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China has been an atheistic, communist country since 1 October 1949, when Mao declared the Peoples’ Republic of China. Today, that communist regime is evolving into some form of free market economy with a totalitarian governmental structure. Can it achieve this goal of being totalitarian politically yet free economically? One of its core values seems to be to keep religion and freedom of speech under control. Two examples show how impossible this is:
- First example: Freedom of speech. This summer China will host the summer Olympics. China’s human rights record is absolutely horrific—forced abortions, persecution of Christians, limiting speech and supporting governments around the world that abuse its citizens, even to the point of genocide (e.g., Sudan in Darfur). But, as Chuck Colson has reported, “to comply with the international Olympic Charter, Britain’s Olympic athletes are being forced to sign contracts promising they will not say anything about China’s human rights abuses. If they violate the contract, they will be forced to leave the games. US athletes cannot speak freely at any official Olympic venue or press conference either. Steven Spielberg recognized the horror of such restrictions and withdrew from his role as an artistic adviser to the Games’s opening and closing ceremonies. It is difficult to justify this kind of action on the part of the Chinese government. Some have compared this gagging of Olympic athletes to the forced Nazi salute athletes needed to give at the 1938 Berlin Olympics.
- Second: Freedom of religion. The Chinese government has tried for decades to control religion. It has, for example, substituted its own Catholic hierarchy—the Catholic Patriotic Association—for Rome’s since 1957, leading to constant friction between the Pope and the Communist Party. Similarly, Chinese Protestantism officially operates under the so-called “Three-Self Patriotic Movement,” which is in turn regulated by the Party. But this attempt to control religion has hardly worked. Unofficial Protestants, who attend unsanctioned “house churches,” are said to number between 70 and 130 million people. Some suggest that number could be 300 million. Further, every class of Chinese is involved in these churches—farmers, urban migrant workers, professionals and intellectuals. Without question, Chinese communist atheism has produced a moral and ethical vacuum. Religion, especially Christianity, is filling that vacuum and giving meaning and purpose to life that atheistic communism could not give. Jesus said in Matthew 16 the He would build His church. There is no greater evidence of that proposition than modern day China.
See Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal (18 March 2008) and “Breakpoint” (3 March 2008).
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