Reflections from Pastor John Cao is a series of poetry and writings from the recently released Chinese Christian prisoner of conscience exclusively published by ChinaAid. The piece below was written on April 4, 2024 and has been minimally edited for clarity. To read more of Pastor John Cao’s poetry, one can purchase the collection written while he was imprisoned, Living Lyrics: Poems from Prison.
In recent years, some local governments have made things difficult for Christian house churches, creating some ridiculous cases. For example, in the recent incident in Fuyang, Anhui Province, Pastor Zhang Sen of Maizhong Reformed Church was administratively detained for 15 days by the Fuyang Public Security Bureau. The reason was that on the morning of March 24th, Pastor Zhang Sen and Christians from his church went to the Fuyang Detention Center to welcome 8 believers who were being released. While leading everyone in prayer outdoors, he was charged by the police with the crime of “organizing illegal gathering” and sentenced to 15 days of administrative detention. Does China really have a law that prohibits believers from praying in public open spaces? I have strong doubts about this. When I walk on the street, I often see people playing poker. What’s amazing is that many people gather around to watch the game, with at least a dozen onlookers. I just don’t understand why these many onlookers don’t form groups of four and start another table. They could at least open up four or five more tables. If more than a dozen people gathering together constitutes an “illegal gathering,” then why don’t the police go and arrest these people playing poker? They play in public open spaces for an entire day, and they’re there playing every day. More than a dozen people praying in an open space, and more than a dozen people playing poker in an open space – what’s the difference?
The answer is clear to everyone without needing to be said. It’s because the Fuyang Public Security Bureau wants to crack down on Christian house churches, while the people playing poker are just a disorganized crowd, so it can’t be considered a crime. Or perhaps there simply isn’t any such law prohibiting a dozen or so people from gathering in an open space – it’s just that the local police fabricated such a law in order to suppress Christian house churches.
A national security agent once talked with me, telling me to think about the interests of the country and to “put myself in their shoes” – to think about religion from the government’s perspective. So today I will try to think from their perspective and consider, from the standpoint of national interests, whether harassing Christian house churches brings more benefits or harm to the country. If the country can benefit from cracking down on Christian house churches, then I suppose it is fine for them to do it; after all, Christians’ lives are cheap in their mind. But if it brings more harm than good to the country, then why bother suppressing Christian house churches?
- There’s a good saying: “To kill ten thousand enemy soldiers while one loses eight thousand soldiers.” In recent years, the country has harassed tens of thousands of Christians, so their own days definitely haven’t been easy. It requires investing the efforts of at least eight thousand public security and national security agents, religious affairs officials, and countless amount of money. Although China is now so rich that money is not a big issue, it’s still better to save a bit. Moreover, in the past two years, due to the impact of the pandemic, the economy has severely declined. When I was in prison, police officers openly complained in front of all the inmates that the country couldn’t pay salaries, so they forced inmates to work desperately. Not making things difficult for Christian house churches would save the country a lot of money. At the same time, wouldn’t it be better to use the country’s police force and financial resources where it counts? For example, telephone fraud causes Chinese people to lose hundreds of billions in hard-earned money every year, with the elderly suffering the worst. The country expends so much energy collecting lists of Christian house church members – it would be better to collect lists of telecom fraudsters instead. I used to run a school in Wa State, Myanmar, teaching Chinese and promoting Chinese culture. I know there are 80,000 Chinese people engaged in telecom fraud in Wa State. In 2017, while I was in prison, I told the police interrogating me that I could report those telecom fraudsters. The police replied that they were only there to arrest me, and they didn’t care about the telecom fraudsters. It seems that some police view us Christians as a more urgent target than real criminals.
- There’s another good saying: Neither gold prize nor silver prize is as valuable as the people’s praise. Christians are a part of the Chinese people, and the primary task of government officials and police is to protect the people and win their good opinion. Government officials and police today are simply doing the opposite, just like during the Anti-Rightist Movement, infinitely expanding the scope of the crackdown. This has left us Christians voicing endless grievances. Under such circumstances, how can the people possibly have a good opinion of government officials and the police? There’s another saying that good news doesn’t leave the door, but bad news travels a thousand miles – and in the Internet age, this is especially true. Today, with local police harassing us Christians day in and day out, their notoriety has long since spread far and wide. Why bother with this? The common people today are no longer the serfs of feudal times – they’ve long since abandoned the mentality of “only officials may set fires; the common people may not even light lamps.” On the contrary, today’s common people appreciate the view of Han Yu from the Tang Dynasty: “Things cry out when they are not treated fairly. Grass and trees have no voice, but when the wind disturbs them, they make a sound. The same is true of people’s speech – there are times when they have no choice but to speak out!” When the common people encounter injustice, they must speak out when it’s time to do so. When the common people speak out, doesn’t that damage the image of the country and the chairman? Today, China advocates the “Belt and Road” initiative, which means leading the way for all the countries of the world. In his speech at the World Economic Forum’s “Davos Forum”, China’s chairman said that China “points out the direction and path of development for a world lost in confusion.” The only countries in the world that make things difficult for Christians are probably just a few countries like North Korea. If China wants to lead the world, isn’t it important to establish a good reputation? We mustn’t be like North Korea, with a terrible reputation. If your reputation is bad, who will pay attention to your “direction and path”.
- The relationship between church and state has troubled governments for thousands of years – it’s not something the Chinese government is encountering for the first time. During the Qing Dynasty, Empress Dowager Cixi took the harshest crackdown on Christianity, secretly inciting the Boxers to massacre Christians, with Christian martyrs reaching 30,000. Was Empress Dowager Cixi ultimately successful? No – after the brutal crackdown, Christianity still stood up again. During the Anti-Rightist Movement and the Cultural Revolution, churches were impacted, and all churches were shut down. What was the result? In 1980, when the country lifted the ban on religion, it suddenly discovered that the number of believers had grown unprecedentedly overnight. Many governments in the past have introduced policies to crack down on religion, but these policies failed from Empress Dowager Cixi to the Cultural Revolution. What reason do today’s bureaucrats have to believe that a new round of crackdowns on Christian house churches will be effective?
For any national policy, after a period of implementation, there should be an inspection and review to see if it benefits the people and consolidates the regime. If a policy is too self-destructive, it must be corrected. For example, family planning – after 20 years of practice, it was found that family planning was an outrageous and self-destructive national policy, and it was finally corrected seven years ago.
The current crackdown on Christian house churches is also an outrageous and self-destructive national policy. It has been almost ten years since Zhejiang Province’s CCP Party Secretary Xia Baolong began demolishing churches and crosses in 2015. Cracking down on Christians is harming Chinese people themselves, and it shames the Chinese government and the chairman in front of the whole world. Have Christian house churches shrunk due to the crackdown and persecution? No, not at all. So I really don’t understand why local government officials are so enthusiastic about doing such a stupid thing as cracking down on Christian house churches – it doesn’t hurt the house churches, but it makes the Chinese government and the chairman a topic of discussion. A policy that has already been proven to fail – are we going to continue it for another ten years? Xia Baolong demolished crosses and was promoted to work in the central government, but in the judgment of many, Xia Baolong is undoubtedly a sinner in history. If Xia Baolong enters the central government and broadens his horizons, realizing the importance of maintaining the prestige of the chairman, and promptly advises local police to stop harassing Christian house churches, then Xia Baolong can still be considered a good comrade.
Through the above simple analysis, we can see that some local police harassing Christian house churches is purely a case of people making trouble for themselves – a stupid move that greatly shames the Chinese government and the chairman.
