The Yunnan Model: How religious communities are managed with a grid system under strengthened Party leadership

Introduction

For religious communities in China, 2018 was a turning point. The revised Regulations on Religious Affairs ushered in an era of strict Party control over all aspects of religious affairs ‘in accordance with the law’. Various government departments have been given power to ban, prohibit or punish collective religious activities including religious training, education and exchanges on the pretext of ‘improving the rule of law in religious work’ and ‘managing religious affairs in accordance with the law’.

In late 2018 the Department in charge of Ethnic and Religious Affairs in the southwestern province of Yunnan circulated a confidential document on investigating and handling such issues with a handful of Christian leaders who co-signed a joint statement by church leaders, initiated by Pastor Wang Yi of Early Rain Covenant Church (ERCC).

A leaked document that was examined by CSW clearly outlines the government’s crackdown operation on Christian groups and particularly unregistered churches throughout China following the publishing of the statement:

‘Recently, as the crackdown on Christian irregularities and violations continues to intensify throughout the country, the forces of illegal Christian organisations, represented by the illegal Christian organisation Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, Sichuan, and its main leader Wang Yi, have reacted strongly and conspired with each other to mobilize more than 400 illegal organisations and key individuals in more than 20 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in China to co-sign the Pastors’ Joint Statement for the Christian Faith, resisting the newly revised Regulations on Religious Affairs. This is their attempt to create momentum through online hype, form public opinion pressure, and obstruct and confront the government’s governance in accordance with the law. This has seriously disrupted the normal order of religious administration, resulting in extremely bad influence. Based on the relevant clues, Yunnan police launched investigation and verification of the seven co-signatories who we are currently aware of…’

Comprehensive personal details of each of the co-signatories are included in the document, such as ID number, registered address and address of current residence, phone number, education background, religious activities etc. The co-signatories were from Kunming, Yuxi and Zhaotong, which is why the document was addressed to the Ethnic and Religious Bureau officials of those three cities in Yunnan.

It is reasonable to imagine that religious officials in other provinces received similar documents and more than 400 co-signatories have all been closely monitored and harassed, if not already jailed like Pastor Wang Yi, or placed in pre-trial detention like Elder Zhang Chunlei.

This study, which is based on the province of Yunnan will shed light on the Chinese government’s harsh enforcement of repressive religious policies and its impact on religious communities in recent years.

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