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la 10 mai 2014
Xi Jinping hopes traditional faiths
can fill moral void in China: sources
BY BENJAMIN KANG LIM AND BEN BLANCHARD
BEIJING Sun Sep 29, 2013 5:30pm EDT

(Reuters) - President Xi Jinping believes China is losing its moral compass and he
wants the ruling Communist Party to be more tolerant of traditional faiths in the
hope these will help fill a vacuum created by the country's breakneck growth and
rush to get rich, sources said.
Xi, who grew up in Mao's puritan China, is troubled by what he sees as the country's
moral decline and obsession with money, said three independent sources with ties to
the leadership.
He hopes China's "traditional cultures" or faiths - Confucianism, Buddhism and
Taoism - will help fill a void that has allowed corruption to flourish, the sources said.
Skeptics see it as a cynical move to try to curb rising social unrest and perpetuate
one-party rule.
During the early years under Communism, China's crime rate was low and
corruption rare. By contrast, between 2008 and 2012 about 143,000 government
officials - or an average of 78 a day - were convicted of graft or dereliction of duty,
according to a Supreme Court report to parliament in March.

Xi intensified an anti-corruption campaign when he became party and military chief

in November, but experts say only deep and difficult political reforms will make a
difference.
Meanwhile, barely a day goes by without soul-searching on the Internet over what
some see as a moral numbness in China - whether it's over graft, the rampant sale of
adulterated food or incidents such as when a woman gouged out the eyes of her sixyear-old nephew this month for unknown reasons.
"Xi understands that the anti-corruption (drive) can only cure symptoms and that
reform of the political system and faiths are needed to cure the disease of
corruption," one of the sources told Reuters, requesting anonymity to avoid
repercussions for discussing elite politics.
Government agencies would moderate policies towards Confucianism, Buddhism
and Taoism in the hope these faiths would also help placate the disaffected who
cannot afford homes, education and medical treatment, the sources said.
"The influence of religions will expand, albeit subtly," a second source said, also
speaking on condition of anonymity.
"Traditional cultures will not be comprehensively popularized, but attacks on them
will be avoided."
Skeptics described such tactics as a ploy to divert blame away from the party for the
many problems that anger ordinary Chinese, from corruption to land grabs.
"Buddhists accept their destiny and blame their predicament on the bad deeds they
did in their previous lives," said Hu Jia, an AIDS activist and Buddhist who has been
intermittently under house arrest since his release in 2011 after serving 42 months in
prison for subversion.
GENUINE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM?
Religious freedom is enshrined in the constitution but the officially atheist
Communist Party has no qualms about crushing those who challenge its rule. The
party is paranoid and would remain vigilant against cults and feudal superstition, the
sources added.

China banned Falun Gong as a cult and has jailed hundreds, if not thousands, of
adherents since 1999. Former president Jiang Zemin also defrocked and put under
house arrest a six-year-old boy anointed by the Dalai Lama as the second holiest
figure in Tibetan Buddhism in 1995.
"Relaxation and suppression go hand in hand," said Nicholas Bequelin, of New Yorkbased Human Rights Watch.
"In China, religion must serve the state," Bequelin said. "There is greater religious
freedom in China ... but to what extent is the party ready to allow genuine religious
freedom?"
Washington will also need convincing.
In its 2012 report on international religious freedom, the U.S. State Department said
Chinese officials and security organs scrutinized and restricted the activities of
registered and unregistered religious and spiritual groups.
The government harassed, detained, arrested or sentenced to prison a number of
adherents for activities reportedly related to their religious beliefs and practice, it
said.
Indeed, conservatives in the party still frown on what they see as "religious
infiltration". Zhu Weiqun, a vice chairman of the top advisory body to parliament,
warned in an interview with China Newsweek magazine in June that party members
should not even practice any religion.
Others think change is in the air.
"This is for real," Lin Chong-Pin, a Taipei-based veteran China watcher and former
government policymaker, said by telephone. "To save the party and the state from
the current crises, Xi must fill the spiritual void."
A "SPIRITUAL CIVILISATION"
In a sign of the changes Xi wants, Zhang Lebin, deputy director of the Bureau of
Religious Affairs, wrote a commentary in July in the party's mouthpiece, the People's
Daily, that said "treating religions well should become a common consensus ... and
the right to practice religions should be protected".

The following month, Xi called for building both a "material and spiritual
civilization" - Communist jargon for growth and morality.
Back in February, Xi met Taiwan's top Buddhist monk, Hsing Yun, in Beijing along
with a delegation of dignitaries from the self-ruled island which Beijing claims as its
own.
Meetings between top Chinese and religious leaders are rare.
Hsing Yun was banned from China in the early 1990s for giving sanctuary to a senior
Chinese official at his temple in the United States after the 1989 Tiananmen
crackdown. He is now a bestselling author in China.
"President Xi and his family have feelings for Buddhism," said Xiao Wunan,
executive vice chairman of the Asia Pacific Exchange and Cooperation Foundation, a
Beijing-backed non-governmental organization.
In yet another sign, Yu Zhengsheng, ranked fourth in the Communist hierarchy,
visited five temples in Tibetan areas in July and August and a mosque in western
Xinjiang province in May - unprecedented for such a senior leader in terms of
frequency.
MAO PURGED CONFUCIUS, POSTHUMOUSLY
China estimates it has 50 million practitioners of Buddhism and Taoism, 23 million
Protestants, 21 million Muslims and 5.5 million Catholics,
Independent experts put the number of practitioners of Buddhism, Taoism and folk
religions at between 100-300 million.
Chinese emperors embraced Confucianism for centuries, encouraging the
philosopher's teachings of filial piety and respect for teachers and authority. Mao
then posthumously purged Confucius in the early 1970s.
Confucianism has since made a comeback, although not a smooth one.
A 9.5-metre (30-foot), 17-tonne statue of Confucius was erected in 2011 outside a
Beijing museum adjacent to Tiananmen Square, not far from a portrait of Mao which
overlooks the area. It vanished weeks later with no official reason given.

Conservatives celebrated its removal, which came on the heels of an online uproar
about the statue's location.
Buddhism was virtually wiped out during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution when
temples were shut and Buddhist statues smashed.

It has crept back although China maintains tight control in Tibet where monks and
nuns have been jailed for their loyalty to the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile
in India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Communist rule.
About 120 Tibetans have set themselves alight in protest against Chinese rule since
2009. Most have died.
Taoism, or Daoism, a philosophy-turned-religion preaches living in harmony with
nature and simplicity.
Nevertheless, despite the emphasis on fostering more openness for traditional faiths,
one thing in the world's second biggest economy will remain the same.
"Economic development is still the No. 1 (priority). Moral development is No. 2," the
third source said.

Confucius' lessons still relevant, Xi says

Updated: 2013-11-27 00:02
By He Dan (China Daily)

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President Xi Jinping said Confucian thought can play a positive role in China's development
today.
Xi made the remarks while talking to Confucianism scholars during his visit to Confucius'
hometown in Shandong province on Tuesday.

China boasts a long traditional culture, and China will create a new glory of its culture, he
said in a speech after he listened to a discussion of experts on Confucianism at Qufu, the
hometown of Confucius.
Xi stressed that research on Confucius and Confucianism should follow the rules of making
the past serve the present and discarding the dross while keeping the essential, so the
thoughts of the renowned philosopher of ancient China can exert a positive influence today.
"I will read these two books carefully," he said to his two companions as he looked through
classics and periodicals on Confucianism at the Confucius Research Institute with great
interest. One of the two books he mentioned was about interpretations on The Analects of
Confucius, and the other had quotes from Confucius' talks with family members, Xinhua
News Agency reported on Tuesday.
The Confucius Research Institute was established in 1996 to collect literature, encourage
communication, and boost academic research and train talents on Confucianism, in addition
to serving as a museum. The institute has carried out studies on Confucius temples
worldwide and run the academic magazine Journal of Confucius.
Xi also visited the family mansion of Kong, where Confucius' descendents lived. The
mansion, which occupies about 13.3 hectares and has about 460 rooms, was built in 1377.
During his visits in Shandong on Monday, Xi sent a basket of flowers to a cemetery of
revolutionary martyrs in Linyi and saw the exhibition that showed the history of local
residents providing aid for frontline Chinese troops during the War of Resistance against
Japanese Aggression (1937-45). He also visited families of former role models, including the
granddaughter of Wang Huanyu, a village woman who helped to take care of Chinese
solders' small children during the war.
Linyi is a part of Yimeng Revolutionary Base, which was well known for providing troops to
the Chinese army. Among its population of 4.2 million at that time, more than 210,000 locals
joined the Red Army and 1.2 million offered logistical help during the War of Resistance
against Japanese Aggression and China's War of Liberation (1946-49).
On Monday evening, Xi visited Shandong Ruyi Group, a textile company in Jining, and urged
the company owner to pay more attention to employees' welfare and interests.