working with the Ministry of Civil Affairs, religious charities coordinateda conference on raising children.123 Zheng also reported seven developments that rationalized religious activities: the regularization of a ‘religious
charity week’; recognition of charity as a traditional religious activity;
diversification in these activities; better coordination with other organizations; increased co-operation with international RNGOs; cultivation of aculture of charity; and, finally, greater accountability for religious charities.
In the first years of the Xi Jinping administration, the conferences on
religion and the public interest continued. The 7th forum on the issue met in
Zhoukou, in Henan, in May 2013.124 While some of the previous meetings
had seemed to privilege Buddhism, other conferences included other religions. In April 2014, reports Teresa Carrino, the Religious Affairs Bureau
120 Zheng, “2012 niandu zhongguo zongjiao cishan fazhan baogao 2012,” 107–09.
121 Zheng Xiaoyuan 郑筱筠, “2013 zhongguo zongjiao cishan baogao 2013 中国宗教慈善报告,” in Zhongguo cishan fazhan baogao 中国慈善发展报告, ed. Yang Tuan 杨团 (Beijing:shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2014), 120–30.
122 Zheng, “2013 zhongguo zongjiao cishan baogao 2013,” 115.
123 See also: MCA (Ministry of Civil Affairs), “Notes on Information Concerning Homes
Run by Religious Organizations for Orphans and Abandoned Babies,” 2014.
124 Zhongguo zongjiao xueshuwan 中国宗教学术网, “diqijiao zongjiao yu gongyi shiye luntan zai Henan Zhoukou shi juxing 第七届宗教与公益事业论坛在河南周口市举行,” in Xinwen 新闻, May 28, 2013.
37

of Jiangsu Province invited the Amity Foundation to organize a program totrain people interested in the contribution of ‘faith-based NGOs’ to social
development. The event organized by Amity trained people from all of the‘big five’ religions and included lectures by experts in social development.
Following the event’s success, the government designated the Foundation
the “training hub in social development work for the five major religionsin Jiangsu Province.”125
In 2016, the report from the annual Nationwide Working Meeting on
Religions, organized by the United Front Work Department and chaired
by Xi, mentioned the need to build “a socialist theory of religion with
Chinese characteristics.” In the 19th Congress of the CCP, Xi formally imposed his views on religion in what he called the sinicizing (zhongguohua
中国化) of religion.126 In the same year, the National People’s Congress
finally adopted a Charity Law, the crowning achievement of a process that
had lasted eleven years.127 As Wang Qun’s research on NGOs demonstrates,
those of the associations that he classifies as religious charities serve thepublic in general rather than their adherents.128 They frame their activities
as non-religious and, aware of the government regulations, avoid proselytizing. The religious NGOs scrupulously follow official directives, awarethat this represents a condition for their operation. This does not protect
them from abuse, however. Some local governments outsource to religious
foundations the delivery of services even if the latter lacks the capacity todeliver such services.129 As Wu Keping argues, the government outsourcingof service delivery to religious associations changed the latter as the provision of relief and other public goods required a process of bureaucratization and professionalization.130
As Xi convened the CCP 19th Congress, religious philanthropy had
re-emerged as an important aspect of social life, presenting the state with
125 Theresa C. Carino, “Religion, Ethics, Values, and Development in a Changing China,”
The Ecumenical Review 68, no. 4 (2017): 446.
126 The official translation was ‘be Chinese in orientation’, as Vermander noted: Benoit Vermander, “Sinicizing Religions, Sinicizing Religious Studies,” Religions 10, no. 2 (2019): 3.
127 Ruth A. Shapiro, “Asian Philanthropy Explained,” in Pragmatic Philanthropy: Asian
Philanthropy Explained, ed. Ruth A. Shapiro, Manisha Mirchandani, and Heesu Jang
(Hong Kong: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 9, 18.
128 Wang, “A Typological Study of the Recent Development,” 314. Wang is the co-founder ofthe Research Infrastructure of Chinese Foundations.
129 Wu, “The Philanthropic Turn of Religions,” 442.
130 Wu, 434.
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an increasingly difficult quandary. Religious philanthropy was increasing,while at the same time, the central government’s policy appeared more
repressive against religion. As Susan McCarthy has shown with her casestudies of two faith-based philanthropic associations in Gansu and Yunnan, the government’s efforts to address social problems have opened up
opportunities for them to pursue their religious goals.131 The local government support for the Gansu Province Association for Minority Nationality
Cultural and Educational Promotion (Gansu sheng shaoshu minzu wenhua jiaoyu cujinhui 甘肅省少數民族 文化教育促進會), however, happened
barely a year before the mass internment of Uyghur Muslims. Likewise,
the Yunnan government’s co-operation with the Gospel Rehab (fuyin jiedu
福音戒毒), a Christian NGO, occurred just a few months before theZhejiang government forced churches to remove crosses from churchroofs. These contradictory signals suggest that two different approaches
to the outsourcing of social services to non-state actors have emerged.
The CCP can rely on two types of actors, with their respective advantages and liabilities: private philanthropy from wealthy individuals; andphilanthropy from volunteer-based organizations, including RNGOs.
The potential for private philanthropy had increased considerably by thetime Xi took power, and continued to do so after the renewal of his mandate in 2017. By 2016, China counted more billionaires than the UnitedStates, and seeing in that wealth a potential source of support for thegovernment, Xi has urged the most fortunate to help the poor throughphilanthropy.132 This approach has a distinct advantage in the eyes of theregime: it contributes to ‘stability maintenance’ and reproduces the existingsocial and political order. As many of the critiques of private philanthropy inWestern society have underlined, however, this approach reinforces the power of the wealthy and entrenches social inequalities, thereby generating thesources of social discontent that threaten social stability in the first place.133
For some other analysts, reliance on volunteer-based philanthropy represents a more positive alternative to reliance on wealthy individuals, which
depends on an individual’s goodwill and preference, without any mandatory
131 Susan McCarthy, “In Between the Divine and the Leviathan: Faith-based Charity, Religious
Overspill and the Governance of Religion in China,” China Review 17, no. 2 (2017): 67.
132 Shapiro, “Asian Philanthropy Explained,” 2.
133 See Rob Reich, Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018); Anand Giridharadas, Winners Take
All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2018).
39

requirement for transparency, accountability, and responsiveness to acuteneeds. As some more liberal-minded Chinese social scientists saw it until
recently, reliance on NGOs invigorates civil society’s potential for selfdetermination, and can serve as a vehicle to promote a more progressive andliberal society at grassroots level.134 However, the CCP under Xi appears tofear precisely this possibility. In 2018, the government revised the law thatallowed foreign NPOs to work in China by adding more restrictions, as it
feared their advocacy work.135 Some religious NGOs, however, can be considered an important advantage to the regime if they sustain the existingsocial order, and if they accept the authority of the state.

6 Conclusion
Chinese scholars closely attuned to the developments of the CCP’s religious work remain skeptical about the likelihood that it will relinquish its
tight control over religious affairs anytime soon. For example, Yu Tao believes that the experience CCP leaders gained during the formative stageof struggle against the GMD taught them early on about the disruptive
potential of religious organizations and secret societies. The vulnerabilityof the CCP during the republican regime, however, also made clear to its
members the potential benefits of rallying religions and secret societies
to their cause.136 With the benefit of hindsight, the destructive phase of
the anti-religious policy of Mao, which targeted all expression of religiosity, appears to be an aberration in the party’s general approach to religion. Notwithstanding the persecution of new religious movements suchas Falungong, and the harassment of older faiths such as the Protestantchurches and Islam, the CCP appears willing to co-exist with religious
institutions, confident that it will outlast them. What the recent policies
and actions of local governments have made increasingly clear, however,is the differentiated approach adopted by the CCP towards religion. On
the one hand, it celebrates Buddhism and Daoism as examples of Chi134 See, for example: Yu Jianxing 郁建兴 and Chen Kejian 陈可鉴, “Fuli guojia wei shenme
xuyao cishan bumen? 福利国家为什么需要慈善部门?,” Zhejiang daxue xuebao (renwen
shehui kexue ban) 浙江大学学报 (人文社会科学版) 46, no. 1 (2016).
135 Shapiro, “Asian Philanthropy Explained,” 9.
136 Yu Tao, “The Historical Foundations of Religious Restrictions in Contemporary China,”
Religions 8, no. 12 (2017): 10.
40

nese heritage, and on the other hand, it expresses almost open hostility
towards Christianity and Islam as foreign religions, barely veiled by thediscourse on ‘sinicizing religion.’ Moreover, the CCP under Xi appears
inclined toward approving Buddhism and Daoism as ‘culture’ rather than‘religion,’ a sentiment espoused by some intellectuals associated with
the Buddhist and Daoist milieus. This logic may ultimately dissolve theboundaries between the sphere of the religious and the political, completing a project of total secularity with the CCP as a vanguard.
China thus offers a key test in the current debates about the reversalof modernity, whereby the decline of the welfare state coincides with anincrease in faith-based provision of social services. The state’s retreat frommany aspects of social policy since Mao has yet to stop, despite claims from
Deng’s successors that China will soon implement a more generous welfare
state. The religious landscape of China, and the CCP’s overbearing attempts
to supervise its withering away, make it unlikely that any established religion could play a role comparable to that played by Christian Churches inWestern societies. China does not experience the kind of religious freedomthat liberal societies in Asia and in the West know, and which empowers
churches to act as substitutes for the state.137 However, as the considerable
development of Buddhist philanthropy in Taiwan shows, faith-based social
welfare is likely to remain an important option in Chinese societies, keeping in mind the forecast of a rise in the number of elderly people in needof long-term care, and the present regime’s difficulties in coping with it.

137 Surveys in the US found that in 2012 the three largest charities were United Way, World
Vision, and Catholic Charities. While the latter is still an organic component of the Catholic Church, the two other ones are offshoots of Protestant religious organizations. See
Josef Hien, “The Return of Religion? The Paradox of Faith-Based Welfare Provision in a
Secular Age,” MPIfG Discussion Paper 14/9 (Cologne: Max Planck Institute for the Studyof Societies, 2014), 18.
41

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