Religion and China's Welfare Regimes: Buddhist Philanthropy and the State (Religion and Society in Asia Pacific) 9811672695, 9789811672699

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RELIGION AND SOCIETY IN ASIA PACIFIC

Religion and China’s Welfare Regimes Buddhist Philanthropy and the State André Laliberté

Religion and Society in Asia Pacific

Series Editor Mark R. Mullins, Japan Studies Centre, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

The series promotes contemporary scholarship on the Asia-Pacific Region, particularly studies that give attention to the interaction and mutual transformation of religions across national boundaries and beyond their country of origin. This is a multidisciplinary series that includes both historical and contemporary ethnographic studies, which will contribute to our understanding of the traditional and changing roles of religion in multiple socio-political contexts in the region. Especially welcome are comparative studies that expand the frame of analysis beyond the nation-state and those that address emerging issues and trends related to globalization, such as religious pluralism and social conflict over the reemerging public role of religion, transnational religious movements, and Asian religions in diaspora communities.

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/15178

André Laliberté

Religion and China’s Welfare Regimes Buddhist Philanthropy and the State

André Laliberté University of Ottawa Ottawa, ON, Canada

ISSN 2730-793X ISSN 2730-7948 (electronic) Religion and Society in Asia Pacific ISBN 978-981-16-7269-9 ISBN 978-981-16-7270-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7270-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Marina Lohrbach_shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Preface

This volume constitutes the first of two books that look at philanthropy in Chinese societies as a lens through which to approach the issue of secularity in a contemporary society outside the West. I use a comparative approach that highlights the institutional differences in the incorporation of religion by the welfare regimes of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and other societies with a Chinese cultural heritage, such as Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and overseas Chinese communities: this comparison reflects the diversity of textures possible in the condition of secularity as it is lived in these societies. In this volume, I offer a detailed analysis of the situation in the PRC since 1949. I look at Buddhist philanthropy as a component of governance for the Communist Party, as it seeks to establish the foundations of a welfare regime encouraging the nonstate provision of social services while maintaining ideological hegemony over religious competitors. It focuses most of the analysis at the national level and sketches the merit of a differentiated regional analysis. In the second volume of this study, I contextualize this monograph by investigating the path dependency of previous centuries in terms of centralized state control over religion and by paying attention to the political and legal contexts which foster but also constrain the development of institutionalized altruism in other contemporary Chinese states and societies. These two books contribute to the scholarship about the issues raised in

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PREFACE

contemporary societies by the intertwinement of political and religious authorities. Ottawa, Canada

André Laliberté

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to so many persons and institutions for the long journey that has led to the completion of this book. It would not have been possible to start this project without the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada, for two individual grants that have supported field work research in successive stays during the spring and summer on a yearly basis from 2004 to 2006; 2009 to 2011, and 2014 to 2018 in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and helped me fund participation at international conferences where I have presented the results of my research at different stages of completion. The most important portion of the SSHRC funding has served to finance the hiring of graduate students as research assistants over the years, some of whom have established their mark since, and each proved extremely helpful throughout the duration of the project. I take this opportunity to thank them all: Marijo Demers, Wang Xiaochuan, Zhu Guohan, Zheng Keyi, Simon Wu, Alex Payette, Deng Jing, JeanPhilippe Brassard, Liu Xueqin, Jia Wen, Jing Feng, Wang Yishu, Lu Lu, Yannis-Adam Allouache, Phillippe Martin, Zachary Roswell, Alexandre Syvrais-Gallant, Jonathan Brasnett, and Jiang Yuxuan. Among the other sources of funding that have proved helpful to advance in this project, I want to acknowledge the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for international scholarly exchange, which had supported me for a stay in Academia Sinica during the Summer of 2006. I am also grateful to the Henry Luce Foundation, for its sponsorship during

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

my visiting fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center (WWC) for International Scholars in Washington DC during the Winter and Spring of 2011. I extend my gratitude to the Robert Ho Family Foundation for Buddhist Studies at the University of British Columbia (UBC), which freed time to write about Buddhist philanthropy in China and present my research to monastics in the Greater Vancouver Area in 2014. Finally, the Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe “Multiple Secularities—Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” in Leipzig has provided me with exceptional support from January to December 2019: it liberated an entire year to advance the writing of this manuscript, in a most collegial environment to present the research and inscribe it in the framework of secularity. I am especially grateful to Judith Zimmerman for her support in obtaining the Konrad Adenauer fellowship that contributed to the generous funding of the research team. I extend my gratitude to the WWC’s Asia Program director Robert Hathaway, and program assistants Sue Levenstein and Bryce Wakefield, for providing a most stimulating intellectual environment. The stay liberated time to prepare the sections of my book looking into the politics of the CCP in relation to Buddhists and religion in general. I thank the director of the Hong Kong University Center for Research in Social Sciences and the Humanities, Angela Ki Che Leung, and David Palmer for arranging my stay and exchanging with me on the social dimensions of religion in contemporary China during the summer of 2012. I am also grateful to the Groupe Sociétés, Religions, et Laïcités, whose colleagues provided a supportive environment to present my research at different stages of development during the Summer of 2013 and on numerous occasions afterward. A special gratitude is owed to Vincent Goossaert, Ji Zhe, and Sebastien Billioud, for their numerous insights, and for then-director Philippe Portier to make my stay quite rewarding. I thank Jessica Main, as director of the Robert Ho Foundation at UBC, and Yves Tiberghien, the director of the Center for China Research, for facilitating my stay in Vancouver and granting me access to its many resources. Special thanks to Monica Wohlrab-Sahr and Christoph Klein, who provided me with a most welcoming atmosphere and very stimulating environment as stewards of the “Multiple Secularities—Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” team in Germany. I extend my warm gratitude to Hubert Seiwert and Philip Clart, for their engaging exchanges during my stay in Leipzig and beyond, and to the immensely helpful support staff of Johannes Duschka, Manuel Heller, and Foteine Koenig.

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Much of the data for this research depends on interviews with informants, but also on access to resources provided by temples, associations, and officials that kindly made them available. Some of them have proven extremely helpful in finding material and even in accepting me as a guest in their midst. I deeply appreciate this kindness. I owe an enormous amount of gratitude to many informants within some of the associations I am discussing in this book. Following the guidelines of the ethics committee, I must maintain individuals’ confidentiality, but I am glad to thank the institutions that facilitated over the years my meetings with people in the sector of philanthropy and the religious milieus. I thank the volunteers of the Tzu Chi Foundation, based in Taiwan but also present in many cities I visited in the PRC and among many communities of Chinese heritage the world over. I extend my gratitude as well to the community of the Bailin temple in Hebei, who introduced me to their affiliated philanthropic activities in the summer of 2006. I want to thank my hosts in the Jianzhen Library in Yangzhou, who arranged many meetings with the relevant actors in the region during the Summer of 2011. I extend my gratitude to the staff at the Juequn charity, who proved so helpful in 2009 and 2017, the monastics in Tianjin who welcomed me as a volunteer in their charity and to the personnel of the Nanputuo Charity, Xiamen, in 2010. Finally, I also thank the monastic community of the Longquan temple in Beijing, who asked me to talk about philanthropy in Canada, and the volunteers of the Ren’ai charity, who kindly invited me to join them in their numerous activities in 2014. The research leading to this book would have been impossible without the friendly exchanges I had over the years with many colleagues in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. In Shanghai, Li Xiangping, Liu Yuanchun, and Benoit Vermander, provided moral support though scientific exchanges and generously shared with me their contacts. Likewise in Wuxi, Deng Zimei kindly extended support by asking his students to assist me during fieldwork in Southern Jiangsu. Li Silong, in Beijing proved helpful in facilitating contacts in the capital and arranging my participation as an invited guest in Hong Kong for the World Buddhist Forum. I am grateful to Wei Dedong for his invitation to speak and exchange with his students about the nature of philanthropy and religion in Canada. I thank my colleagues in the State Administration for Religious Affairs and at the Institute of World Religions in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences for introducing me to their work on religion and philanthropy. I also thank my colleagues in the University of National Minority and

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the Beijing Normal University who introduced me to public debates on non-government philanthropy. I am also thankful to my colleagues in Hangzhou, Hefei, and Wuhan, who offered their time to introduce to me the local Buddhist milieus and the situation of philanthropy in their respective provinces. I am also grateful to Yang Fenggang, who acted as co-host of successive conferences on the study of religion in Chinese societies convened in Wuxi, 2009, and Beijing, 2010, and thereby opened many avenues for the research that followed in years after. In Taiwan, I thank Fabienne Jagou at Academia Sinica for her invitation to share my findings with her colleagues in 2006; and Kuo Cheng-tien at National Chengchi University, in 2011. I express my gratitude to David Palmer and Ke-Kuah Eng-Pierce, who invited me to present my findings at the University of Hong Kong, in 2012; and extend special thanks to Huang Weishan at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), who accompanied me on occasions during field work. I thank her for invitations to share my results in Gottingen during the Summer of 2012, and at CUHK in 2017. I am also grateful to the following individuals and venues for which I was invited as a keynote or as a guest speaker in Europe or North America, for offering me the opportunity to present my research: Judith Nagata and Susan Henders of the York Center for Asian Research in Toronto 2004; Paul Bramadat at the Centre for Society and Religion, University of Victoria; Peter van der Veer at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen; and Simona Grano at the University of Zürich in 2013; Pavel Šindeláˇr at the University Saint-Charles, Olomouc, in 2015; Sébastien Fath and Pascal Bourdeau, as joint directors of the GSRL, Paris, and Carsten Krause, in the Numata Center for Buddhist Studies of the University of Hamburg, in 2019. The arguments presented in these two books owe a lot in their development to my encounters in conferences, workshops, and I have benefited enormously from the constructive questioning and exchanges, many of which have led to publications in journals and edited volumes addressing some of the issues raised in this book. Besides those mentioned above, I would like to mention them here and apologize in advance for any omissions: Ji Zhe and Gareth Fisher as co-editors for a related book on Buddhism in China; and Stefania Travagnin, co-editor of a volume on Chinese scholarship on religion deserve special mentions for their sustained support and evaluation of earlier drafts. The following colleagues have invited me to present aspects of the research discussed

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at length in the present two books, as contributor of a book chapter in the volume they co-edited or in a special issue of an academic journal: Charles B. Jones and Philip Clart; Cheng Tun-ren and Deborah Brown; Frédéric Lasserre; Jonathan Schwartz and Shawn Hsieh; Alec Soucy, John Harding, and Victor Hori; Wu Keping, David Palmer, Glenn Shives, and Philip Wickeri; Emma Tomalin; John Lagerwey, Vincent Goossaert, and Jan Kiely; Yang Fenggang; Ip Hung-yok; Gunther Schubert; and Steve Tsang. For the last stages of this project, I want to thank Alissa Nelson-Jones, for her wonderful and patient work of editing, and Mark Mullins, editor of the Palgrave Series on Religion and Society in Asia Pacific, which has proved to be an ideal home for this project. My thanks also to the external reviewers who have provided their appreciation for the earlier draft of this document. I thank the staff at Palgrave for the timely completion of this project. Finally, I need to acknowledge the support of my significant other, Professor Jill Carrick, who had the wisdom to take me away from my desk. I could not have finished this without her support, and I appreciate her patience as I was immersed in that project for so long.

Introduction

The first part of the book contextualizes the relation between the state and Buddhism. Chapter 1 presents the main changes in social policies and the challenges these have generated after 1949. I distinguish between the Maoist period, which precluded the possibility that any actor other than the people’s communes or the state would provide social security, and the period of reform and opening, which put an end to these limitations. In Chapter 2, I outline the main social programs implemented by the state at the time of writing. I highlight those social policy domains in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under Xi Jinping may outsource the delivery of social services and relief for vulnerable populations to nonstate actors, and for which the state can tolerate if not promote service delivery by religious associations. Chapter 3 describes the political and legal changes in the delivery of social services by non-state actors, including religious institutions. I contrast two moments: the first one, defined by Mao’s rule (1949–1976) forbade religion in the public sphere, and the second one, shaped by Deng Xiaoping (1978–1989) and Jiang Zemin (1989–2002), allowed for a limited presence. Chapter 4 presents two other moments that saw a greater visibility of religion in the public sphere. The first one, under Hu Jintao (2002–2012), involved coordination between social policies and religious work. The final moment, under Xi Jinping (2012–present), indicates a refinement of Hu’s policy with clear restrictions on those religions deemed “foreign.”

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The fifth chapter explores a key consequence of the latter policy, which has led to a tighter intertwining of Buddhist milieus and the CCP. I review the Buddhist institutional landscape, with a focus on the governance structure under the Buddhist Association of China (BAC), local Buddhist associations, and the lay devotee associations. In Chapter 6, I assess the importance of Buddhists’ social roles and demographic weight by offering estimates of the number of people who identify as Buddhists. I clarify the distinctions between those the BAC counts as Han Buddhists— who represent the subject of this book—and other Buddhists. I chronicle the evolution of the relationship between the CCP and the BAC. The second part of the book focuses on the development of Buddhist charity under state monitoring. Chapter 7 compares Buddhist philanthropy with that of other religions under Deng and Jiang. It contrasts the activities of the national Protestant and Catholic associations-sponsored charities and the localized Buddhist affiliated charities, without central coordination. In Chapter 8, I look at the attempts by the Hu Jintao administration to change this situation by working with epistemic communities involved in religious affairs, philanthropy, and Buddhism, in a process culminating with the creation of a national committee for Buddhist charity. The chapter ends with observations about Xi’s policies. Chapter 9 points to one of the main difficulties involved in the attempts to create a national institution to coordinate Buddhist charity. I present an overview of the fragmented nature of Buddhist philanthropy within the framework of regional systems analysis. This approach borrows from Will Skinner’s original framework, as amended by Wu Jiang, to distinguish nine transregional clusters of Buddhist philanthropy. In Chapter 10 I offer a systematic survey, based on state-sanctioned Buddhist sources that reveals important discrepancies between the extent of institutionalization, the resources, and the scope of activities across the different regions. For each of the regions, I highlight the activities of the key Buddhist charity associations. In the eleventh chapter, I provide ethnographic material on a few philanthropic organizations. I describe four temple-based Buddhist philanthropic associations—in Jiujiang, Shanghai, Shijiazhuang, and Xiamen— to highlight the importance of political connections for some of these charities’ founders, who acted both as abbots of prestigious temples and as members of state organs. In the last Chapter, I pay particular attention to a charity based in Beijing, the Ren’ai Foundation, which was associated

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with the Longquan temple, where the abbot, Xuecheng, became the president of the BAC. I discuss the activities of that charity, some of which I had joined, and comment on those that continued during the outbreak of COVID-19. Throughout this book, I use the simplified Chinese characters used in the PRC and in most of my sources, and the hanyu pinyin transliteration system to facilitate reading for readers not familiar with Chinese.

Contents

Part I

China’s Welfare Regimes Since 1949 3

1

China’s Social Security System from 1949 to 2012

2

The Main Social Policies Under Xi Jinping

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3

Religious Work and Philanthropy from 1949 to 2002

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4

Religious Charity and Civil Society Under Hu and Xi

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5

The Institutionalization of Buddhism Since 1949

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6

Buddhism and the CCP Since 1949

123

Part II Buddhist Philanthropy After 1978 7

Toward a National Buddhist Philanthropic Association

151

8

The Duty of Serving the Public Interest

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9

A Sketch of Regional Systems Analysis

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10

The Nine Regions of Han Buddhist Philanthropy

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11

Buddhist Philanthropy from the Bottom-Up

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12

The Ren’ai Charity Foundation

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CONTENTS

Appendices

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Index

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About the Author

André Laliberté is a professor at the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa in Canada, where he teaches comparative politics. Prof. Laliberté has published on the issue of religion and politics in China and Taiwan. He has presented his work as a co-investigator in a research team funded by the SSHRC on ethnicity and democratic governance, working on the issue of freedom of conscience in China and Taiwan; and as a co-investigator in another research team funded by the SSHRC on gender, migration, and the work of care, working on the impact of traditional values on social policies. He has written The Political Behavior of Buddhist Organizations in Taiwan and co-edited with Ji Zhe and Gareth Fisher Buddhism After Mao. He is fellow of the Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe “Multiple Secularities—Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” in Leipzig and associate member of the Groupe sociétés, religions, et laïcités, in Paris. The Humboldt Foundation granted him in 2019 the Konrad Adenauer award for Canadian scholars.

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Abbreviations

BAC BAROC BERA BRA CASS CCP CCPI CFC CFPA CFPS CPCA CPPCC CSLS DAC GMD IAC ILO MCA MHRSS MHURD MIA NGOs NHSA NPC NPO NRCMS

Buddhist Association of China Buddhist Association of the Republic of China Bureau of Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau for Religious Affairs Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Chinese Communist Party Committee for Charity and the Public Interest China Foundation Center China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation China Family Panel Studies Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chinese Spiritual Life Survey Daoist Association of China Guomindang (Nationalist Party) Islamic Association of China International Labor Organization Ministry of Civil Affairs Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Ministry of Internal Affairs Non-Governmental Organizations National Healthcare Security Administration National People Congress Non-Profit Organization New Rural Co-operative Medical Scheme xxi

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ABBREVIATIONS

OECD OSAC PCC PLA PRC RMB RNGO SARS SCAB SEZ TAR TSPM UEBMI URBMI YMCA YWCA

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Online Spiritual Atlas of China Political Consultative Conference Peoples’ Liberation Army People’s Republic of China Renminbi Religious Non-Governmental Organizations Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau Special Economic Zones Tibet Autonomous Region Three-Self Patriotic Movement Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance Urban Residents Basic Medical Insurance Young Men’s Christian Association Young Women’s Christian Association

List of Tables

Chapter 5 Table 1 Table 2

Table 3

Table 4

Creation dates for Provincial Buddhist Associations Registration dates for prefectural and county-level Buddhist Associations in Hubei, with corresponding numbers of Buddhist (and Protestant) sites Registration dates for county-level Buddhist Associations, with the corresponding numbers of Buddhist, Protestant, Catholic, Islamic, and Daoist sites in each county Distribution of household groves per Province

110

112

114 118

Chapter 6 Table 1

Numbers of Buddhist and Christian adherents and sites per Province

131

Chapter 7 Table 1 Table 2

Charitable activities recorded in Fayin, 1984–1992 Charitable activities recorded in Fayin, 1993–2002

159 170

Chapter 8 Table 1 Table 2

Charitable activities recorded in Fayin, 2003–2012 Buddhist foundations in 2011

179 180

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LIST OF TABLES

Chapter 9 Table 1 Table 2

Nine macro-regions according to Skinner and Wu Number of Buddhist institutions established per province

208 214

Chapter 10 Table 1 Table 2

Donors to Charities in Zhejiang Province, 2017 Philanthropic Associations in Jiangsu, 1998–2012

228 232

Chapter 11 Table 1 Table 2

Buddhist philanthropic societies established by temples Juequn foundation’s 2018 projects and expenditures

261 273

PART I

China’s Welfare Regimes Since 1949

CHAPTER 1

China’s Social Security System from 1949 to 2012

After 1949, the CCP prohibited all aspects of social services provision delivered by religious associations to buttress its authority.1 Aware that previous regimes’ inability to provide disaster relief had exposed them to social unrest and the perception that they had lost the mandate of heaven, the CCP made sure that no religious association could deliver such assistance, lest this should signal its incompetence. The Party observed that providing education and healthcare to the population conferred legitimacy on the providers, and so it was important for the CCP to assert a monopoly on social services delivery in these domains; therefore, for the first three decades of its rule, the new regime made a systematic effort to affirm its prerogative in social reproduction. In accordance with their reading of Karl Marx, CCP elites also believed that people seek solace in religion under conditions of social and personal insecurity, and so the Party sought to address this problem early on by attempting to overcome the previous regime’s shortcomings on that score. They aimed to provide a comprehensive system of social protection, which culminated in the people’s communes, both to pre-empt any challenge to their rule and—at least for most cadres—because such provisions represented the actualization of their ideals. These early developments represented a 1 On the origins behind the policies of restrictions on religions, see Yu (2017).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 A. Laliberté, Religion and China’s Welfare Regimes, Religion and Society in Asia Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7270-5_1

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series of sudden ruptures that resulted in the significant diminishment of religions’ influence in Chinese society and culminated in a decisive end to the previous intermingling of state and religion. However, viewed through the lens of the longue durée, the dramatic changes Chinese society experienced during the Cultural Revolution may have turned out to be an epiphenomenon, as the mounting difficulties the regime faced in addressing economic problems in the late 1960s led to a gradual repudiation of previous social policies in 1978. The CCP developed an economic growth strategy that included the retrenchment of the state as a social welfare provider to allocate those investments to the factors of production instead. This fundamental reorientation led the government to leave the role of social services provider to households, communities, and market forces. This new critical juncture restored previously excluded social actors, including religious leaders, who were able to reassert their presence in the public sphere. In turn, this new path dependency opened the way for a renewal of the intertwining of religion and state, which had prevailed prior to and during the Republican period, even as the CCP sought to limit religious leaders’ influence in society. In a later chapter, I will focus on the extent to which the state has sought to mobilize religious associations to serve the public interest via the institutionalization of philanthropy, while also ensuring that such associations do not gain political influence or challenge the state’s legitimacy. Here, I explore the political, economic, and social conditions that led to this new path. I give an overview of the CCP’s attempts to build a social security regime, from the early period in which this was a distant, almost utopian ideal to the efforts underway during the mandate of Xi’s predecessor. For each of the periods discussed, under the broadly defined rubric of social security, I present the policy domains of disaster relief, healthcare, education, and various social security measures such as social insurance, welfare, and labor security.2 I also pay attention to certain specific consequences of social policy retrenchment or expansion that have required the establishment of new social policies or more intervention on the part of civil society actors: the skewed sex ratio, the ageing population, labor migrations which have created new categories of vulnerable populations left behind, regional inequalities, and urban–rural divides.3

2 On disaster relief management until Hu, see Yi et al. (2012). 3 On inequalities, see Li et al. (2013); on rural issues see Han and Jin (2019).

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The definition of social security I adopt in this book is broader than the approaches taken in the mainstream literature on the welfare state, which most often focus on OECD countries. More holistic than the masculinist approach that centers on male breadwinners and the eurocentric approaches that focus on the formal labor market, my approach includes two other important components of social reproduction in most societies: healthcare and education.4 Moreover, it adds a component that is often excluded from the calculus of social expenditures but can nonetheless have devastating effects on the national budget, welfare, and a population’s security: disaster relief. In this section, I briefly review the strategies the CCP has promoted since 1949 to sustain the labor force via healthcare and education; to establish a system of social security through insurance, assistance, and welfare services; and to protect the population in exceptional circumstances. The timeline for the different strategies the Party has adopted is straightforward, and so this section differentiates between the socialist edification period and the reform and opening period. The former briefly addresses the CCP’s goals prior to 1949 and the policies adopted under Mao Zedong (1949–1976), when the CCP prevented religion from playing any role in social policies. My survey of the changes to the Chinese social security system since the period of reform and opening is divided into five parts, beginning with two parts on the period under Mao—before and after 1949—then proceeding to the decade when Deng Xiaoping consolidated his power (1978–1989) and the period spanning the administrations of his two successors, Jiang Zemin (1989–2002) and Hu Jintao (2002–2012). During this period, some of the worst excesses of the Maoist period were gradually rolled back: calls for non-state social services provision increased as the CCP changed its policies, and religious actors were partially rehabilitated as possible sources of assistance to the state.

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1921–1949: Social Security as an Objective

In the regions outside the control of the GMD, the warlords, and Japan, the CCP did not develop a unified approach to social security between its founding in 1921 and its rise to power in 1949 because its priorities 4 For a feminist critique of the mainstream theories on the welfare state, see Orloff (2009). For good examples of non-Western approaches to the study of welfare state, see the discussion in the other book on Chinese philanthropy beyond the PRC.

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during that period were surviving, organizing resistance, and achieving power. Moreover, the leadership went through phases characterized by division and struggle, and as recent scholarship on base area studies has shown, the regional diversity of the Communist bases renders any generalizations about this period problematic.5 As the Red Army (hong jun 红军) faced efforts by its enemies to destroy it, it proved on many occasions that it could tackle disasters, whether natural or provoked by its opponents. The CCP offered social services in healthcare and education, hoping to gain immediate support in those areas in which it took refuge. Promises of social security via insurance, assistance, and welfare provision to people suffering from illness, disability, and other exceptional circumstances, however, were still distant dreams. During the Jiangxi Soviet period (1931–1934), as John Watt has noted, the Red Army’s efforts to provide healthcare faced the same problems that the GMD confronted: “epidemic diseases, malnutrition, lack of hygiene and sanitation, reliance on gods for relief from disease.” The CCP, however, depended on smaller numbers of personnel and faced constant threats of annihilation because of the GMD encirclement campaigns and the Long March. Despite this, it mobilized physicians and pharmacists trained in Chinese medicine as well as individuals trained in Christian medical schools, and between 1933 and 1934 the Jiangxi base leaders sponsored a public health drive.6 Throughout the Yan’an period (1936–1945), the international support of idealistic foreigners and the commitment of young physicians helped to address three related issues: rescuing wounded soldiers, serving the poor, and campaigning for education.7 These examples of dedication no doubt contributed to the positive reception the CCP enjoyed in the first years after it took power. From the beginning, the CCP understood the importance of basic literacy, which made mobilization and political organization more effective. With the establishment of a Soviet base in Jiangxi, the CCP sought to use literacy education to socialize villagers into its revolutionary project and mobilize them against attacks by the GMD. However, this project served the CCP’s military objectives rather than individuals’ need for self-improvement, and the initiative could not continue

5 Keating (2014). 6 Watt (2013: 73). 7 Ibid.: 254.

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during the Long March.8 Education remained a priority for the CCP in subsequent years, but its orientation shifted slightly, as party leaders sought to build momentum for the revolution through adult education. In the “golden years” between 1936 and 1939, the CCP brought a new perspective to many people in Yan’an, one that linked theory and practice, and reduced illiteracy. Unfortunately, the 1942 “rectification campaigns,” which sought to enforce ideological conformity, undermined these achievements and eroded enthusiasm for the revolution.9 From its founding until its rise to power, the CCP saw social security as an achievable objective in a socialist society, one that depended on industrial workers’ productivity. During the Jiangxi Soviet period, the CCP issued the Labor Law (laodongfa 劳动法) to establish the foundations of social security. Promulgated in 1931, the measures included in the Labor Law helped establish the basis for workers’ insurance. In 1933, the Jiangxi Soviet government issued a regulation stipulating that workers should receive social insurance (shehui baoxian 社会保险) regardless of their occupation, whether they were employed in state-owned, cooperative, private, or family-based sectors.10 In his 1945 proclamation of the New Democracy, Mao announced the CCP’s plan to provide labor standards, unemployment insurance, and guarantees to private entrepreneurs, which would be implemented after the Party took power.11 However, apart from basic healthcare and education, no “social safety net” existed during the Jiangxi Soviet or the Yan’an period because political uncertainty, warfare, and poor conditions in the guerilla bases precluded such measures. Although the Party asserted control via rectification campaigns and the organization of production, it lacked the necessary resources and conditions to provide social security, let alone social assistance.

8 Di (2016). 9 Boshier and Huang (2010: 297). 10 Zhou and Zhang (2015: 3–4). 11 Ibid.: 5.

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2 1949–1978: Social Security Under the Planned Economy After 1949, the CCP focused its attention on mobilizing the population to rebuild the country and on reproducing a healthy, well-educated workforce, leaving the ideal of social security for later. Under Mao, the CCP established its credibility in tackling natural calamities, although it also became responsible for some major disasters because of its over-enthusiastic, ill-conceived rapid industrialization projects. On the one hand, the CCP could rapidly mobilize the population when it faced a natural disaster, as its success in mitigating the effects of the 1963 flooding in Tianjin municipality illustrates. Quick decisionmaking, mass mobilization, and command of resources helped avert a major disaster and loss of life.12 Yet for more than three years between 1958 and 1961, the CCP could not prevent the disastrous loss of life brought about by an ambitious industrialization policy that led to famine. The failure of this policy set the stage for the political upheavals that would limit economic growth for the next two decades. Beyond uncertainty and political leadership struggles, many cadres in the CCP leadership sought to establish the foundations of a modern administration that would provide healthcare and education for all via a social security system. In 1954, after a long period of deliberation under the Central People’s Government (zhongyang renmin zhengfu 中央人民 政府), the successor to this provisional source of authority—the State Council—established the Ministry of Health (weishengbu 卫生部). A look at government expenditures on healthcare delivery in 1964, however, reveals a staggering urban bias during the first fifteen years of Mao’s rule: the state spent more on 8.3 million urban residents than it did on more than 500 million peasants.13 Mao heavily emphasized the improvement of public hygiene and encouraged basic health education with the “barefoot doctors” in an attempt to address the gap between the countryside and the cities, but this solution proved unsustainable because these younger physicians had less training and experience. The government also expanded public education to cover the whole population and was remarkably successful in increasing literacy levels.

12 Paltemaa (2011). 13 Zhang and Unschuld (2008: 1866).

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In 1949, the Central People’s Government established the Ministry of Education (jiaoyubu 教育部) and rapidly imposed compulsory education.14 The minister of education post remained vacant between 1966 and 1975 due to ideological disputes exacerbated by the Cultural Revolution. During this period, the number of public primary and secondary schools expanded too rapidly, and the overall quality of education declined due to a shortage of properly trained staff. Meanwhile, many vocational schools closed because many parents from peasant and worker backgrounds came to believe that these schools constituted attempts to provide their children with an inferior education. These problems revealed the contradictions between policies promoting rapid development and policies addressing the needs of traditionally disadvantaged groups.15 Social security policies revealed similar contradictions between the ideal and the realities on the ground. The CCP delegated the management of social welfare to civil affairs departments at the provincial and county levels, under the supervision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (neizhengbu 内政部) at the central level.16 From the beginning, the new regime established a social security system in accordance with its socialist ideology. This system included three basic characteristics: the government saw no need for a safety net, on the principle that production provided the basis for social assistance; it maintained the differentiation between the countryside and the cities; and it established a distinction between the “deserving” and the “undeserving” poor.17 The policies the CCP implemented belied the ideals the party advocated. Social policies demonstrated a strong urban bias: after 1952, the CCP established a rationing system, ensuring that urban residents would have access to basic food, housing, healthcare, and education at low prices, while rural residents did not benefit from such programs. The CCP justified this preferential treatment on the grounds of “production first, living second.”18

14 In 1986, the NPC finally adopted a law mandating compulsory education for nine years from the age of six. 15 Hannum (1999: 193). 16 Wong (1998). 17 Yang (2018: 2). 18 Li and Piachaud (2004: 5).

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Public funds directly financed the provision of free healthcare for government employees, while workers in state-owned enterprises benefitted from free healthcare provided by their work units. The public healthcare system did not include rural residents, but in the late 1950s the government arranged for farmers and collective farms to contribute jointly to a “cooperative healthcare” fund.19 From the beginning, the CCP promoted the idea of mass education and established the principle of universal access to primary school. A key component of this approach was the direct linkage with production, with an emphasis on teaching the skills required for industrialization and national defense. This led to an elitist education system that focused on higher education at the expense of universal education, with a preference for science and engineering rather than the social sciences and humanities, and which favored vocational training at the expense of general education.20 In 1951, the State Council published the Regulations on Labor Security, which established the foundations for an urban social security system.21 Employees of enterprises with more than 50 workers became eligible for benefits such as pensions, free healthcare, paid maternity leave, and compensation for on-the-job injuries. In 1954, the constitution enshrined the right to social security by stipulating that workers who grow old, get ill, or are injured have a right to receive financial support. In addition to these benefits, urban workers lived in low-rent, state-owned housing, for which local governments and employers jointly contributed funding. These social security measures were gradually extended to most state-run urban work units and to collective enterprises, but they did not include rural residents. The urban poor who did not receive a salary could obtain relief benefits provided by local governments.22 Social assistance mainly served the poor, the disabled, orphans, and vagrants, but it excluded people with the capacity to work, and certain individuals were

19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid.: 6. 22 Ibid.

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excluded for political reasons.23 During the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), much social security provision devolved to the work unit.24 In the context of the revolution’s increasing radicalization, the CCP— under Mao’s decree—ordered the closure of many state agencies necessary for social policy administration. In 1966 alone, it abolished the Minister of Labor (laodongbu 劳动部) post, on the grounds that the people’s communes and state-owned enterprises did not need such supervision and left the position of minister of education vacant for ten years. In 1969, as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) under Lin Biao became a key actor in domestic politics, the government abolished the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The first three decades of CCP rule in China were disastrous in human terms. In the beginning, the Great Leap Forward (1958–1961) precipitated one of the deadliest famines recorded in recent history, a mass tragedy that the regime has yet to acknowledge fully.25 Then, despite its calls for egalitarianism, the Cultural Revolution prevented the state apparatus from fully implementing social policies. At the end of that “lost decade,” the economy had stagnated, and the lack of productivity meant that there was no fiscal basis to sustain basic social security, let alone to offer social assistance to the needy. Finally, the CCP faced another crisis of legitimacy with the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, when it failed to provide timely, efficient disaster relief, hid the scale of the tragedy from the population, and rejected offers of support from the international community. This refusal came to embody the callousness of the “Gang of Four”—the clique that briefly led the CCP before Deng took charge in 1978. Many interpreted the earthquake as an ominous warning from heaven; two months after the quake, Mao died.26

3

1978–1994: Dismantling the People’s Communes

Under Deng, the CCP steered the country toward a major reorientation of its economic policies. The policies he advocated abolished the people’s communes in the countryside and encouraged the growth of the

23 Yang (2018: 2). 24 Zhou and Zhang (2015: 55–58). 25 For one of the definitive statements on the Great Leap Forward, see Yang (2012). 26 Palmer (2012).

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private sector. During this period, China saw the gradual collapse of its two-tier social security system, as its two components—social insurance for urban employees and social relief for the poorest—became unsustainable. The beginning of the reform and opening policy—celebrated by the Chinese private sector and international corporations, bankers, and entrepreneurs—heralded what social policy scholars have called the beginning of a “degradation during the 1980s policy shift towards privatization and commercialization.”27 The dismantling of the people’s communes and the shift from a command economy to a rudimentary market economy represented an unprecedented transition in terms of its magnitude. After the chaos of the Mao period, the government institutionalized a host of reforms to ensure an orderly transition. Signaling its commitment to change, in 1978 the CCP approved the establishment of the Ministry for Civil Affairs (minzhengbu 民政部, MCA) to take charge of social welfare. To tackle population growth, in 1981 the State Council set up a ministerial-level Commission for Population and Family Planning (renkou he jihua shengyu weiyuanhui 人口和计划生育委员会). In 1988, it restored the Ministry of Personnel (renshibu 人事部), which had previously recruited candidates for the civil service. In the same year, it also restored the Ministry of Labor, anticipating the looming difficulties in labor relations that would arise when employers delayed or could not pay, either in full or in part, compensatory measures for the loss of social benefits caused by phasing out the communes and reforming state-owned enterprises.28 During this period, no major natural disaster threatened China, which spared the CCP and the PLA any test of their ability to respond to such events. The healthcare system, which was based on the “cooperative healthcare” fund, became unsustainable as the Chinese economy undertook economic reforms.29 Due to the resulting funding shortage, many firms began to experiment with different approaches to meeting their commitments to provide basic healthcare. These included sharing costs between employers and employees, ceding healthcare responsibilities to the workplace, giving a portion of the healthcare funds to individuals while asking them to pay excess costs out of pocket, and allocating

27 Hsiao et al. (2017: 240). 28 This ministry resulted from the reorganization within the Ministry of Labor. 29 Li and Piachaud (2004: 17).

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all the healthcare funds to employees as employers stopped making copayments. In the countryside, the new household responsibility system, which supplanted the rural collectives, led to the collapse of the cooperative healthcare and “barefoot doctors” systems, which had become unsustainable. As a result of this change, farmers had to pay for their healthcare.30 A similar evolution occurred in the education sector, which increasingly bifurcated into elite schools on the one hand and their impoverished rural counterparts on the other. The vocation of schools from the primary to the high school level became preparing students for university, but since the rural schools failed to attract much investment, a disproportionate number of students from the countryside failed the university entrance exams.31 As a result of such imbalances, the rural–urban gap remained as wide as it had been under previous regimes. The challenges of this period were considerable because the “ten lost years” of the Cultural Revolution had eviscerated education at all levels, and it took time to reinsert or train new qualified professors at all levels. In this climate of relative deprivation and growing inequalities, students’ discontent flared on many occasions— in 1986, 1987, and the fateful spring of 1989. The social insurance system overseen by the MCA covered only urban employees from the state sector and some from the private sector. This imbalance led to protests during the 1980s, as an increasing number of employers were unable to pay for their pensions and healthcare.32 Throughout this period of economic liberalization, urban governments and employers alleviated the financial burden of housing their employees by encouraging people to organize savings accounts to buy their own accommodation.33 Furthermore, rural residents’ ineligibility for social insurance coverage entrenched the gap between the city and the countryside. The authorities recognized that their economic policies had generated a risk to social stability. To address this issue, they provided social relief to people in rural areas and to the poorest people in the urban private sector. To qualify, people had to demonstrate their inability

30 Ibid. 31 Ibid.: 18. 32 Ibid.: 19. 33 Ibid.: 18–19.

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to work as well as the fact that they had no relative able to look after them.34 The enduring gap between urban centers and rural areas only increased the push factor behind the rural exodus and lead to the continued growth in the influx of migrants, who had been moving to the cities in search of work since 1978.35 A major incentive behind this population movement continued to be the hope of finding a permanent position and obtaining a coveted urban resident permit (hukou 户口)—a sine qua non condition for obtaining better access to social services. Fearing the unbearable pressure on public finances created by such demands for social services on the part of large numbers of migrants, municipal governments imposed drastic measures to limit population movement, even though urban centers relied on the labor of poorer people from the countryside to meet the booming demand in the construction industry. In 1982, the State Council passed the Administrative Measures on the Arrest and Eviction of Urban Vagrants and Beggars, which municipal authorities have used to evict rural migrants and send them back to the countryside ever since. While this legislation ostensibly aimed to improve the “quality” of the urban population, it was a response to urban residents’ discontent over the contraction of the labor market.36 The “one-child policy,” promulgated in 1978, was another dimension of population policy that would take years to make its effects on social security felt.37 Local governments enforced this policy with varying degrees of zeal: some levied fines on couples who infringed the regulation with “births outside the plan,” while others enforced sterilization or even imposed abortion. The policy evolved to include some important exceptions, such as that half of all parents were allowed to have more than one child. For instance, rural parents could have a second child if the first was a daughter, and groups such as national minorities were exempted from the rule due to their small numbers.38 The policy was criticized abroad,

34 Ibid.: 19. 35 For an overview, see Davin (1999), and Froissart (2013). 36 Li (2005: 56). 37 The CCP implemented this policy after the fertility rate had already started to decline; its leaders were influenced by debates in the West about a population explosion. See Whyte et al. (2015). 38 Short and Zhai (1998: 376).

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often by religious conservatives in the United States, on the grounds of Christian theological teachings opposed to abortion, but the official churches and their followers—who constituted a minority of the population—remained largely silent on these policies. One consequence of the declining birthrate, which policymakers had begun to anticipate by the end of the 1980s and which would continue to haunt their successors, is the long-term ageing of the Chinese population, the effects of which are exacerbated by China’s lack of preparedness in terms of the social insurance policies required to address this issue. The first decade of the reform and opening policy was full of potential on both political and economic fronts; the critique of the previous policies triggered a period of introspection and debates about China’s future, and the ability to speak critically laid bare a few issues that had been exacerbated in previous decades. However, the government crackdown on student protestors on June 4, 1989, signaled an abrupt end to many debates around the issues of political reform and opening. During the twelve years between the end of the Cultural Revolution and the crackdown in Tian’anmen Square, China experienced neither a natural disaster comparable to the Tangshan earthquake nor a major religious upheaval.

4 The 1990s: A Socialist Market Economy and the Construction of a Social Security System When Jiang took charge—although under Deng’s shadow until 1997— he assumed that a population which was wealthier on average than the previous generations would not mind inequalities and political stagnation as long as the prospect of future growth remained credible. Therefore, CCP General Secretary Jiang’s and Premier Li Peng’s administration— followed in 1997 by that of Premier Zhu Rongji—put in place the material foundations for China’s emergence as the “global factory.” In doing so, the administration also oversaw the continuing privatization and commodification of healthcare and education, in the context of limited social insurance protections for workers when they faced adverse circumstances as well as limited social assistance and welfare services available to vulnerable populations. One major administrative reorganization institutionalized these changes: in 1998, the State Council created the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (laodong he shehui baozhangbu 劳动和社会保 障部) to manage social security payments, which were often at the heart of labor disputes.

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Under Jiang, the state faced a few natural disasters that tested its capacity to mobilize the CCP and the PLA to protect the population: floods in the southeast and droughts in the northwest damaged crops, destroyed livelihoods, and rendered communities destitute. The casualties, however, did not reach the levels of previous decades. The CCP repeatedly proved its responsiveness to national crises by successfully coordinating the PLA’s disaster relief operations—a political task expected of the military, as the “People’s Army,” but which was also necessary to boost its morale following major setbacks in the first years after Jiang’s accession to power. Among these setbacks, PLA soldiers’ role in the crackdown on protests in 1989, high-ranking officers’ involvement in lucrative activities, and the armed forces’ perceived inability to respond to the challenge raised by the US military in the Western Pacific in 1995–1996 all damaged its reputation.39 Under the Jiang and Zhu administration, healthcare changed significantly in four respects. Health spending increased considerably, from 3.5% of GDP in 1990, Jiang’s first year in power, to 10% in 2000. The causes of this increase included wasting medicine and abuse of prescriptions, which inflated the demand for drugs. Second, the ageing population drove greater demand for long-term care and a shift from acute care to the more costly treatment of chronic diseases. Third, with the rise of the Household Responsibility System and the ensuing collapse of the healthcare system, providing healthcare to rural residents became an urgent need. Finally, economic changes reshaped the population’s healthcare expectations—people expected more services, such as dental care.40 The growth of the middle classes during Jiang and Zhu’s tenure also brought to light a new social cleavage, in addition to the urban–rural divide inherited from the previous regime. Beginning in the 1990s, many urban governments promulgated education policies ostensibly meant to rectify the perception that people were somehow becoming “low quality” (suzhi 素质). This concept—which no doubt reflected middle-class aspirations to be part of Jiang’s neoliberal project of modernization— promoted in his theory of the “Three Represents” (sange daibiao 三个 代表), revealed deep-seated anxieties about large numbers of migrants 39 Zhang (2014). The PLA’s involvement in business, while not illegal per se, led to a growth in corruption as well as problems with discipline and organization. See Bickford (1994). 40 Wu (1997).

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arriving from the countryside. The education policy legislation adopted during this period stipulated that the hukou residency system would determine access to schools.41 Throughout the 1990s, most education institutions—including compulsory primary and secondary schools— increasingly charged tuition fees, which urban residents were better able to afford than rural residents and migrants. The growing financial burden for prospective students in higher education became so heavy that aspiring candidates from poorer socioeconomic milieus gave up on higher education.42 During this period, the government passed many measures related to social insurance provision to conform with the labor regulations required for accession to the World Trade Organization. Between 1991 and 2000, the State Council issued four documents that laid down the principles and direction of pension reform.43 In 1997, it issued a decision on the establishment of a Unified Basic Pension System for Enterprise Workers (tongyi de qiye zhigong jiben yanglao baoxian 统一的企业职工基本养老 保险), and together with the CCP, it promulgated reform guidelines to establish medical insurance measures in urban areas. In 1998, the State Council established a Basic Medical Insurance System for Urban Staff and Workers (chengzhen zhigong jiben yiliao baoxian 城镇职工基本医疗保险) and an Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance to provide healthcare access to urban working and retired employees in the public and private sectors, along with Unemployment Insurance (shiye baoxian 失业保险) in 1999. The government also moved forward with social assistance policies. In 1992, Shanghai had experimented with the Urban Minimum Living Guarantee System (zuidi shenghuo baozhang 最低生活保障, known as dibao), and its success led to the nationwide implementation of the Regulations on Minimum Subsistence for Urban Residents (chengshi jumin zuidi shenghuo baozhang tiaoli 城市居民最低生活保障条例) in 1999.44 The creation of the Housing Fund in 1999 represents another major social policy which Jiang implemented. He established a new Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development (Zhufang he chengxiang jianshebu 住房和城乡建设部) to manage this program. This initiative 41 Li (2015: 38). 42 Li and Piachaud (2004: 18). 43 Chow and Xu (2003). 44 Yang (2012: 3).

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followed from the closure of many state-owned enterprises, which deprived many workers of the housing benefits their previous employers had provided. The fund served to ensure that employees could pay for a home, offering preferential mortgage rates as well as assistance with repair and maintenance. Local governments at the municipal and prefectural levels determined the amount employers and employees had to contribute to the fund, which varied across the country. The fund was available to employees of state-owned enterprises, state employees, and public servants such as teachers, and it displayed the typical characteristics of a conservative or corporatist welfare regime program.45 Jiang and Zhu’s era represented a major transition to a market economy with Chinese characteristics—that is, a state-directed economy with an increasingly vibrant private sector. However, this breakneck expansion aggravated existing trends which had been unfolding since the beginning of the reform and opening period. The gap between the countryside and the cities as well as between the coastal and the interior provinces increased, labor migrations exceeded 200 million people, and the precarious status of this reserve army of migrant workers constituted a new source of social discontent. Finally, the traditional preference for male children in many households, combined with economic and social pressures to limit the number of children born, led to the hitherto unanticipated consequence of a skewed sex ratio, with an alarming disproportion between males and females in the population. Addressing these social problems through better social policies consumed the successive administration’s agenda.

5

The Expansion of Welfare Under Hu and Wen

Hu and Wen Jiabao’s administration (2002–2012), although often considered lost years on the international stage because of Hu’s lowprofile personality, put in place a considerable number of social policies. As Alice Miller has highlighted in her analysis of Party documents, Hu underlined the importance of social security in his report to the 17th Party Congress in 2007 and the 18th Party Congress in 2012, with the addition of a new section devoted to the issue of social welfare in both cases. These additions included detailed social development policies related

45 China Labor Watch (2019).

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to education, labor issues, income distribution and urban–rural disparities, social security, healthcare, and social stability. In reports by Hu’s predecessors, sections on economic and political reform had included these policies seemingly only as an afterthought—an indication that the CCP did not consider these policies to be priorities. In contrast to that approach, the Hu administration attached great importance to these issues, which became a focus of the “people-centered” policy direction he had announced at the start of his tenure in 2002.46 In 2008, the State Council underwent another round of reorganization indicative of the importance attached to social security, and the previous Ministry of Personnel and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security were dissolved into a larger Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (renli ziyuan he shehui baozhangbu 人力资源和社会保障部, MHRSS). By the end of the Hu–Wen administration, much of the population lived in cities, and rapid industrialization had increased their vulnerability to industrial accidents; air, water, and soil pollution; and new environmental hazards. This increased urbanization also augmented urban residents’ vulnerability to storms and earthquakes, along with the costs of recovery. In its mobilization of the PLA to respond to natural disasters such as the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan province, the CCP demonstrated its responsiveness in contrast to the disastrous response of the “Gang of Four” in the aftermath of the Tangshan earthquake. This extensive reliance on the PLA to offset the consequences of natural or industrial disasters, however, led to mounting doubts about its detrimental effects on the emergence of an effective civilian response to national disasters.47 The 2008 tragedy brought these issues to light. The outbreak of SARS in 2002–2003 briefly revealed the vulnerabilities of China’s healthcare system, although in the end the country emerged relatively unscathed.48 A more important health liability emerged during the Hu–Wen administration, as the inadequacies of the population policy and its adverse consequences became clearer. On the one hand, in 2007 the minister for population planning reported that the strict one-child limit affected only 36% of the population, as 53% of households were eligible to receive permission to have a second child if their first was a

46 Miller (2017: 2–3). 47 Zhang (2014). 48 Schwartz and Evans (2007).

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daughter, and an additional 9% could have a second child regardless of the first child’s gender.49 On the other hand, one of the most harmful outcomes of this policy became clearer as statistics revealed the extent of population ageing. Another demographic phenomenon attributed to the one-child policy, the skewed birth sex ratio, also raised alarm at the time, as this ratio reached a peak of 117 male births for every 100 female births and remained above the worldwide norm (of 103/107 to 100) from 2000 to 2013.50 This situation was attributed to the traditional preference for boys and the devaluation of women’s status in society, and concerns were raised over the fact that by 2020, about 30 million men would have no prospect of marriage—a phenomenon which was expected to increase social instability.51 The problem of unequal access to education, which beset Jiang’s administration, worsened under Hu’s mandate. In 2004, the central government covered only 62% of the national budget for education, which constituted only 2.8% of national GDP—a small sum relative to other developing societies, which spend 3.9% on average, and also relative to developed societies, which spend 5%.52 Parents were expected to spend 25 times more on their children’s education in 2004 than they were in 1992, while the state education budget was only 5 times as much in 2004 as it was in 1992. The burden became especially heavy for rural residents, who in 2004 were expected to pay 32.6% of their income for education, while the figure for urban residents was 25.9%.53 In 2002, the Ministry of Education demonstrated a clear bias toward funding higher education, allocating 28.9% of its budget to 14 million students in higher education, while 116 million students in primary schools received 26.4%.54 The situation improved somewhat after that year, but the decentralization of education further increased regional disparities.

49 Callick (2007). 50 It is impossible to arrive at more precise dates because China does not publish its

figures. Demographers must rely on the data provided by the UN Population Bureau. For a detailed discussion of this issue, see Guilmoto (2009: 521). 51 Hudson and den Boer (2002). 52 Grenié and Belotel-Grenié (2006: 7). 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid.

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One of the main difficulties the central government faced during this period was the growing challenge of jointly managing the payment and administration of welfare provision with the private sector. Two key aspects of the problem were local governments’ inability to compel private enterprises to provide social services and the fact that employers’ expected welfare contributions were unaffordable. One consequence of these difficulties was that the state’s attempts to create work-based social security financed by employer and government contributions led to the exclusion of many non-state sector workers from these new social programs.55 During the first half of the Hu–Wen administration, because the social security system was based primarily on employment (that is, on employer and employee contributions), only people with stable employment were likely to benefit from social protection. Rural residents—who accounted for half of the total population at the time—migrants, and the urban unemployed did not enjoy much social protection.56 As William Hurst has shown in his investigation of workers laid off in the early 2000s, the socialist welfare system provided by the work unit had collapsed, and although the government tried to replace it with social insurance, many people continued to experience welfare insecurity. After abandoning its experiments with social benefits provided by private enterprise, the government sought to establish a new state-based system with local governments. In 2008, as Hurst has indicated, the success of the new system depended on the capacities of these governments and their relations with the higher echelons. The wide regional variations between local governments’ ability to craft and implement policies during both the Jiang and the Hu eras constituted one of the major roadblocks to improving social policy.57 In this context, the concept of social insurance, which transferred part of the responsibility for welfare from the state and the employer to the individual, entered policy-makers’ lexicons. From the beginning of their mandate, Hu and Wen sought to improve health insurance coverage in the countryside as part of their broader concern over the “Three Rural” (sannong 三农) problems.58

55 Li and Piachaud (2004: 21). 56 Gao et al. (2018: 239–240). 57 Hurst (2009: 60–85). 58 The problems of agriculture (nongye 农业), farmers (nongmin 农民), and rural areas

(nongcun 农村). See NGCJ (2014).

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This incremental process began with a few local initiatives, and those which proved successful were extended to the whole country. In 2002, the CCP Central Committee and the State Council released a decision on Further Enhancing Health Services in Rural Areas (jinyibu jiaqiang nongcun weisheng gongzuo 进一步加强农村卫生工作), which proposed establishing medical insurance. A year later, the same bodies issued an opinion on the Implementation of Rural Medical Assistance (nongcun yiliao jiuzhu 农村医疗救助), which requested local governments to gradually establish medical assistance centers in rural areas. In 2006, the central government formally launched the New Rural Cooperative Medical Care System (xinxing nongcun hezuo yiliao zhidu 新 型农村合作医疗制度), which intended to make healthcare access affordable for rural residents. By 2005, many local governments had also established medical assistance in urban centers, mainly targeting dibao recipients and low-income families through medical expense reductions and exemptions.59

6

Conclusion

In 2011, the Social Insurance Law (shehui baozhangfa 社会保障法) consolidated previous reforms in the areas of healthcare and social benefits for workers, bringing them together into a comprehensive national framework of five social insurance components: pensions, unemployment, medical, work-related injury, and maternity. Despite all the efforts to improve rural residents’ welfare through these different policies, inequalities have persisted. For instance, health insurance made formidable progress under the Hu–Wen administration: between 2004 and 2010, government coverage rose from 34.4% to over 80%. However, this progress hid a wide disparity in the amount of coverage, with Beijing residents receiving four times the amount per capita as Jiangxi residents, as well as variations in the number of people who remained unprotected by any form of health insurance, with up to one-quarter of the populations in Shanxi and Heilongjiang provinces unprotected.60 In sum, while middleand upper-class Chinese enjoyed greater social security than they had in previous decades, many of the poor—especially those the government

59 Yang (2018: 5–6). 60 Huang (2015: 450).

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could not support—experienced welfare insecurity. When their families could not help, people had to rely on the generosity of strangers as a last resort—in other words, on charity.

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Huang Xian. 2015. Four Worlds of Welfare: Understanding Subnational Variation in Chinese Social Health Insurance. The China Quarterly 222 (June): 449– 474. Hudson, Valerie, and Andrea den Boer. 2002. A Surplus of Men, A Deficit of Peace: Security and Sex Ratios in Asia’s Largest States. International Security 26 (4): 5–38. Hurst, William. 2009. The Chinese Worker after Socialism. New York: Cambridge University Press. Keating, Pauline. 2014. Yan’an and the Revolutionary Base Areas. In Oxford Bibliographies in Chinese Studies, ed. Tim Wright. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/obo/9780199920082-0089. Li Bingqin. 2005. Urban Social Change in Transitional China: A Perspective of Social Exclusion and Vulnerability. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 13 (2): 54–65. Li Bingqin, and David Piachaud. 2004. Poverty and Inequality and Social Policy in China. CASEpaper 87. London: Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion. Li Miao. 2015. Citizenship Education and Migrant Youth in China: Pathways to the Urban Underclass. London: Routledge. Li Shi, Hiroshi Sato, and Terry Sicular, eds. 2013. Rising Inequality in China: Challenges to a Harmonious Society. New York: Cambridge University Press. Miller, Alice. 2017. How to Read Xi Jinping’s 19th Party Congress Political Report. China Leadership Monitor XIV (53). NGCJ (Nongmin gongxian cediaocha jianjie 农民工监测调查简介). 2014. 2013 nian quanguo nongmin gongxiance diaocha baogao 2013 年全国农民工监测 调查报告. Available at: http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/zxfb/201405/t20140 512_551585.html. Accessed 10 June 2019. Orloff, Ann Shola. 2009. Gendering the Comparative Analysis of Welfare States: An Unfinished Agenda. Sociological Theory 27 (3): 317–343. Palmer, James. 2012. Heaven Cracks, Earth Shakes: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Death of Mao’s China. London: Basic Books. Paltemaa, Lauri. 2011. The Maoist Urban State and Crisis: Comparing Disaster Management in the Great Tianjin Flood in 1963 and the Great Leap Forward Famine. The China Journal 66 (July): 25–51. Schwartz, Jonathan, and R. Gregory Evans. 2007. Causes of Effective Policy Implementation: China’s Public Health Response to SARS. Journal of Contemporary China 16 (51): 195–213. Short, Susan E., and Fengying Zhai. 1998. Looking Locally at China’s OneChild Policy. Studies in Family Planning 29 (4) (December): 373–387. Watt, John R. 2013. Saving Lives in Wartime China: How Medical Reformers Built Modern Healthcare Systems Amid War and Epidemics, 1928–1945. Leiden: Brill.

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Whyte, Martin K., Feng Wang, and Cai Yong. 2015. Challenging Myths about China’s One-Child Policy. The China Journal 74: 144–159. Wong, Linda. 1998. Marginalization and Social Welfare in China. London: Routledge. Wu Yanrui. 1997. China’s Health Care Sector in Transition: Resources, Demand and Reforms. Health Policy 39: 137–152. Yang Lixiong. 2018. The Social Assistance Reform in China: Towards a Fair and Inclusive Social Safety Net. Prepared for Addressing Inequalities and Challenges to Social Inclusion through Fiscal, Wage and Social Protection Policies (June): 25–27. New York: United Nations Headquarters. Yi Lixin, Ge Lingling, Zhao Dong, Zhou Junxue, and Gao Zhanwu. 2012. An Analysis on Disasters Management System in China. Natural Hazards 60: 295–309. Yu Tao. 2017. The Historical Foundations of Religious Restrictions in Contemporary China. Religions 8 (263): 1–14. Zhang Daqing, and Paul Unschuld. 2008. China’s Barefoot Doctor: Past, Present, and Future. Lancet 372 (November): 1865–1867. Zhang Jiang. 2014. The military and disaster relief in China: Trends, drivers and implications. In Disaster Relief in the Asia Pacific: Agency and Resilience, ed. Minako Sakai, Edwin Jurriëns, Jian Zhang, and Alec Thornton, 69–85. London: Routledge. Zhou Hong 周弘 and Zhang Jun 张浚. 2015. Zouxiang renren xiangyou baozhang de shehui: dangdai zhongguo shehui baozhang de zhidu bianqian 走向人人享有保障的社会: 当代中国社会保障的制度变迁. Beijing: zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe.

CHAPTER 2

The Main Social Policies Under Xi Jinping

During the Fifth Plenum of the 18th Party Congress in 2015, senior leaders announced that improving social security should be the focus of the subsequent five-year plan, expected in 2020.1 The previous plan, prepared in the last year of Hu’s tenure, did not say much on this issue, although it advocated reducing inequalities between the coastal provinces and those in the interior. Xi’s views on social policy serve his broader priorities in domestic politics, namely regime preservation, and political stability.2 When the CCP confirmed Xi as the party and state leader in 2012, many of the social security issues that Hu and Wen had tried to address remained unresolved, and new ones have since become salient. In their review of the text written by influential Chinese social scientists advising CCP leaders on social policy, Yang Kai and Stephan Ortman have found that the Singapore model is policymakers’ favorite option, relative to the Swedish one. This preference implies that China seeks a social security regime that is more robust than the residual-liberal model promoted by the United States, but without the open, competitive political environment typical of Swedish social democracy.3 1 Since 1977, each Party Congress has presented a five-year plan at its Fifth Plenum. 2 Zhao (2016: 93). 3 Kai and Ortman (2018).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 A. Laliberté, Religion and China’s Welfare Regimes, Religion and Society in Asia Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7270-5_2

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Most of the social security system under Xi rests on the same key policies and actors that Hu established. Xi’s administration has reinforced disaster relief, streamlined healthcare, and expanded education, but has not yet been able to address regional disparities between the coastal and the interior provinces, nor the gap between cities and the countryside or between first- and second-tier urban centers. Other sources of inequality persist. Of the three pillars of social security, social insurance remains limited to the working population in the formal economy, while the other two social policy domains of social assistance and welfare have stigmatizing effects to the extent that they target specific categories of the population.4 In addition, the number of people identified as part of various vulnerable populations—such as migrant workers and “leftbehind” (liushou 留守) elderly and children—has continued to grow. Although the constitution includes important commitments to social security for all, the central government agencies described below have delegated the implementation of many policies for which they are responsible to lower levels of government. The varying capacities of these local governments to deliver social services partly account for persistent inequalities. Xi’s references to the Maoist period in his speeches do not herald a return to social policies under Mao, because China has changed too much to make such a return possible.5 Thus far, Xi has retained most of the institutions set up by his immediate predecessors to address disaster relief, healthcare, and education, as well as those responsible for implementing the three pillars of the social security system. The government administers key social insurance programs providing social security to the working population, social assistance programs to meet the basic needs of those who do not have access to insurance, and welfare services that provide help to categories of the population outside the formal workforce. Each of these programs covers—albeit unevenly—three categories of the population: registered urban residents, people living in the countryside, and migrants who straddle these two worlds. Such inequalities in status and living conditions generate social malaise, which worries the authorities. The inadequacies of social programs in meeting the health, education, and social security needs of those on the margins of Chinese society

4 Stein and Ngok (2017: 222). 5 Zhao (2016: 95).

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provide incentives for them to seek alternatives. One would think that natural disasters, which affect people indiscriminately, would present a rare occasion on which these differences would dissolve. However, inequalities in local governments’ capacities and different populations’ vulnerabilities present challenges for the central government.

1

Emergency and Disaster Relief Policies

Most discussions on social security and social welfare in China do not include disaster relief. Yet, as the case of Taiwan and the history of ancient China and the Republican era have shown, a government’s ability to ensure recovery after natural disasters has often proven key to its survival. Failure to ensure that public granaries can offset the damage caused by floods or droughts, for example, has led to periods of instability in the past. When the state cannot provide relief in a timely manner— due to factors such as access difficulties, poor communication, or lack of personnel—relief delivery is facilitated by non-state actors, which presents a risk to the state’s legitimacy.6 In 2018, the State Council established the Ministry of Emergency Management (yingji guanlibu 应急管理部), a new agency to address disaster relief, rescue operations, and work safety.7 Two other departments assist the PLA in disaster relief: the Occupational Safety and Health Council, and the China Association of Work Safety. Victims of natural disasters face many acute and long-term needs, both material and physical. Some categories of the population are especially vulnerable: elderly people who are alone and are too frail or unwilling to relocate, young children whose parents work in cities far away, and displaced and homeless people in the worst cases. The government is struggling to meet all these needs. While successful disaster relief operations require the coordination of many well-organized state agencies at the central and local levels so that governments can operate quickly and provide significant assistance, these operations also require the support of populations on the ground—those who are familiar with local ecologies and social conditions. Dispatching

6 Zhao (2009: 421). 7 This ministry resulted from the merging of many agencies, following years of

discussion about China’s emergency management system. See Yi et al. (2016).

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healthcare workers to address immediate recovery needs helps, but people from the community are also important when it comes to issues such as counseling.

2

Healthcare and Education Policies

In 2013, the State Council merged the Ministry of Health and the Population and Family Planning Commission (renkou he jihua shengyu weiyuanhui 人口和计划生育委员会) to form the Health and Family Planning Commission (weisheng he jihua shengyu weiyuanhui 卫生和计划生 育委员会). This administrative restructuring foreshadowed the abandonment of the one-child directive, which the government phased out in 2015 and replaced with a two-child policy to offset the effects attributed to the previous legislation, such as the ageing population and the skewed sex ratio.8 However, the new legislation failed to produce the expected results: after a modest rise in the fertility rate in 2016, the number of births continued to decline over the next two years.9 This has led to speculations that the CCP might abandon its family planning policy and replace it with a new policy to encourage higher birthrates.10 Thus the commission established in 2013 lost part of its raison d’être, and the State Council replaced it with a streamlined Health Commission (weisheng jiankang weiyuanhui 卫生健康委员会) in 2018. The commodification of healthcare initiated under Deng has generated some unexpected ill effects: improvements in benefits and in the number of beneficiaries have exacerbated rather than diminished regional healthcare disparities. Two broad factors have enhanced these inequalities: the disparity in fiscal resources and the central government’s fear of social instability, which has led the government to outsource responsibility for social services to local governments, which design policies to address specific issues that pose risks to social stability.11 The healthcare system’s shortcomings opened opportunities for individuals to propose alternatives to costly medical procedures and medication. In his study of the qigong fever that emerged in the 1990s, David Palmer has demonstrated

8 Zeng and Hesketh (2016). 9 Leng (2019). 10 Tang (2018). 11 Huang (2015).

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how traditional Chinese medicine, which in this case appealed to spiritual healing and invoked supernatural forces, blurred the boundaries between medical science and religion, and became popular because it was known for being less expensive than commodified modern medicine, which was seen as being tied up with the pharmaceutical industry.12 Although publications such as Atheism and Science (wushenlun yu kexue 无神论与科 学) denounce such forms of traditional therapy, the current popularity of Chinese medicine attests to its enduring attractiveness.13 In the autumn of 2015, the Fifth Plenum of the 18th Party Congress passed a few measures on education to include in the 13th five-year plan, which aimed to reduce poverty. One of these proposed helping children from poor households by gradually extending free secondary education— a measure that included doing away with school fees. However, Xi’s views on education, formulated near the end of his first mandate as CCP secretary general, emphasized two irreconcilable goals. On the one hand, he wanted to improve the global rankings of China’s higher education institutions, promoting their competitiveness, and seeking to attract foreign talent. On the other hand, he also tightened political control over these institutions. For example, at a CCP leadership meeting in 2016, he insisted that Chinese universities must become strongholds of communist values. To achieve this end, he enforced numerous constraints on academic activities, such as blocking access to foreign views he deemed hostile to CCP rule—including “constitutionalism” and “multi-party democracy”—and forcing out scholars who promoted such ideas on campus.14 Moreover, in October 2017, when the CCP enshrined “Xi Jinping’s thought” in its constitution, the People’s (renmin 人民) University announced that it would establish a research center for the study of Xi’s thought. In 2018, ten more universities announced the establishment of similar centers.15 Alongside the reinforcement of CCP values in schools, Xi also promotes the revival of Chinese traditional culture, which he refers to

12 Palmer (2005). 13 Zhang et al. (2011). 14 Huang (2016). 15 Taber (2018).

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as “spiritual civilization” (jingshen wenming 精神文明).16 By encouraging this tradition, he carries on his predecessor’s policy of rehabilitating Confucianism and thereby endorses an approach compatible with conservative social policies. If the CCP denies that there is any inherent religious dimension to this system of thought, it can promote its merits, which sustain existing social hierarchies and the patriarchy that constitutes the foundation of its social policies. Elderly care policies constitute a clear example of the expected benefits derived from Confucian teachings, as the emphasis on classic filial piety stresses women’s role as caregivers and celebrates their traditional function as stay-at-home wives or dutiful daughters.17 This issue is important, as demands for elderly care have continued to grow under Xi.

3

The Five Insurances and the Housing Fund

Under Xi, the five insurances include pensions/old-age insurance (yanglao baoxian 养老保险), employment insurance (shiye baoxian 失业保险), compensation for workplace injury (gongshang baoxian 工伤保险), healthcare security (yiliao baozhang 医疗保障), and a maternity leave allowance (shengyuzhang 生育障). On top of these five insurances, China’s current social security system includes the mandatory Housing Fund set up by Xi’s predecessor. The MHRSS is responsible for administering pensions, employment insurance, and compensation for workplace injury (gongshang 工伤). The National Healthcare Security Administration (guojia yiliao baozhangju 国家医疗保障局, NHSA), a sub-ministerial agency established by the State Council in 2018, manages healthcare insurance. Maternity insurance is the only program not administered by a central agency: female employees receive their maternity leave allowance from the Social Security Bureau where they are registered. However, at the time of writing, the central government is planning to merge maternity leave funds with those managed by the NHSA.18 Finally, the Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development (MHURD) continues to manage housing funds separately at the central level.

16 See Brown and B¯ ˇ erzina¸ Cerenkova (2018: 337). 17 Cook and Dong (2017). 18 See China Labor Watch (2019).

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Funding for old-age insurance constitutes a rapidly increasing burden on public finances because of the ageing population. However, China’s senior citizens do not benefit equally from government largesse. Stein Ringen and Ngok Kinglun have noted three categories of pension insurance: insurance for urban enterprise employees, for other urban residents, and for people living in rural areas.19 Moreover, the issue of whether one works for the government, a state-owned enterprise, or in the private sector creates other sources of inequality in the pension regime. In 2015, the State Council aimed to address this latter source of disparity and introduced a new pension plan designed to equalize the private- and public-sector systems in its Reform of the State Employee Pension System (yanglao baoxian zhidu gaige 养老保险制度改革). However, this policy does not address livelihoods for the elderly in the countryside or for migrants who decide not to return to their places of birth after retiring. A similar fragmentation exists in compensation for those who become unemployed. At the end of 2017, 188 million workers, including 49 million rural migrant workers, had unemployment insurance.20 This is mandatory, and provisions exist to support employment or reemployment.21 Despite this obligatory dimension of unemployment, many people are not eligible: this includes most rural workers, because they receive revenue from land, as well as a majority of migrant workers, because their employment is precarious and they are often employed in the informal sectors of the economy, such as domestic caregiving. Likewise, insurance for on-the-job injuries only applies to those who are employed in the formal sector. In 2017, the three main insurance compensations for work-related injuries included medical and nursing allowances, disability allowances, and allowances for work-related deaths, including funeral allowances and conditional allowances for family members.22 Healthcare insurance administration also mirrors the fragmentation that prevails in pension management. This fragmentation happens in two ways: through specific policies which are determined at the central level

19 Ringen and Ngok (2017: 222). 20 China Labor Watch (2019). 21 Ringen and Ngok (2017: 225). 22 Ibid.

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and target certain categories of the population, and through policy implementation at the local government level. From its modest beginnings in a few locations in 2003, the basic medical insurance gradually expanded, and by 2011 it had been implemented nationwide. The central government has promulgated three healthcare insurance programs targeting people according to their place of residence and status in the labor market: the Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance (UEBMI), the Urban Residents Basic Medical Insurance (URBMI) to cover other categories of urban residents, and a New Rural Co-operative Medical Scheme (NRCMS) for the farming population.23 Local governments administer these different programs, and employers and their employees finance them in various proportions. If the central government can in principle offset some regional inequalities by transferring payments to support poorer areas, then sharing contributions between employers and workers introduces another source of disparity. Since 2012, the Special Provisions on the Protection of Female Employees (nvzhigong laodong baohu tebie guiding 女职工劳动保护特别 规定) has entitled women to 14 weeks of maternity leave, paid by their employers according to amounts determined by local governments. In 2018, national maternity insurance covered about 204 million employees, but only 11 million received a payment that year.24 Maternity insurance covers costs related to birth control, pre-natal checkups, delivery assistance, and meeting the basic international standards established by the International Labor Organization (ILO). Disparities exist across the country, however: the China Labor Watch reported that in 2018, Guangdong province paid 11.4 billion renminbi (RMB) to close to 2 million employees, while Liaoning province paid half a billion RMB to only 84,000 beneficiaries. Moreover, many employers find ways to avoid paying compensation; some ask employees to sign contracts in which they promise not to get pregnant, while others refuse to grant maternity leave and fire employees under the pretext that they do not show up for work.25

23 Ibid.: 224. 24 These numbers must be put in the context of a labor force of 778 million people,

of which women represented 43%—i.e., more 334 million women in the labor market— according to data from the ILO 2020. 25 China Labor Watch (2019).

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Although the Housing Fund is not managed by the MHRSS, many analysts include it as a segment of social services among the social insurance programs I have reviewed above because it functions in a similar manner to the other five programs, relying on co-payment by employers and employees.26 Under Xi, this program has grown at an accelerating rate. The fund covered about 100 million people on average from 2000 to 2014. In 2014, it enrolled 2.1 million employers and 119 million employees, but four years later, these numbers had increased to 2.9 million employers and decreased to 114 million employees. Like the other programs I have discussed thus far, the fund reproduces inequalities, as 60 percent of the beneficiaries in 2014 were either state employees or worked in state-owned enterprises—a proportion that fell to 51 percent in 2018, when most new participants in the fund were either private sector employees or workers in foreign-owned enterprises.27 For most low-paid workers and most migrant workers, access to housing is difficult. The policies I have outlined thus far, which are intended to provide the rudiments of a robust welfare regime, have covered party cadres, state employees, veterans, and other socioeconomic categories—such as professionals and managers whom the state considers more important, along with their dependents—from the beginning. In many respects, this approach corresponds to the ideal-type of early conservative-corporatist welfare state set up by Bismarck, which reinforces state authority by nurturing bonds of loyalty with the workers who depend on its outlays. This welfare regime also reinforces the role of the family as a basic social unit. This model was accepted by many social policy theorists in Chinese society, who saw the emphasis on the family as an approach that resonates with Chinese traditional culture. Although the CCP repudiated this approach when Mao led the country, the rehabilitation of traditional culture, which began under Hu and has accelerated under Xi, has favored the adoption of this approach, even though it generates many problematic consequences for women when firms pressure them into playing the more traditional role of stay-at-home caregivers.28 For those who remain in the private sector—whether they are employees, are self-employed, or own small enterprises—the insurance

26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 Cook and Dong (2017).

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offered under the current social security system bears the characteristics of a liberal-residual welfare regime. That is, one’s benefits depend on individual payments to a private insurance company, or an insurance policy managed by one’s employer or by the government. The individual’s responsibility for their welfare and that of their dependents matters more than is the case for those who work in the public sector. Access to benefits is means-tested, and consequently, benefits can have a stigmatizing effect on recipients. Moreover, because they depend on individual contributions, many types of insurance remain inaccessible to certain segments of the population. As the figures quoted above indicate, most migrant workers do not have access to benefits such as pensions and health insurance because they face too much income insecurity to pay for insurance, and their employers do not always offer them access. In cases of unemployment, workplace injury, illness, or maternity, individuals without access to social insurance must turn to social assistance. In the welfare regime maintained under Xi, one’s occupation and place of residence also influence one’s eligibility to receive the benefits of different insurance schemes. Urban workers employed in public service, by state-owned enterprises, or by generous corporations may contribute to their dependents’ well-being by means of transferable social benefits. However, the relatives of many employees in the private sector, selfemployed workers, and rural residents with lower revenue and less job security do not enjoy such benefits. Migrant workers’ remittances to “leftbehind” (liushou 留守) relatives, elderly parents, or children can provide precious financial support, but this monetary help is no substitute for quality healthcare and education, nor for the types of social insurance I have described above. These less fortunate workers and residents, as well as those who cannot work due to disability or adverse circumstances, must rely on social assistance from the state, on non-state charity, or must pay fees out of pocket. For all the policies mentioned thus far, state agents act as providers of relief, care, knowledge, and social security. For party cadres, veterans and “martyrs of the revolution,” state employees, and workers in sectors which the government considers strategic, access to these services constitutes a right, and their situation resembles that of citizens in the most advanced social-democratic welfare states. Yet a considerable number of people do not qualify for the social insurance system put in place by the present regime and its predecessors, due to their occupation, their unsettled status, their place of residence, or very often to life circumstances

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for which they are not always directly responsible. In many developing societies, people without employment in the formal economy who are deprived of meaningful connection with their next of kin or even abandoned by relatives are likely to depend on public charity or on care provided by strangers.

4

Social Assistance

Social assistance includes poverty relief and targets mainly those segments of the population that are not eligible to receive any of the social insurance services outlined above because they have not contributed to pension schemes or other insurance funds. Recipients of social assistance have not contributed to social insurance, either because they could not work or because they worked in the informal sector. Social assistance policy in China includes two important features: first, to be eligible, households must demonstrate that their standard of living falls below the local poverty line; second, the provision of dibao and the determination of the poverty line depend on local governments.29 Moreover, different standards exist between urban and rural residents. To qualify, urban residents must demonstrate deprivation by showing that they suffer from the “Three Nos” (sanwu 三无).30 For rural residents, the law outlines their entitlement to “Five Guarantees” (wubao 五保).31 People eligible for dibao receive financial assistance in cash, but they often need additional support to meet rapidly rising expenditures on medical help and education, which risk pushing them back into poverty. Under Hu, the government gradually improved programs for temporary education, medicaid, and housing assistance. In 2014, the State Council put out a notice promoting the comprehensive establishment of the Temporary Assistance system nationwide.32 The government provides this assistance to families or to individuals who are not covered by other forms of social assistance and whose basic needs cannot be met due to emergencies, unexpected harm, major illness, or other unusual factors to 29 Yang (2018: 4). 30 The three nos are no ability to work, no income, and no assistance from the family.

See Yang (2018: 2). 31 Ringen and Ngok (2017: 221). The five guarantees are: eating (chi 吃), clothing (chuan 穿), housing (zhu 住), health (yi 医), and burial (zang 葬). 32 Yang (2018: 5–6).

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help them cope with emergencies during transitional stages when they are out of work.33 In 2017, local governments established more than 500 different poverty lines to define eligibility for receiving dibao. The number of people who received urban dibao, which was less than 1 million people in 1997, reached a peak of 22 million recipients in 2003 and subsequently fell to 14 million by 2016. However, the level of local government expenditures reveals that rural residents received far less money relative to their urban counterparts: in 2016, municipal governments spent a total of 1.014 billion RMB, while their rural counterparts spent 688 billion, even though the number of registered rural residents is more than three times the number of registered urban residents. In the context of the increasing commodification of education throughout the Jiang era, many students from impoverished families have dropped out of school due to financial difficulties. Alarmed by these developments, some local governments have experimented with an education assistance system. After evaluating these measures, the State Council promulgated a national Interim Measure for Social Assistance (shehui jiuzhu zhanxing banfa 社会救助暂行办法) policy to promote education assistance.34 The social changes China has undergone since the beginning of reform forced the government to expand the number of groups in need of social assistance and to acknowledge new categories of those who deserve this kind of state support. For instance, the increase in the number of migrants to cities led to the realization that the existing programs to help children, hitherto limited to orphans and children with disabilities, proved inadequate to address the welfare of “left-behind” children in the countryside. In 2016, the government ratified a legal opinion requesting local authorities to adopt measures to strengthen care and protection for children in difficulty.35 Another category of the population left behind during the decades of reform, “vagrants and beggars” (liulang qitao 流浪乞 讨), had been receiving support since 2003, but with the growth in the number of children in this situation, the government had put measures in place in 2006 and 2011 to rescue and protect “homeless or wandering

33 Ibid.: 6. 34 Ibid.: 5. 35 Jiaqiang kunjing ertong baozhang gongzuo de yijian 加强困境儿童保障工作的意见. In Yang (2018: 6–7).

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minors” (liulang weicheng 流浪未成).36 Finally, in 2015 and 2018, the government issued opinions in favor of adopting laws enjoining local governments to provide assistance and facilitating rehabilitation for people with disabilities.37 The central government has traditionally tasked local governments with the responsibility to provide the social assistance—or welfare services—described above for the most disadvantaged social groups, such as the poorest of the elderly, orphans, and persons with disabilities. These services remain selective and stigmatize their recipients: they must demonstrate that they belong to “needy” or “extremely needy” groups, categories which different local governments determine differently, according to their means. Most rural townships and urban neighborhoods offer these services through a variety of institutions. Hence elderly homes can provide shelter, around-the-clock healthcare, socialization, and other services. Orphans and abandoned or disabled children can receive services in children’s welfare houses, boarding schools, and similar institutions, and the options of adoption and foster care are also possible. Finally, disabled persons are eligible to receive services such as a basic subsistence guarantee and a variety of special allowances for education, rehabilitation, and employment if they hold “disability certificates.”38 Despite efforts to reduce regional disparities since 1949, inequalities between provinces and between the countryside and the cities have increased, and local governments’ capacity to offer social services continues to vary, despite efforts by the central government to implement measures and policies to reduce such capacity gaps.39 Even within provinces, conditions can differ considerably between prefectures and between counties.40 Moreover, the central government’s equalization 36 Jiaqiang he gaijin liulang weicheng nianrenjiuzhu baohu gongzuo de yijian 加强和改 进流浪未成年人救助保护工作的意见. In Yang (2018: 7). 37 Guanyu qianmian jianli kunnan canjiren shenghuo butie he zhongdu canjiren huli butie zhidu de yijian 关于全面建立困难残疾人生活补贴和重度残疾人护理补贴制度的意 见. In Yang (2018: 7). 38 Ringen and Ngok (2017: 226). 39 Regional inequalities declined in the early to mid-1950s, during the Cultural Revo-

lution, and most dramatically during the first five years of the reform and opening policy. See Fan et al. (2011: 50). More recent studies point to a stabilization of these inequalities, which remain high. See Wroblowský and Yin (2016: 62). 40 Li and Xu discovered that disparities between prefectures within provinces are greater than those between provinces. See Li and Xu (2006: 23).

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measures have one major flaw: even when they qualify for help, the poor in counties that do not appear on the central government’s list may find it difficult to gain support from their local governments, and as a result, they do not receive allocations to meet their needs. In these cases, local governments may have to count on non-state providers for social assistance and welfare services. The case studies presented in this book illustrate instances in which local governments have resorted to variants of what their predecessors did prior to 1949—cooperating with local private charities to provide relief, healing, education assistance, or elderly care. China’s ageing population, which has increased dramatically, also weighs heavily on the budget for healthcare, social insurance, and social assistance.

5

The Mounting Issue of Elderly Care

At the beginning of this century, the Chinese government had already started to grasp the economic and social consequences of the country’s rapidly ageing population.41 Less than ten years ago, a study pointing to the importance of that issue noted the government’s lack of preparedness to address this growing challenge, especially in the countryside; due to young people’s outmigration and an inverted age pyramid, the study found that many elders who were left behind did not receive adequate care.42 A report prepared for the ILO pointed to the dramatic challenges most elderly people faced in China: apart from a few who benefit from generous pensions and retire early, the majority of people working in the informal sector had no choice but to continue working. The pension system did not cover enough of these people, it was not sustainable, and considerable disparities between rural and urban residents existed.43 A study on the politics of pension provision revealed the inequalities of retirement benefits and pointed to this “socialist insecurity” as a major source of discontent and a looming legitimacy crisis for the CCP.44 Another survey revealed that for too many people, access to long-term care remained determined by their ability to pay market fees. It found that services for the elderly continued to face issues of “acute shortage,

41 Woo et al. (2002). 42 Gu and Vlosky (2008); Wu et al. (2005). 43 Du and Wang (2010). 44 Frazier (2010).

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low quality, and low levels of private and NGO involvement.”45 Other studies concluded that longer life expectancy, smaller families due to the one-child policy, and young people’s labor migration, combined with a decline in traditional values, have adversely affected the elderly people left behind, who are at risk of experiencing depression.46 Most of these problems can be blamed on the legacy of the previous administration, although Xi was already a member of the CCP Standing Committee, the highest decision-making body in the country, during the second half of Hu’s tenure as secretary general. Chinese scholars’ technical discussions of their country’s welfare regime assert that ageing constitutes a major financial burden on other Chinese social services and see four great challenges for policymakers in ensuring the sustainability of this key pillar of social security: improving overall economic productivity to ensure the welfare system’s sustainability; consolidating and merging the rural and urban programs for basic pensions, healthcare, and social assistance; offering universal coverage; and increasing efficiency.47 As the previous discussion of healthcare, social insurance, and social assistance has shown, achieving these goals remains elusive. In 2005, in anticipation of these challenges and to motivate provincial governments that have traditionally been reluctant to invest in social welfare, the central government granted subsidies to some of them, but as a result, it inadvertently created an alarming increase in social welfare disparities. Such efforts on the part of the central government to increase retirement benefits had catastrophic consequences that lead to the termination of this expansion in 2016.48 In an effort to learn from the failure of these previous pension policies, in 2015 the central government established a universal non-contributory plan to cover all rural residents and non-employed workers. Although this system achieved a degree of coverage theoretically unprecedented in the non-Western world, it represented an “incomplete universalism” because the benefits were low, regional variations remained, and “policy bundles” in certain rural areas imposed conditions on qualifying to receive a pension by coercing beneficiaries’ adult children to

45 Wong and Leung (2012: 584). 46 Zurlo et al. (2014). 47 Cai and Du (2015). 48 Lin and Tussing (2017).

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contribute to rural old-age insurance programs.49 Public policy scholars have analyzed the data from 1995 to 2009 and noted that the fiscal decentralization policies intended to increase the efficiency of expenditures have instead led to greater intra-provincial inequality, and these scholars concluded that only a program of fiscal equalization could offset this problem.50 Actuarial studies by Chinese economists, completed when Xi was preparing for his second term, concluded that unless the government changes the existing old-age insurance system, the existing pension gap—which is already huge—will expand, and the current surplus will be used up within a decade.51 In addition to the fiscal burden of pensions, another major challenge arising from the ageing population is the need for long-term care institutions when families cannot care for seniors or when the elderly have no relatives. In recent years, the “leap forward” policy of increasing the number of beds to meet the needs of the mounting number of people across the country facing this situation has encountered problems of unequal access to long-term care centers and concerns over an adequatequality insurance system for residential care.52 Adding to the demand for long-term and end-of-life care are signs of incipient changes in the population’s attitudes to this issue—that is, “sending parents to nursing homes” is less often seen as an unfilial attitude; as a result, the number of nursing homes for the elderly has grown significantly since 2010.53 Nevertheless, some research has revealed that despite this change in attitudes, the inadequacies of existing elderly care provision explain why most Chinese elders and their families do not favor institutional care.54 As a result of this, families that have decided to send their ageing parents into institutional care are still struggling with the stigma they attach to this option.55 Changes in this mentality are likely to vary depending on one’s social condition; in cities, the most affluent households can maintain a pretense 49 Liu and Sun (2016: 25). 50 Liu et al. (2017). 51 Li and Zhang (2017: 271). 52 Shum et al. (2015: 787). 53 Zhang (2017). 54 Shea and Zhang (2017). 55 Zhan et al. (2011).

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of fulfilling filial piety by hiring a housemaid (baomu 保姆) to care for elderly relatives. However, for migrant workers—large numbers of whom are baomu themselves—and especially rural residents, meeting these obligations is more challenging. Many families separated by labor migration still feel the pressure to fulfill the duties of filial piety, which requires sons to honor their fathers but places the burden of day-to-day care on daughters or daughters-in-law. The idea that municipal governments would respond to this decline in traditional familial support by instituting community-based long-term care for elders left behind received attention more than ten years ago. However, assessments of the programs set up to address this issue have pointed to the lack of a trained workforce, the absence of management standards, low attendance at day care centers, and limited funding.56 Investigations conducted in the countryside under the aegis of the United Nations Funds for Population Activities and three Chinese national institutes have demonstrated that seniors enjoy better expressions of filial piety from their daughters than from their sons, but despite this, the preference for sons remains prevalent in rural areas. The authors of this study believe that the fact that the pension system is less generous in rural areas than it is in the cities, combined with the one-child policy, exacerbates the consequences of the traditional bias against girls.57 Despite these social dislocations, the Chinese central government still promotes a model of social policy that relies on the family to provide care for the elderly. This policy represents a strategic component of the whole social welfare system, to the extent that care is about the “daily and generational work of reproduction that is essential for the society and the economy.”58 For the government, the family is a vital social unit in the welfare policies it wants to implement, because a key element of these policies is the reliance on the unpaid caregiving work of mothers and daughters. This represents an important source of savings for public finances, but at the same time a loss of status for women as paid workers. The government at all levels is pushing for a “naturalization” of this approach—that is, it is promoting the idea that care at home is the normal thing to do and is the only moral way to behave. The promotion of filial

56 Wu et al. (2005). 57 Yi et al. (2016: 244–245). 58 Cook and Dong (2017: 266).

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piety as a fundamental value serves to reinforce the legitimacy of these policies. For those who cannot rely on the care of their adult children due to life circumstances, the state promotes reliance on charity. In their discussion of whether the welfare state needs charity, Yu and Chen reckon that while the state can provide the funding, the philanthropic sector can ensure the delivery of services.59 But not all forms of charity are efficient when it comes to helping the state, as I will discuss in the next chapter. The primary reliance on households as care providers combined with a last-resort reliance on charity create the broad social context within which one can understand the motives behind successive campaigns of “civilization construction” (wenming jianshe 文明建设) from Jiang to Xi. Under Jiang, references to “civilization construction” added the qualification that this civilization was spiritual (jingshen 精神). This qualifier was used throughout the Hu administration as well, and became even more important when Li Changchun, another member of the CCP Standing Committee, led the commission on “spiritual civilization construction.” At the time, this heightened attention to “spiritual civilization” betrayed a concern over the unease generated by growing inequality and the social tensions this created.60 Hu’s proclamation of a “harmonious society” expressed his idealistic aspiration to overcome the source of contentious politics, in a complete reversal of Mao’s view that “people should not forget the class struggle.” Under Xi, “civilization construction” covers a wide range of issues; it even extends to environmental protection.61 “Civilization construction” includes “citizenship education,” which is transmitted in high school via textbooks on “ideology and morality.”62 It is noteworthy, however, that in the last two years, the “spiritual” has gradually vanished from this public discourse. Yet the rehabilitation of some elements of traditional culture remains a key feature of Xi’s campaign.63 One of the core values that “civilization construction” continues to promote is filial piety (zhongxiao 忠孝), a core Confucian tenet that has been reworked without 59 Yu and Chen (2016). 60 Li et al. (2013). 61 Wang (2014); Huang et al. (2015). 62 Li (2015). 63 Wu (2014).

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any of its spiritual mooring to naturalize harmony within the family as the basis for harmony within the state. This approach is problematic, as some Chinese scholars have cautioned that under specific conditions of cultural and social change, attitudes related to filial piety, as expressed in family obligations, continue to influence individuals “even though the conventions associated with the relevant expectations, attitudes and emotions have undergone significant change.”64 Yet despite such limitations, the CCP’s adoption of this approach reveals a pragmatic dimension of its approach to social policy—one that mirrors that of the South Korean government, which further suggests that Chinese policymakers tend to favor developmental states’ conservative approach to social welfare.65 The state-promoted revival of Confucianism and its implications in terms of social policies is happening at a time when many people in business and other sectors have embraced this tradition.66 It is important to keep in mind that when Xi promotes traditional values in his discourse on the “China Dream,” he is not only referring to the pre-modern Chinese tradition that includes Confucianism and Legalism, but also to the modern tradition of socialism; although they differ in their substance, they both share a common enemy: liberalism and Western modernity.67 Concretely, the state discourse on tradition has many dimensions. It conveys both the value of a “return to the original” (yuanzhenxing 原 真性) and “authenticity” (zhenshixing 真实性) in relation to architecture and heritage conservation, which have expanded phenomenally since the beginning of the reform and opening policy.68 But most importantly, the reference to tradition is part of a broader, concerted effort to reproduce a welfare regime that outsources care work to the family. Central to this effort is the reproduction of traditional Confucian attitudes that discriminate against women and confine them to the work of caregiving.69 Another key element of this policy is the full-fledged rehabilitation of charity in a way that would have been unthinkable under Mao.

64 Qi (2015: 157). 65 Park (2015). 66 Billioud and Thoraval (2015). 67 Callahan (2015). 68 Zhu (2017). 69 Chen et al. (2017).

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6

Conclusion

The road to establishing a social security system in China has been a tortuous one. After the CCP took power in 1949, its priority was establishing a modern economy and increasing production before thinking about wealth redistribution. To ensure the loyalty of civil servants and employees in key industries nationalized by the state, the CCP adopted the instruments of a corporatist welfare policy, which offered these people generous social benefits. From the onset of the Great Leap Forward in 1958, Mao encouraged the establishment of the people’s communes, which constituted an exceptional attempt to provide social welfare directly from their work units (danwei 单位). Subdivided into production brigades and production teams, the communes brought together large groups of people in the countryside.70 In the uncertain and politically chaotic climate that plagued China during the Cultural Revolution, the people’s communes, which were meant to serve all the people, nevertheless excluded political enemies. When the reform and opening policy dismantled the last communes in 1983, the regime quickly had to come up with new ways to ensure the population would receive various forms of social protection. Under Deng and his two successors, China struggled to establish new programs offering social insurance and assistance of all kinds, along with services in the domains of healthcare, education, and disaster relief. The problem of enduring regional inequalities, as well as limited access to social services for migrant workers, presented the state with difficult choices. Despite this initial progress in developing the beginnings of a welfare state, the departure from the previous system had given rise to intense personal insecurity, as society became increasingly urbanized and polluted. In its efforts to establish a more robust social security regime since the beginning of the reform and opening policy, which I have described in this chapter, the CCP has increasingly called upon the non-state sector to assist the state in providing relief, insurance, welfare, and assistance to specific categories of the population. Chinese traditional religious institutions and their foreign counterparts have played such a role when and where the government lacked the capacity to deliver in China prior to

70 On average, the communes numbered around 4500 households, with some having as many as 20,000.

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1949 and they continue to do so in Taiwan and other Chinese societies since then, as I discuss elsewhere in a book about Chinese Buddhist philanthropy beyond the PRC. In the next chapter, I will describe the evolution of CCP policy on religious affairs, which began with the state’s usurpation of religions’ traditional role as social security providers and has developed into a policy of coopting those religions that survived the first stage. This policy shift constitutes a transition from a process of disentangling religion and politics in Chinese society to a potential return to intermingling the two.

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Frazier, Mark W. 2010. Socialist insecurity: Pensions and the politics of uneven development in China. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Gu Danan and Denese Ashbaugh Vlosky. 2008. “Long-term care needs and related issues in China.” In Social Sciences in Health Care and Medicine, eds. Garner, Janet B. and Thelma C. Christiansen, 51–84. New York: Nova Publisher. Huang, Gary. 2016. “China’s Xi Jinping wants both academic excellence and tighter grip on campuses. Go figure.” South China Morning Post, Sino File (December 17). Available at: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/ article/2055308/chinas-xi-jinping-wants-both-academic-excellence-and-tig hter-grip. Accessed 17 June 2019. Huang Qin 黄勤, Zeng Yuan 曾元, and Jiang Jin 江琴. 2015. “Zhongguo tuijin shengtai wenming jianshe de yanjiu jinzhan 中国推进生态文明建设的研究进 展” (Research Progress in Promoting Ecological “Civilization Construction” in China). Zhongguo renkou ziyuan yu huanjing 中国人口资源与环境 25 (2): 111–120. Huang Xian. 2015. Four Worlds of Welfare: Understanding Subnational Variation in Chinese Social Health Insurance. The China Quarterly 222 (June): 449– 474. Kai Yang and Stephan Ortman. (2018) “From Sweden to Singapore: The Relevance of Foreign Models for China’s Rise.” The China Quarterly 236 (December): 946–967. Leng, Sydney. 2019. “China’s birth rate falls again, with 2018 producing the fewest babies since 1961, official data shows.” South China Morning Post (21 January). Available at: https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/ article/2182963/chinas-birth-rate-falls-again-2018-producing-fewest-babies. Accessed 19 June 2019. Li Miao. 2015. Citizenship Education and Migrant Youth in China: Pathways to the Urban Underclass. London: Routledge. Li Shantong and Xu Zhaoyang. 2006. “The Trend of Regional Income Disparity in the People’s Republic of China.” ADB Institute Discussion Paper 85. Tokyo: Asian Development Bank Institute. Li Shi, Hiroshi Sato, and Terry Sicular, eds. 2013. Rising Inequality in China: Challenges to a Harmonious Society. New York: Cambridge University Press. Li Yang and Zhang Xiaojing. 2017. China’s National Balance Sheet: Theories, Methods and Risk Assessment. Singapore: Springer. Lin Jing and A. Dale Tussing. 2017. “Inter-Regional Competition in Retirement Benefit Growth – The Role of the Sub-National Government in Authoritarian China.” Journal of Contemporary China 26 (105): 434–451. Liu Tao, and Sun Li. 2016. Pension Reform in China. Journal of Aging & Social Policy 28 (1): 15–28.

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Liu Yongzheng, Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, and Alfred M. Wu. 2017. “Fiscal Decentralization, Equalization, and Intra-provincial Inequality in China.” International Tax and Public Finance 24 (2): 248–281. Palmer, David. 2005. La fièvre du qigong. Guérison, religion et politique en Chine, 1949–1999. Paris: Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales. Park Hong-Jae. 2015. Legislating for Filial Piety: An Indirect Approach to Promoting Family Support and Responsibility for Older People in Korea. Journal of Aging & Social Policy 27 (3): 280–293. Qi Xiaoying. 2015. Filial Obligation in Contemporary China: Evolution of the Culture System. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 45 (1): 141–161. Ringen, Stein, and Ngok Kinglun. 2017. “What Kind of Welfare State Is Emerging in China?” In Towards Universal Health Care in Emerging Economies: Opportunities and Challenges, ed. Yi, Ilcheong, 213–238. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Shea, Jeanne, and Zhang Hong. 2017. Introduction to Aging and Caregiving in Chinese Populations. Ageing International 42 (2): 137–141. Shum, Michelle H. Y., Vivian V. Q. Lou, Kelly Z. J. He, Coco C. H. Chen, and Wang Junfang. 2015. The ‘leap forward’ in Nursing Home Development in Urban China: Future Policy Directions. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association 16 (9): 784–789. Taber, Nick. 2018. How Xi Jinping is Shaping China’s Universities. The Diplomat (August). Available at: https://thediplomat.com/2018/08/how-xi-jinpingis-shaping-chinas-universities/. Accessed 10 June 2019. Tang Didi. 2018. China to Scrap Family Planning Rules as Birthrate Dwindles. The Times (May 23). Available at: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chinato-scrap-family-planning-rules-as-birthrate-dwindles-x82kccgl3. Accessed 10 June 2019. Wang Canfa 王灿发. 2014. “Lun shengtai wenmíng jianshe falu baozhang tixi de goujian 论生态文明建设法律保障体系的构建” (On the Construction of a Legal Guarantee System for Ecological ‘Civilization Construction’). Zhongguo faxue 中国法学 3: 34–53. Wong Yu-Cheung, and Joe Leung. 2012. Long-Term Care in China: Issues and Prospects. Journal of Gerontological Social Work 55 (7): 570–586. Woo, Jean, T. Kwok, F. K. H. Sze, and H. J. Yuan. 2002. Ageing in China: Health and social consequences and responses. International Journal of Epidemiology 31 (4): 772–775. Wroblowský, Tomáš, and Yin Huayang. 2016. Income Inequalities in China: Stylized Facts vs. Reality. Perspectives in Science 7: 59–64. Wu Bei, Mary W. Carter, R. Turner Goins, and Cheng Chunrong. 2005. Emerging Services for Community-Based Long-Term Care in Urban China: A Systematic Analysis of Shanghai’s Community-Based Agencies. Journal of Aging & Social Policy 17 (4): 37–60.

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Wu Shufang. 2014. 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 (89): 971–991. Yang Lixiong. 2018. “The Social Assistance Reform in China: Towards a Fair and Inclusive Social Safety Net.” In Addressing Inequalities and Challenges to Social Inclusion through Fiscal, Wage and Social Protection Policies, 1–12. New York: United Nations Headquarters. Yi Zeng, Linda George, Melanie Sereny, Gu Danan, and James W. Vaupel. 2016. Older parents enjoy better filial piety and care from daughters than sons in China. American Journal of Medical Research 3 (1): 244–272. Yu Jianxing 郁建兴 and Chen Kejian 陈可鉴. 2016. Fuli guojia wei shenme xuyao cishan bumen? 福利国家为什么需要慈善部门 (Why the Welfare State Needs Charity). Journal of Zhejiang University (Humanities and Social Sciences) 46 (1): 69–80. Zeng Yi, and Therese Hesketh. 2016. The Effects of China’s Universal TwoChild Policy. The Lancet 388 (October): 1930–1938. Zhan Heying, Feng Zhanlian, Chen Zhiyu, and Feng Xiaotian. 2011. The Role of the Family in Institutional Long-Term Care: Cultural Management of Filial Piety in China. International Journal of Social Welfare 20: 121–134. Zhang Haomiao. 2017. Sending Parents to Nursing Homes is Unfilial? An Exploratory Study on Institutional Elder Care in China. International Social Work 60 (4): 815–830. Zhang Qi, Zhu Liming, and Van der Lerberghe. 2011. The Importance of Traditional Chinese Medicine Services in Health Care Provision in China. Universitas Forum 2 (2): 1–8. Zhao Dingxing. 2009. The Mandate of Heaven and Performance Legitimation in Historical and Contemporary China. American Behavioral Scientist 53 (3): 416–433. Zhao Suisheng. 2016. Xi Jinping’s Maoist Revival. Journal of Democracy 27 (3): 83–97. Zhu Yujie. 2017. Authenticity and Heritage Conservation in China: Translation, Interpretation, Practices. In Authenticity in Architectural Heritage Conservation: Discourses, Opinions, Experiences in Europe, South and East Asia, ed. Katharina Weiler and Niels Gutschow, 187–200. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Zurlo, Karen A., Hu Hongwei, and Huang Chien-Chung. 2014. The Effects of Family, Community, and Public Policy on Depressive Symptoms Among Elderly Chinese. Journal of Sociology and Social Work 2 (2): 1–23.

CHAPTER 3

Religious Work and Philanthropy from 1949 to 2002

The provision of disaster relief, healthcare, education, and social assistance by religious institutions in many societies has long constituted a norm under the broad rubric of charity or philanthropy, or cishan 慈善 in Chinese. Religious charity prior to 1949 was quite common, and has continued outside the PRC, as I discuss in another book on Chinese Buddhism. The chapters in that book paid particular attention to the demand side of social services provision, which could lead to calls for a renewal of the approach taken prior to 1949. One key aspect of the latter issue is the transformation China experienced as it moved from a radical experiment in social policy with the people’s communes to embracing a hybrid welfare regime combining the features of conservative-corporatist and liberal-residual welfare models. Adopting this approach means the CCP has encouraged social services provision by non-state actors. However, this policy prescription carries many ramifications for the institutions that should deliver these services, some of which

The content of this chapter updates parts of the Working Paper # 19 I wrote in 2020 for the Working Paper Series of the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences on “Multiple Secularities—Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” # 19, in Leipzig University. See Laliberté, 2020. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 A. Laliberté, Religion and China’s Welfare Regimes, Religion and Society in Asia Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7270-5_3

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affect Chinese religions. In many ways, government requests for religious institutions to provide social services gives such institutions opportunities to remain important actors in Chinese society. However, such an arrangement also gives the CCP instruments with which to bind religious institutions to its governance structure, reinforcing the role of such institutions as tools of legitimation.1 Many observers of relations between the state and religious institutions in China have correctly noted that various religious actors have either ignored, escaped, circumvented, or even opposed such arrangements, with varying degrees of success.2 I will not explore this issue in detail in this chapter, but rather concentrate on the tools the state has developed to achieve its aim of controlling or, as Marie-Ève Reny puts it, “containing” religion. This is a study of how an authoritarian state seeks to co-opt religions, despite its commitment to promoting atheism.

1 Religious Work and Philanthropy from 1949 to 1978 In its first three decades in power, the CCP consolidated its control over religions and, seeing that religious institutions gained legitimacy and influence because of the different social services they offered, sought to eliminate the latter altogether—even when such services had no relation to religion—on the grounds that under socialism, people should benefit from social welfare because of social production. However, party leaders recognized that achieving this ideal situation would take time, and that they had to create the best possible conditions to rebuild the country after decades of warfare, and therefore they initially sought to minimize “social contradictions.” With respect to religious philanthropy, the government pursued two objectives: ensuring that religious believers would not oppose the regime, and at the same time preventing religious institutions from providing any form of social assistance, on the grounds that they would derive influence in this way. The CCP’s reasoning on religious matters was that if social deprivation led people to seek solace in religious promises of a better afterlife, then abundance under socialism 1 Reny (2018). 2 See Ji (2004); Ashiwa and Wank (2009); Koesel (2014); Vala (2017). All of these

sources depict relationships between the CCP and religious actors that are often mutually constitutive.

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would make religion unnecessary. Since the withering of religious belief would occur naturally as China became more prosperous, CCP leaders reasoned that persecuting religious associations would not be effective and might in fact generate resistance to socialism in religious milieus. However, 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 wanted to ensure that they would lack the resources and the legitimacy to mobilize people against the state, and to that end, the Party put an end to all charitable activities through which religions had traditionally maintained their influence in society. Duan Dezhi 段德智, a historian of the CCP’s “religious work” in China, sees two stages in this policy between 1949 and 1978.3 In the first stage, the CCP asserted its control over religion (1949–1957), and the second stage was a period of mobilization aimed at precipitating the disappearance of religion (1957–1978). Although Duan does not discuss charity per se, his chronology illuminates the distinction between an initial period of reconstruction following the Civil War and a period of deterioration prior to the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, during which attacks on religions began. The first period of religious work witnessed the institution of policies on religion, and although the idea of monitoring the “natural decline” of religions was suspended in the second period and replaced with a more aggressive attempt to eliminate religion, subsequent periods (until the present day) have rehabilitated the original CCP policy of control over religions. However, with respect to religious charity, the new regime demonstrated an unyielding continuity and clarity of purpose from 1949 to 1978: it rejected religious charity altogether. During the first period, it actively sought to dismantle charity and prevented religious associations from pursuing such activities. Throughout the Great Leap Forward, the collapse of production and the general misery throughout the country undermined the material foundations of charity. Moreover, efforts to transform the people’s mentalities—as promoted by CCP cadres, the Red Guards, and the PLA during the Cultural Revolution—ensured the obsolescence of the concept. This hollowing out of the concept of philanthropy throughout the whole period under consideration here would make the rehabilitation of this concept even more difficult during the subsequent period of

3 Duan (2013).

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reform and opening. Even when they praise the Chinese philanthropic tradition, writings about Chinese charity associations remain silent on the period from 1949 to 1978.4 1.1

Corporatist Regulation and the Appropriation of Religious Charitable Activities

The first period of religious work Duan identifies corresponds to the first stage of Mao’s rule, from 1949 to 1957, which he describes as “opposing the infiltration of religion” (fan zongjiao shentou 反宗教渗透).5 Despite what the name suggests, this was a period of relative openness on religious matters. The Organic Law of the Central People’s Government, which served as the supreme organ for exercising power prior to the adoption of the constitution in 1954, ensured a large swath 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 of Religious Affairs (zongjiao shiwuju 宗教事务局, BRA) to oversee religious activities and transmit government directives, but also to keep track of religious activities, numbers of adherents, and issues of religious practice and belief. In 1953, Buddhist clerics and laypeople founded the Buddhist Association of China (BAC), and Muslim leaders likewise established the Islamic Association of China (IAC). One year later, Protestants set up the National Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) to ensure that churches in China would root out foreign influence and become self-sustaining. By 1957, just when the political climate was about to become less hospitable to religion, bishops and laypeople had created the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), and Daoist leaders did the same with the Daoist Association of China (DAC). Collectively known as the “big five,” these “world religions” are the only ones the CCP still recognizes. As its guiding principle on religion, the CCP used the “Five Characteristics” (wuxing 五性) theory of religion developed by Li Weihan 李维汉, who had been head of the UFWD since 1948. Li elaborated

4 See, for example, Xu (2005: 39). 5 Duan (2013: 1ff.).

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the theory gradually, in a series of meetings between 1951 and 1957.6 According to the summary written by Ye Xiaowen, director of the BRA,7 in 1996, 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).8 Cadres who advocated this theory recognized that religion’s influence would be long-lasting and that they should therefore avoid rash, precipitous action against believers, lest such people come to oppose the Party.9 They also argued that although it was impossible to determine the number of religious believers precisely, there were certainly too many of them among the masses, and therefore it would be unwise to confront them.10 Religion and ethnicity, they reckoned, belonged to two different categories, but in a multinational country such as China, religious matters often link up with questions of nationality, as the cases of Tibet and Xinjiang demonstrated early on.11 Religion’s international nature means it can also influence relations between states and undermine national unity, especially when countries use religions to infiltrate other countries.12 Finally, Party cadres viewed religion as complex, to the extent that internal elements such as emotions and knowledge interact with an ideological superstructure, while external elements such as behavior and institutions constitute aspects of social life that the government must take into consideration.13 To prevent opposition on the part of recognized religious actors and even gain 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 the area populated by the Han majority that the state would respect

6 This theory emerged because of several UFWD meetings between 1951 and 1957. See Duan (2013: 91–93). 7 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. 8 This speech was reproduced one year later in the Annual of Religious Studies in China. See Ye (2000 [1996]). 9 Ye (2000 [1996]: 2–6). 10 Ibid.: 6–7. 11 Ibid.: 7–9. 12 Ibid.: 9–10. 13 Ibid.: 10–14.

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their ways of life, which were closely related to their religions. The establishment of the BRA represented an expression of the state’s willingness to recognize religion’s legitimacy in a socialist regime, but it also reflected the CCP’s anxiety about limiting religion’s influence and overseeing its expected demise in the long term. Incorporating clerics, temple committee members, and other religious personnel into one of the seven national religious associations that managed the affairs of the “big five” constituted a key state policy intended to ensure the regime’s supervision of religion.14 The UFWD used these associations as “transmission belts” to convey its instructions to religious believers, but more crucially, by restricting religious activities outside designated places of worship, the CCP saw these associations as instruments to help it achieve its objective of undermining religions’ social influence. However, while these policies addressed institutionalized religions—those with clergy and canonical scriptures—which the state wanted to recognize, they left many other aspects of religious work unresolved when it came to religions the state did not recognize as such. For example, in 1949 a vast majority of the population abided by Confucian moral codes, believed in supernatural forces that CCP cadres dismissed as “feudal superstitions” (fengjian mixin 封建迷信), and practiced rituals that often involved communicating with gods, ghosts, and ancestors. These communal religions, with their emphasis on filial piety and ancestor worship, reproduced traditional patriarchal society and represented an important source of inertia that undermined the new regime’s ambitions for social change, especially during the 1950 land reform campaign. When the CCP collectivized land, it focused its operations on “landlords” and “rich peasants,” who were often active in temple committees, and only occasionally confiscated surplus land owned by temples, shrines, and monasteries for redistribution, or encouraged the destruction of temples.15 Because the CCP had already endorsed the GMD’s previous distinction between “religion” and “superstition,” it did not see any contradiction between the elimination of communal religions through violent campaigns against “landlords” and its pledge to respect religious freedom. Therefore, the physical destruction of 14 Although there was a single association each for Buddhists, Daoists, and Muslims, there were two associations for each branch of Christianity—representing Protestantism and Catholicism, respectively—based on the distinction between clergy and laypeople. 15 Goossaert and Palmer (2011: 151).

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important aspects of Chinese traditional religion was simply not legible to the state as such, because it believed—in its own words—that it was conducting a campaign against “reactionary forces” and “feudal superstitions.” There was also a third category of religion toward which the CCP showed no mercy. Although the terminology and technologies it used differed from those of the preceding regime, the CCP reproduced previous policies against religious associations unrecognized by the state. In imperial China, the government made a distinction between heterodox (xie 邪) or immoral (yin 淫) practices and religious associations, and those it considered orthodox (zheng 正).16 The CCP used the more modern taxonomy of reactionary secret societies (daohuimen 道会们, mimi shehui 秘密社会). It discovered their subversive potential during the war with Japan and the Civil War, and it feared that religions such as Yiguandao 一贯道 would adopt the same techniques the CCP had used in its own clandestine operation of infiltrating the GMD to weaken and overthrow it. In this particular case, the CCP saw four reasons to worry about this religion: it was extremely popular in northern China, where it was spreading rapidly; its esoteric practices made detection difficult; some CCP leaders and police were members; and finally, the sect’s teachings opposed communist teachings.17 To pre-empt any organized resistance on the part of such religions, from 1951 to 1953 the CCP organized a “withdraw from the sects” movement (tuidao yundong 退道运动). Latent religious defiance continued well beyond that period, albeit in muted forms that did not threaten the regime.18 The CCP wasted no time in targeting the philanthropic activities of all religions, whether officially recognized or illegal, local, or transnational. The new regime saw the relationship between civil society and philanthropy as a source of resistance to its control. Moreover, it adopted a crude reading of Karl Marx and denounced charity as a hypocritical approach taken by religions and superstitions to keep people in servitude.19 As a result, the concept of charity disappeared from the official

16 On this distinction, see Goossaert (2006: 3). 17 Hung (2010: 403–404). 18 Resistance against the CCP extended throughout this period, into the autumn of 1957. See Perry (1985: 420–424). 19 Wang (2010: 24).

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lexicon for at least three decades. This policy decoupled religious practice from philanthropy, an activity that had perpetuated the remarkably close relationship between state and religion for centuries. The case of Yiguandao illustrated charity’s importance as a source of religious influence. Because Yiguandao had operated unharmed in the Manchukuo puppet state, the GMD viewed it as a treasonous association and imposed a ban on its activities after its victory over Japan. However, aware of its popularity among the populace, the government allowed the association to continue certain socially acceptable activities, such as the China Moral Philanthropic Association (Zhonghua daode cishanhui 中华道德慈善会). The CCP looked at this arrangement as “proof” of Yiguandao’s untrustworthiness and therefore imposed a ban to prevent the emergence of a competitor.20 Although the CCP’s policies toward religions differed from the more rigid policies enforced in the USSR, the Party nevertheless forced religious associations to relinquish their philanthropic activities, which it saw as a problem. Even before it rose to power, the CCP had classified charities as “anti-revolutionary forces.”21 Liu Peifeng has noted that as soon as the CCP took power, it dissolved all the non-state associations delivering social services, which it considered “tools used by the ruling class to cheat people and poison their minds.” It divided these associations into three categories and devised ways to deal with each type. 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 by foreigners, such as hospitals and orphanages, into the new political system.22 The expulsion of foreign missionaries accelerated with the onset of the Korean War, which lead to the abandonment of the social services these groups had offered; their institutions were closed. In this context, the concept of philanthropy disappeared from both local culture and the collective memory.23 This first period of religious work nevertheless laid the foundations for the policies which remain in force in China today—with one key difference. While the CCP was tolerant of

20 Hung (2010: 403). 21 Luova (2017: 138). 22 Liu (2011: 73). 23 Luova (2017: 138).

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religion in the first decade of its rule, it excluded any possibility of religious charity. In the period following those first years, it went even further in the opposite direction, as factions within the party sought to eradicate both religion and charity. 1.2

The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution as a State of Exception

The second period of religious policy Duan identifies, which he euphemistically calls “tortuous development” (quzhe fazhan 曲折发展), began in late 1957 and lasted over twenty years.24 This period began with the extreme material deprivation experienced by everyone in China during the Great Leap Forward famine and extended throughout the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. This stage in religious policy represented a curious case: the haste with which enthusiastic cadres and young people sought to accelerate the disappearance of any belief in the afterlife and to end “superstitions” displayed the iconoclastic, fanatic fervor seen in outbreaks of religious fever. Although the CCP agreed in principle with the Marxist maxim that “religion is the opiate of the masses,” it had learned from its time in opposition and in exile that it could also act as “the spark that lights a fire,” as Mao’s approval of the Taiping and Boxer uprisings showed. In other words, 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 behind this change of course, at the end of the 1950s Mao executed a complete reversal and instead identified religion as an obstacle on the path to socialism, and those who believed otherwise often faced accusations of plotting against the Party. Several bitter controversies over religious policies erupted at the beginning of this period, within the broader context of the “anti-rightist struggles” of 1957–1959. The Party’s religious work became the target of attacks at the highest levels, which spared no religion. Hence, just one year after his election as the first president of the DAC, Yue Chongdai 岳崇岱 was labeled a rightist and consequently hanged himself. In the same year, Ma Zhenwu 马震武, the deputy director of the IAC, faced

24 Duan (2013: 99).

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false accusations of plotting with Japan during the war to establish an Islamic state in Ningxia, and he passed away in disgrace in 1961.25 The 10th Panchen Erdeni, deputy chairperson of the CPPCC in 1954, faced dismissal and imprisonment in 1964 because of a letter he wrote to Zhou Enlai, which protested Chinese policies in Tibet. Lay and clerical Buddhist leaders, such as Zhao Puchu 赵朴初 and Geshe Sherab Gyatso (Jirao Jiacuo 喜饶嘉措), also endured attacks. The BRA ceased operations between 1965 and 1979. Even the leaders of the UFWD, which were judged too lenient on religious matters, endured rebuke, culminating in attacks on Li Weihan, whom the CCP accused of “anti-Party” activities in 1966, before expelling him from his position one year later. The punishments meted out to the leaders of the national religious associations affected the local associations as well. Duan devotes much attention to the issue of Tibet, as well as to two controversies about Protestant churches and Catholicism, which had international ramifications and continued to fester. However, he does not dwell on the material destruction that occurred throughout this period, which would significantly undermine religious associations’ ability to maintain their activities, let alone mobilize the resources required to offer social services. Besides the reality of the material destruction of religious infrastructure, the collective trauma engendered by these unrelenting ideological campaigns took a heavy psychological toll that gravely undermined human relations. The three years of the great famine—which witnessed scenes of cannibalism, parents and teachers denounced by children, and the cruelty of mass executions—gravely undermined people’s trust in the Party, but also in each other.26 The call for class struggle precluded any idea of compromise or accommodation with presumed enemies. In this context, the idea of social harmony implicit in charity and philanthropy—which hid relations of domination, 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 poor people, but it seriously damaged social relations. Another significant aspect of this period is the intensity of the fervor people expressed during the Cultural Revolution, which many have

25 Ibid.: 105. 26 On this tragedy, see the two volumes by Yang (2008).

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compared to a form of religious fanaticism.27 Lucy Jen Huang outlines the religious elements present in the mass movements launched by the CCP at the beginning of the last decade of Mao’s rule.28 Worried about the lack of revolutionary zeal among both Party cadres and the population, and after the setbacks they experienced following the disaster of the Great Leap Forward, Mao and his followers urged the young Red Guards to carry on in the “spirit of the Long March.”29 Mao became the central figure in a personality cult, his birthplace a site of revolutionary pilgrimage, and the aphorisms in his Little Red Book the subject of countless debates. Not only did he set himself up as a kind of messiah, but stories in local newspapers throughout China told of people being miraculously healed after intensely studying Mao Zedong’s thought.30 Although the Red Guards and many Party cadres did not lack a sense of abnegation or self-sacrifice, the idea of compassion often inherent in philanthropy was absent. Although one may welcome the demise of condescending feelings such as pity, which reproduce social hierarchies, the cruelty of the struggle against “class enemies” constituted a disastrous substitute for charity. At the end of the Cultural Revolution, after the “Gang of Four” was tried, Deng Xiaoping asserted power, overturned many of Mao’s decisions, and prepared the country for a new round of radical economic reforms, including the social welfare reforms we saw in the previous chapter. A sense of elation prevailed at that time: during the brief Beijing Spring of 1978, when the CCP promoted its call for the “Four Modernizations,” some even went so far as to promote a “Fifth Modernization”: democracy. Some of Deng’s reforms demanded extensive negotiation because they required many groups to relinquish their privileges, guarantees, or the gains they had recently made. The rehabilitation of religion constituted an easier matter to tackle. The CCP granted full rehabilitation to Li Weihan, who served as vice chairperson of the CPPCC National Committee from 1978 until 1983. Religion, driven underground by the political campaigns of the previous two decades, bounced back to an embarrassing degree, since its revival constituted an obvious rebuttal to the previous CCP approach, which had predicted its quick demise.

27 See Smart (1974); Feuchtwang (2006). 28 Huang (1971). 29 Ibid.: 698. 30 Ibid.: 702.

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2

Religion and Philanthropy Under Deng and Jiang

Subsequently to the two periods between 1949 and 1978, Duan has divided Deng Xiaoping’s and Jiang Zemin’s partly overlapping administrations into two more periods in which these two leaders separately or jointly oversaw religious work policies. The first period, starting with the CCP’s decision at the 13th Plenum to “rectify” (fanzheng 反正) the excesses of the Cultural Revolution in 1978 and ending with the fall of the Soviet Union, corresponds to a “(post-)disorder rectification” (boluan fanzheng 拨乱反正) period.31 The second, which lasted from 1991 to 2001, corresponds to what Duan characterizes as a second Cold War and renewed concern about religions infiltrating the party.32 Overall, however, these two periods display more commonalities than the two periods under Mao.33 Religion mattered to the regime because it constituted a source of stability and a safety valve in a context of growing social discontent, and it signaled to the international community a change in the CCP’s approach. After the “Gang of Four” fell, the policy of absolute control over religion experienced a brief respite. However, the crisis the CCP experienced in 1989 led to a loss of confidence in its ideology and a return to what Ji Zhe has called “secularization without secularism,” in which the neo-totalitarian state makes use of a utilitarian approach to religion. The disastrous results of the personality cult around Mao discredited the original socialist ideology, and so under Deng and Jiang, the CCP promoted a “secularization” of socialism: in this context, disenchantment with politics went hand in hand with the state’s use of religion within certain parameters which the CCP defined.34 Throughout the first of these two periods, there was no social foundation of wealthy philanthropists on which to build, but this had changed significantly by the end of the second period.

31 Duan (2013: 151–206). 32 Duan (2013: 207–264). 33 Duan’s chronology reflects the official distinction between the second and third

generations of CCP leaders—led by Deng and Jiang, respectively—but because Deng’s authority and influence decisively extended into the 1990s, this distinction is arbitrary. 34 Ji (2015: 109).

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Returning to the Policy of Accommodating Religion in a Changed Context

The context of post-Maoism and post-Marxism saw the erosion of ideology, although this ideological critique did not include any reference to charity, philanthropy, religion, or social welfare.35 Most of the prominent Chinese scholars writing at that time, whose work Hua Shipping has translated, thought in categories of scientism and humanism, within the framework of Marxist philosophy. Li Zehou is a rare exception who ventured so far as to discuss Confucian humanism.36 In this relatively more pluralist intellectual climate, the reform and opening policy had some positive repercussions on religious life, but it also reinforced the CCP’s capacity for control.37 The policy of rectification or redress included overturning the excesses of previous religious policy and issuing Document 19 in 1982 to rehabilitate religion, a move which also formalized the government’s role in religious affairs.38 This signaled a clear break with the excesses of the Cultural Revolution and heralded a return to Li Weihan’s moderate line on the “Five Characteristics of Religion” and also religion’s “compatibility with socialism.” However, adopting that policy also meant maintaining the mindset behind the policy against religious infiltration, which prevailed prior to 1957. This approach included both opposition to any “religious craze” (zongjiao kuangre 宗教狂热) and resistance to interventionism from abroad.39 The latter revolved around three main controversies: the popularity of Witness Lee, an exiled Protestant preacher who does not recognize the TSPM’s authority but has a significant following in China; the Dalai Lama’s popularity abroad; and disputes with the Vatican over the nomination of bishops. Neither CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang (1982–1987) nor his successor, Zhao Ziyang (1987–1989)—who both continue to be widely credited as more open, liberal CCP leaders—had a specific policy on religious affairs. They both focused on the central issue of implementing the 35 Misra (1998); these debates focused on the meaning of socialism. 36 Hua (1993: 109–124). 37 Goldman (1986: 151). 38 CCP Central Committee (1982). In that year, Li Weihan, the proponent of the “Five

Characteristics of Religion” theory, was vice chairman of the Party’s Central Advisory Commission, which was headed by Deng Xiaoping. 39 Duan (2013: 192–206).

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“Four Modernizations” in agriculture, education, science, and military affairs, as they faced resistance to their economic policies and political reforms from their more conservative colleagues. Their laissez-faire attitude to religion created a climate that enabled the promulgation of the more accommodating Document 19 just before the people’s communes were abolished. That document, which still constitutes the equivalent of a “basic law” for the CCP and the government, admits that the Party had gone too far during the Cultural Revolution, but it does not repudiate the Party’s policies against Yiguandao or 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 “freedom to believe,” but it imposes a number of restrictions on the “freedom to practice.”41 For example, it warns against preaching to or initiating people under the age of eighteen, and it prohibits any religious activities from taking place outside places of worship. In many passages, Document 19 emphasizes the desire to ensure that religious believers can perform “normal religious activities” and promotes the “normalization” of religion without giving more specific details, thus leaving some leeway for both religious associations and the government to interpret the document to suit their interests. This ambiguity, combined with the experiences of religious associations after 1949, has slowed the growth of religious charity, as people are unsure whether philanthropy constitutes a “normal religious activity.”42 During this period, the government encouraged the reconstitution of the “big five” national associations, but the religious landscape had also changed in the few years between 1966 and 1982. As Elizabeth Perry has observed, while the CCP had eliminated communal religions as sources of resistance to the state in the 1950s, it found that once it relaxed its control over them in 1978, they resumed their activities, albeit for different purposes. They began providing leadership at the local level, but instead of opposing the government, they sanctioned feuds between rival lineages and communities in the countryside.43 Another development that concerned the authorities was the growth of Protestant Christianity;

40 For a detailed discussion of this document, see Potter (2003). 41 Leung (2005). 42 Document 19 does not include a single mention of charity or philanthropy. 43 Perry (1985: 432–436).

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this change became apparent in the immediate aftermath of the crackdown on June 4, 1989, when many people—having lost faith in the idea that the CCP might support political reform—converted to that religion to found solace.44 Another source of worry for the Party was the realization that church leaders were playing a critical role in the political transitions then underway in South Korea, Taiwan, and South Africa.45 Especially jarring in the eyes of the leaders in Beijing was the collapse of fellow socialist regimes in Poland and East Germany, which church actions helped to facilitate. Jiang Zemin’s administration, which saw Deng Xiaoping gradually retreat into the shadows, enabled the greater institutionalization of religion, but also provided a basis for broader control. It concluded the debates on legislating religions, passing a Law on Religion (zongjiaofa 宗教法), which regularized the conditions for registration and sought to ensure that religions complied with government regulations.46 Jiang had to deal with three issues, which revealed important changes in China’s religious landscape. The most important of these, which arose near the end of his mandate, had to do with the rise of qigong and the immense popularity of organizations such as Falungong. The CCP felt so threatened by this movement that it passed legislation against “evil cults” (xiejiao 邪教) and launched an aggressive campaign against Falungong adherents, which remains in force at the time of writing.47 A second source of anxiety was related to what the CCP saw as the three independence movements in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan, and their alleged religious components.48 Finally, Jiang’s CCP also singled out the United States for supporting independent churches and giving a voice to religious dissidents over issues related to human rights violations.

44 See Yang (2005: 430, 435–436). 45 Although the outcome of these transitions from 1987 to 1989 was uncertain, at

least the security forces in Seoul, Taipei, Leipzig, and Pretoria showed restraint in dealing with the various demonstrations. 46 Duan (2013: 209–211). 47 The official translation is “evil cults,” but “heterodox teaching” is more accurate.

See Irons (2003: 258). 48 The Dalai Lama preached autonomy, not independence. The Uyghur leaders did likewise, and their movement had no religious leadership. The Taiwan Presbyterian Church supported self-determination.

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During this period, because of its self-imposed rigid, narrow definition of what constitutes a “real religion” vs. a “cult,” the CCP found it difficult to deal with liminal religious movements that held a status somewhere between religion and science. The situation regarding qigong , which had existed even in Mao’s time, became intractable only after Jiang consolidated power. Practicing this ancient form of gymnastics had been encouraged from above in the 1980s as a relatively inexpensive and efficient form of healthcare, but some spiritual masters’ claims that their “knowledge” went above and beyond existing “science” raised doubts and led to criticism from the medical profession.49 In the last few years of Jiang’s administration, however, the popularity of many qigong movements and their increasingly visible presence in the public sphere appeared to be a metonym for the failure of public healthcare, which—as I discussed in the previous chapter—had become a major political problem.50 When the qigong leader Li Hongzhi, who was overseas at the time, mobilized his followers to protest at CCP headquarters, this proved to be too much.51 The government subsequently toughened its regulations on religious matters, which cast a shadow over some religious associations’ activities, but in the end, did not prevent others from providing social services. 2.2

Abandoning Class Struggle and Rehabilitating Charity

In the early years of the reform and opening policy, China was poor, its economic and political direction remained unsettled, and despite efforts to alleviate poverty over the previous three decades, the country faced resource scarcity and was unable to meet the needs of the poor and destitute. The welfare of vulnerable populations depended on government provision and international assistance. In 1981, CCP-sponsored mass organizations joined forces to establish the first foundation for child

49 For a detailed account of this official endorsement over the course of a decade, as well as the critique from the medical profession in the 1990s, see Palmer (2005: 177–180, 254–257). 50 For a full exposé on that argument, see Thornton (2002). 51 For a book-length description of the repression of Falungong, see Tong (2009).

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and youth welfare.52 Over the following years, the government established other foundations and encouraged wealthy patrons to do likewise. In 1982, it sponsored the creation of the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, which—along with a variety of political objectives, such as fostering crossstrait relations—managed charitable work on behalf of children. In 1984, Deng Xiaoping’s son established the Foundation for Disabled Persons. By 1987, there were over 200 such foundations in China, of which 33 were national in scope.53 This official effort to promote charities was a response to certain sudden changes in China’s political economy. The demise of the people’s communes in 1983 exacerbated the pre-existing social inequalities which the Maoist era had failed to eradicate, a process that generated increasing frustration throughout the Deng and Jiang era. The student uprisings of 1986, 1987, and 1989 revealed the social malaise generated by these inequalities, but also people’s dissatisfaction with the demise of the social protections previously provided by state-owned enterprises and the government. The crackdown on the last of these protests was condemned by the international community, and with the fall of the USSR, China ended up isolated on the international stage, with Deng’s reform and opening policy threatened by conservative forces within the CCP. After much-publicized visits to the cities of Shenzhen and Shanghai in 1992, Deng used his residual authority as the veteran “paramount leader” to lend his support to those who wanted to pursue his policies, and they prevailed over their conservative opponents in the CCP Politburo’s Standing Committee.54 During that period, as discussed above, Document 19 gave no clear directives on religious institutions’ charitable activities. Yet this did not prevent some individual religious leaders from taking the initiative in helping the less fortunate. In her investigation of philanthropy in Jiangsu and Shanghai, for example, Wu Keping has found evidence of such

52 This included the Welfare Institute, the Committee for the Defense of Children,

the Women’s Federation, the Federation of Trade Unions, the CCP Youth League, the Youth Federation, the Writers’ Association, the Association for Science and Technology, the Sports Federation, the Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, and the Federation of Industry and Commerce. See Liu (2011: 74). 53 Liu (2011: 74). 54 For a detailed account of these struggles, see Zhao (1993).

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undertakings among Buddhist clerics. For example, she found that Zhenchan 真禅, the abbot of Shanghai Jade Buddha temple (yufo si 玉佛 寺), had been donating to the Children’s Welfare Association for four years before he founded the Master Zhenchan Children’s Welfare Foundation in 1988.55 Zhenchan had adopted this approach, Wu’s informants told her, because the temple could not raise funds for charity under its own name, but individuals could do so. Around the same time, in 1985, the first charity inspired by the Protestant Church—the Amity Foundation—began operations. Between 1989 and 1992, when the economic reform and opening policy appeared to be jeopardized by international isolation and the prevalence of more orthodox views on the centrally planned economy, religious philanthropic activities slowed down—especially those involving foreign cooperation. That changed in the spring of 1992, when the central government quickly approved relief delivered by international organizations, including religious NGOs (RNGOs), in response to a series of floods in South China. This approach contrasted with the attitude following the Tangshan earthquake in 1976. In addition to expressing genuine concern for the victims of this natural disasters, and thereby partly undoing the damage done to the CCP’s reputation since 1989, this decision had another benefit: it improved relations across the Taiwan Strait. One of the NGOs which Chinese local governments allowed to provide relief was the Canadian branch of the Tzu Chi Foundation, a Taiwanese Buddhist philanthropic foundation. One year later, a meeting between unofficial representatives of China and Taiwan in Singapore offered a framework within which Tzu Chi could operate in China— a decision which would later have important repercussions for Chinese philanthropy.56 The central government’s support for philanthropy finally became clearer with an editorial published in February 1994 in the People’s Daily which praised the concept of charity.57 In the same year, the Ministry of Civil Affairs sponsored the establishment of the China Charity Federation (zhongua cishan zonghui 中华慈善总会), which over 240 local

55 Wu (2017: 428). 56 On this story, which has unfolded over close to three decades, see Laliberté (2003,

2013). 57 Luova (2017: 137).

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associations at the provincial and municipal levels joined in the subsequent years.58 In addition, the CCP also endorsed religious associations’ fundraising activities by sponsoring relevant legislation. Acknowledging that religious believers give to their churches and temples, the government issued specific directives on “voluntary offerings of alms, donations, and contributions” in the Regulation on Governing Venues for Religious Activities.59 The same regulation, however, limited the scope of these activities, with Article 8 stipulating that activities had to remain within the precincts of temples, churches, and mosques.60 However, again in the same year, Shaolin temple registered the first non-profit social organization run by a Buddhist institution: the Shaolin Charity and Welfare Foundation (Shaolin cishan fuli jijinhui 少林慈善福利基金会).61 Near the end of the Jiang Zemin period, social inequalities had grown, enormous fortunes had been amassed, and people increasingly perceived that “socialism with Chinese characteristics” hid the emergence of unfettered capitalism under an authoritarian regime. In this context of growing needs and expectations, private philanthropy proved to be inadequate and left the authorities looking for other options. Hence, as Ma Qiusha has noted, by the end of Jiang’s tenure, many local governments were failing to meet urgent needs for a variety of public services, and so they “turned to the private sector for help. The voluntary organizations, private non-profit institutions, and all kinds of social issue organizations are a direct response to this new situation.”62 Two important developments unfolded in the second half of Jiang’s tenure, which is relevant to the growth of RNGOs. First, the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, led the Chinese authorities to reshape their definitions of what kinds of organizations qualify as NGOs.63 Second, the emergence of Falungong, as discussed above, upset the impression that the CCP had achieved control over religious affairs and forced it to reconsider the matter of RNGOs.

58 Zhonghua Cishan Zonghui (2008). 59 Wu (2017: 430). 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid.: 429. 62 Ma (2002: 318). 63 Ibid.: 307–308.

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3

Conclusion

In 1999, the National People’s Congress (NPC) passed the Law on Donations for Public Welfare Undertakings (gongyi shiye juanzheng fa公 益事业捐赠法). It defined these undertakings as follows: relieving disasters, helping the poor, assisting the disabled as well as other social groups and individuals in trouble; education, science, culture, public health, and sports; environmental protection and construction of public facilities; and other social and public welfare undertakings promoting the development and progress of society.64

Two years later, the NPC passed another piece of legislation, the Trust Law, which sought to define “charitable trust” and, more specifically, to indicate what constitutes “public welfare.” This included six main elements: alleviating poverty; providing disaster relief; helping the disabled; developing education, science, technology, culture, art, and sports; developing medical and public health undertakings; and environmental protection.65 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 of class struggle.66 It also suggested an end to the idea that the CCP was a revolutionary party and a new understanding of the Party as a “ruling party.” In this context, new thinking about religious philanthropy appeared plausible.

References Ashiwa, Yoshiko, and David L. Wank, eds. 2009. Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. CCP Central Committee. 1982. “The Basic Viewpoint and Policy on the Religious Question During Our Country’s Socialist Period.” Translated by Donald E. MacInnis. 1989. In Religion in China Today: Policy and Practice, 8–26. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

64 Liu (2011: 71). 65 Ibid. 66 Dickson (2003).

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Dickson, Bruce J. 2003. Whom Does the Party Represent? From ‘Three Revolutionary Classes’ to ‘Three Represents’. American Asian Review 21 (1): 1–24. Duan Dezhi 段德智. 2013. Xin Zhongguo zongjiao gongzuoshi 新中国宗教工作 史. Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe. Feuchtwang, Stephan. 2006. Religion as Resistance. In Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance, ed. Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark Selden, 161–177. London: Routledge. Goldman, Merle. 1986. Religion and the State: The Struggle for Legitimacy and Power. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 483 (January): 146–156. Goossaert, Vincent. 2006. State and Religion in Modern China: Religious Policy and Scholarly Paradigms. Paper Presented at Rethinking Modern Chinese History: An International Conference to Celebrate the 50 th Anniversary of the Institute of Modern History. Taipei: Academia Sinica. halshs-00106187. Goossaert, Vincent, and David Palmer. 2011. The Religious Question in Modern China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hua Shiping. 1993. Scientism and Humanism: Two Cultures in Post-Mao China (1978–1989). Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Huang, Lucy Jen. 1971. The Role of Religion in Communist Chinese Society. Asian Survey 11 (7): 693–708. Hung Chang-Tai. 2010. The Anti-Unity Sect Campaign and Mass Mobilization in the Early People’s Republic of China. The China Quarterly 202 (June): 400–420. Irons, Edward. 2003. Falun Gong and the Sectarian Religion Paradigm. Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 6 (2): 244–262. Ji Zhe. 2004. Buddhism and the State: The New Relationship. China Perspective 55 (September–October): 1–13. Ji Zhe. 2015. Secularization without Secularism: The Political-Religious Configuration of Post-1989 China.” In Atheist Secularism and Its Discontents: A Comparative Study of Religion and Communism in Eurasia, eds. Tam, T. T. Ngo and Justine B. Quijada, 92–111. New York: Springer. Koesel, Karrie J. 2014. Religion and Authoritarianism: Cooperation, Conflict, and the Consequences. New York: Cambridge University Press. Laliberté, André. 2003. ‘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 (2): 243–261. Laliberté, André. 2013. The Growth of a Taiwanese Buddhist Association in China: Soft Power and Institutional Learning. China Information 27 (1): 81–105.

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Laliberté, André. 2020. Religions, Charity, and Non-State Welfare in Contemporary China. Working Paper Series of the HCAS “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” # 19. Leipzig University. Leung, Beatrice. 2005. China’s Religious Freedom Policy: The Art of Managing Religious Activity. The China Quarterly 184: 894–915. Liu Peifeng. 2011. Development of Charities in China Since the Reform and Opening Up. In NGOs in China and Europe, ed. Li, Yuwen, 71–93. London: Routledge. Luova, Outi. 2017. Charity paradigm change in contemporary China: From antisocialist activity to civic duty. China Information 31 (2): 137–154. Ma Qiusha. 2002. The Governance of NGOs in China Since 1978: How Much Autonomy? Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 31 (3): 305–328. Misra, Kalpana. 1998. From post-Maoism to Post-Marxism: The Erosion of Official Ideology in Deng’s China. New York: Routledge. Palmer, David. 2005. La fièvre du Qigong. Guérison, Religion et Politique En Chine, 1949–1999. Paris: Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales. Perry, Elizabeth J. 1985. Rural Violence in Socialist China. The China Quarterly 103 (September): 414–440. Potter, Pitman B. 2003. Belief in Control: Regulation of Religion in China. The China Quarterly 174 (June): 317–337. Reny, Marie-Ève. 2018. Authoritarian Containment. Public Security Bureaus and Protestant House Churches in Urban China. New York: Oxford University Press. Smart, Ninian. 1974. Mao. New York: Fontana/Collins. Thornton, Patricia M. 2002. Framing Dissent in Contemporary China: Irony, Ambiguity and Metonymy. The China Quarterly 171: 661–681. Tong, James W. 2009. Revenge of the Forbidden City: The Suppression of the Falun Gong in China, 1999–2005. New York: Oxford University Press. Vala, Carsten. 2017. The Politics of Protestant Churches and the Party-State in China, God Above Party? New York: Routledge. Wang Hu. 2010. Changes in the China Charity Federation System. China Development Brief 45 (Spring): 23–29. Wu Keping. 2017. “The Philanthropic Turn of Religions in Post-Mao China: Bureaucratization, Professionalization, and the Making of a Moral Subject.” Modern China 43 (4): 425–455. Xu Lin 徐麟. 2005. 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. Yang Fenggang. 2005. Lost in the Market, Saved at McDonald’s: Conversion to Christianity in Urban China. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 44 (4) (December): 423–441.

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Yang Jisheng 杨继绳. 2008. Mubei: Zhonguo liushi niandai da jihuang jishi 墓 碑 :中国六十年代大及黃纪实. Hong Kong: Tiandi 天地. Ye Xiaowen 叶小文. 2000 (1996). “Dangdai Zhongguo de zongjiao wenti: guanyu zongjiao wuxing de zai shentao 当代中国的宗教问题 : 关于宗 教五性的再探讨.” In Cao Zhongjian 曹中建, ed. 1997-1998 Zhongguo zongjiao yanjiu nianjian 中国宗教研究年鉴, 1–16. Beijing: zongjiao wenhua chubanshe. Zhao Suisheng. 1993. “Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Tour: Elite Politics in PostTiananmen China.” Asian Survey 33 (8): 739–756. Zhonghua Cishan Zonghui 中华慈善总会. 2008. Zhonghua Cishan Nianjian 中 华慈善年鉴 2008. Beijing: Zhonghua Cishan Nianjian Bianji 中华慈善年鉴编 辑.

CHAPTER 4

Religious Charity and Civil Society Under Hu and Xi

To this day, Hu Jintao’s personal views on religion and charity remain as unclear as those of his predecessor. Hu’s political philosophy, like Jiang’s, consisted in maintaining the broad strategy of “reform and opening” promulgated by Deng, including his policy of religious work. While Jiang had added his own mark with his 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. A harmonious society suggested the rehabilitation of Confucianism, if not its promotion as a religion. In a survey of the mentions of Confucianism in the People’s Daily, Wu Shufang notes that the CCP appeared eager to adopt the core elements of Confucian morality because they “soften” the appeal of the existing political order. Confucianism also matters to the CCP because it allows the ruling party to position itself more clearly as upholding “Chinese tradition.” However, Wu cautions that the CCP under Hu was unlikely to adopt Confucianism as an official

The content of this chapter updates parts of the Working Paper # 19 I wrote in 2020 for the Working Paper Series of the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences on “Multiple Secularities—Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” # 19, in Leipzig University. See Laliberté, 2020. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 A. Laliberté, Religion and China’s Welfare Regimes, Religion and Society in Asia Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7270-5_4

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alternative to the official historical-materialist philosophy promoted by the ruling party.1 During the period under consideration here, most Chinese academics had reached a conclusion about the idea of a Confucian religion (rujiao 儒教): they rejected calls by prominent intellectuals, such as Jiang Qing 蒋庆and Kang Xiaoguan 康晓光, to proclaim Confucianism as the “national religion” (guojiao 国教).2 However, a key difference between Hu and his predecessor was Hu’s acceptance of the idea that religion could be involved in philanthropy.

1

Religious Work Under Hu

Duan Dezhi sees the religious work of Hu’s government through the same lens of opposing religious infiltration as a continuation of the “second Cold War.”3 However, he also sees improvements in the legal sphere, with a law (zongjiao shiwu wuli 宗教事务务例) passed to regularize the conditions for registering religions and another law recognizing religion’s usefulness in Chinese society (zongjiao lifa tixi shexiang 宗教立 法体系设想). However, the CCP also issued directives advising religious associations to cut ties with any source of external support, reminding them of their responsibility to uphold 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 over enlarging the number of officially recognized religions had concluded: there was no question of recognizing Confucianism, “popular belief,” communal religions, or any of the redemptive societies—such as Yiguandao, not to mention Falungong—as religions. Moreover, as Alice Miller’s analysis has shown, no convergence existed between a “harmonious society” and the utopian themes attributed to Confucius and his followers, such as the “world of great harmony” (datong shijie 大同世界).4 In 2004, new regulations on religious affairs mentioned religions’ “positive contribution” to the public good for the first time.5 This translated into promoting religions at international conferences, such as 1 Wu (2014: 991). 2 Ibid.: 982. 3 Duan (2013: 265–338). 4 Miller (2007: 7). 5 Wu (2017: 430).

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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 (Mount Hengshan, Hunan).6 The clearest indication of Hu’s policy on religious affairs was the series of debates on religion’s contribution to the public interest, held in Beijing between 2007 and 2012 (which I discuss below). These debates took place in a context of growing concern with social stability and unrest, and the recognition that existing social policies had not done enough to address the population’s grievances over social security. Under Hu, religion remained a source of concern for the 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).7 An organ of the state directly under CCP control, rather than reporting to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, this group operated outside the legal and state systems, and its remit was expanded beyond Falungong, as it was also tasked with monitoring 28 other “cults.” These included Christian churches that rejected the authority of the Three-Selves 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 preached the Dharma abroad ever since.8 The other two major sources of concern regarding religion—namely Tibet and Xinjiang—were intertwined with problems of ethnicity.

6 While the International Daoist Forum was established in 2011, its founder retrospec-

tively regarded the International Forum on the Dao De Jing as the First International Daoist Forum. See Zhuo (2018: 88). 7 “610” refers to the day on which the office was established: June 10, 1999. See Tong (2009). 8 Most of these groups were on the lists of banned groups published in 1995, 2000, and 2014. See Irons (2018: 33). On Jingkong, see Dutournier and Ji (2009).

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1.1

Establishing the Substance of a “Harmonious Society” Through Philanthropy

At the beginning of his administration, Hu had to deal with the legacy of his predecessors, for whom the option of relying on non-state social services provision had become compatible with the view that growth should take precedence over wealth redistribution, but who also denied any role to religious actors in social services provision. In 2004, the Shanghai Municipal Foundation for Charity and the Shanghai Research Center for the Development of Charitable Activities co-sponsored a conference on “philanthropy in the context of establishing a harmonious society” to discuss this issue.9 This exploration of charity by a team of Chinese and international scholars identified two main sources of philanthropy: the state and private corporations (qiye 企业). These discussions on society and charity focused on abstractions such as the concepts of the “third sector” and presented the role of NGOs, but not a single chapter in the proceedings published after the conference discussed the intervention of religions in this sector. Studies comparing the Chinese context to Taiwan and Singapore failed to mention Buddhist philanthropy even once—a striking omission when one considers that the early twenty-first century constituted a high point in such associations’ activities. 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 renminbi (RMB) that year; the second most generous donor, Zhang Zhiting 张 芝庭, gave 128 million, followed by Li Jinyuan 李金元, who offered 66 million.10 Six years later, the Blue Book on philanthropy listed Huang Rulun as the most generous donor, with an endowment of 988 million RMB in 2010.11 This emphasis on prominent individuals’ donations reproduced the American approach to charity, which counts on the generous contributions of wealthy patrons. As one study about giving and philanthropy in the United States suggests, however, recent trends in that country indicate a concentration at the top, among a few extremely wealthy donors, which presents two major risks: increased volatility and unpredictability make it very difficult to budget for long-term projects, 9 Lu (2004). 10 Liu (2007: 190). 11 Liu (2011: 191).

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and the risk that philanthropy could be used as an extension of power and a means of protecting privileges grows.12 The concentration of wealth in China under Jiang and Hu, which has reached levels comparable to those observed in the United States, suggests that the CCP is faced with the same mix of power and wealth, as well as the emergence of what Bruce Dickson has termed “crony communism.”13 However, while China may seem to have followed the American approach to philanthropy in its focus on wealthy individuals, Chinese charity prior to Hu’s administration did not seek to emulate the other key component of US philanthropy: money and volunteers from religions institutions. One year later, 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 likewise offered no information at all on religious charity.14 Under the direction of Xu Lin 徐麟, the then-director of the SCAB, the report provided an overview of charity in China from a comparative perspective, including observations on the USA, the UK, Canada, Singapore, and Taiwan.15 It established a clear link between charity and three of the state’s missions, as examined in the second chapter of this book: 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 need for a law on charity, as the accelerating trend in registering NGOs was becoming clear. The government wanted to increase accountability and transparency, to ensure state oversight, and to manage an increasingly diversified sector that included charitable organizations, foundations, private non-enterprise units, and a variety of social groups.16 The proposed legislation revealed a paradigmatic shift, indicating that the concept of philanthropy—seen as hypocrisy under Mao—had been fully rehabilitated as a central expression of civic duty.17 12 Collins et al. (2016: 4). 13 Dickson (2008: 22–24). 14 Xu (2005). 15 One of Xi’s key supporters, Xu later rose to become head of the Shanghai Commu-

nist Party Committee’s propaganda department in 2013 and 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. 16 Shapiro (2018b: 78). 17 Luova (2017: 138).

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However, the limited extent of corporate philanthropy, relative to that of individual donors, had exposed a major weakness in the state’s reliance on non-state welfare. The numbers available for 2006 show that corporate fundraising lagged behind the individual commitments made by the wealthiest individuals. To put things into perspective, in 2006 only eight of the charities set up by Chinese corporations raised more than the most generous transnational firm in China, Sony, whose philanthropic contributions amounted to 52 million RMB that year.18 In Shanghai, China Unicom (Zhongguo lianhe tongxin 中国联合通信) raised close to 9 million RMB that year. 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 金地集团). Each of these firms raised over 5 million RMB that year.19 Nevertheless, these numbers paled in comparison to the commitments made by Huang Rulun and other wealthy individuals that year. Numbers published in 2010 confirmed this trend: the most generous corporate donation in 2009, by the State Grid Corporation (guojia dianwang gongsi 国家电网公司), was six times smaller than Huang Rulun’s contribution.20 The relief effort following the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan was a watershed moment for philanthropy. The number of private foundations increased in the aftermath of that disaster: between 2006 and 2012, the number of foundations grew from 1046 to 3043.21 Likewise, the amount donated by the public trebled after the quake, relative to 2007.22 Of the NGOs that received donations from these foundations, however, those that focused on religion, rights protection, and labor migrants did not attract much support. When making decisions about supporting an NGO, both individuals and companies wanted to ensure that their donation would incur little risk of government opposition, and therefore they

18 Liu (2007: 219). 19 Ibid.: 217. 20 Liu (2011: 208). 21 GCPI (2019). 22 Wang (2010).

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focused on cautious options, such as education.23 However, the postdisaster relief effort also exposed public foundations’ weaknesses in terms of fundraising, since the law prevented NGOs from publicly soliciting donations. This situation, as Wang Hui wrote in the China Development Brief , did not foster a culture of giving.24 Likewise, in her study of charity supermarkets in Tianjin, Vivienne Shue has shown that after a few years of experimenting, these initiatives had not developed as anticipated.25 Furthermore, and more damaging for charity in general, an external audit of the Red Cross Society of China in the aftermath of the quake implicated that society—and others by association—in various scandals.26 Although the Red Cross Society reformed its management since then, the negative feelings evoked by the scandal took time to dissipate. These separate events shattered people’s trust in state-sponsored charities. Moreover, overreliance on a few very wealthy individuals raised another issue: individual philanthropy as an alternative to state-sponsored social services provision presented the government with the dilemma of whether such a policy would encourage the growth of an oligarchy that could challenge the state’s authority. It was in this context, throughout the Hu administration, that academics, officials, and representatives of religious associations debated the issue of faith-based charity in China. 1.2

Toward a Restoration of Religious Charity?

The issue of whether and how religion and philanthropy relate to one another stood at the heart of closed-door debates in China, and the fact that these debates extended over a period of years points to the complexity of this issue. Some officials agreed with the view that this relationship exists primarily in Western societies, while in China philanthropy depends on social relations. This opinion, which contrasted a simplistic interpretation of Westerners as inherently individualistic with that of East Asians 23 Liu (2009: 16). 24 Various levels of government raised 56% of donations, while two GONGOs

(Government-Organized NGOs) also made significant contributions in addition to this: the Red Cross Society of China raised 21%, and the CCF raised another 15%. See Wang (2010). 25 Shue (2011: 755). 26 Reeves (2014).

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as more collectively minded, fell back on a reified view of Confucianism to explain this difference.27 In contrast, and notwithstanding the separate issue of whether Confucianism is a religion, many other Chinese scholars identified a very close relation between traditional religious thinking and philanthropy since ancient times, as the evidence accumulated by historians researching this issue suggests.28 In other words, behind the façade of unanimity, diverse views were expressed in successive meetings discussing religious philanthropy. In 2005, Huang Jianbo 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 on the social capital of religious institutions that positively evaluated their contributions to social welfare in ancient China.29 This article was the first of several publications he wrote on the matter of belief (xinyang 信仰) over the years. Such articles discussed the topic of religious charity in the context of the past and avoided the implication that it could be relevant to contemporary China— a stance that was representative of many ongoing academic discussions during the Hu administration. As late as 2006, as the anthropologist Wu Keping has reported, many officials did not accept the idea that any actor other than the state could provide social services. As an official at the Jiangsu Provincial Bureau of Religious Affairs explained to Wu, NGOs and religious groups are ideologically incompatible with the government’s socialist ideal, so they cannot perform such work.30 However, various public events soon suggested that other views were emerging. In June 2007, Renmin University, in coordination with the Xinde Cultural Research Institute in Hebei province (Hebei xinde wenhua yanjiusuo 河北信德文化研究所), the Aide Foundation (Aide jijinhui爱 德基金会), and the Jinde Association (Jinde gongyi xieban 进德公益协 办), jointly convened a workshop to discuss the question of religions and the public interest.31 A summary of that meeting appeared in the official journal of the CASS Institute of World Religions (IWR): China 27 See, for example, Yang et al. (2018: 12). 28 I present this legacy of the past in my book on Han Buddhist philanthropy beyond

the PRC. 29 Huang (2005). 30 Wu (2017: 427). 31 Over the years I have tried many times to gain access to these conference proceeding, but always in vain. Only a partial account is available online. Many of the actors who were

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Religions (Zhongguo zongjiao 中国宗教).32 The 2007 conferences on religion and charity, as well as follow-up meetings over the next few years, suggested some interest on the government’s part. However, state officials also saw the perils inherent in such recognition, as religious institutions might get credit for their relief work at the government’s expense. As Wu Keping noted in her description of a seminar convened at the Chinese Philanthropy Research Institute at Beijing Normal University, the officials present at the event lauded religion’s participation in charitable activities while acknowledging the need to “harness” such participation.33 Notwithstanding this qualification, these 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.34 In November of that year, 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), was convened at Nanputuo temple. This forum discussed lessons from the tragedy and evaluated the Buddhist response. Soon afterward, Buddhist websites posted these deliberations online, making them available to the broader public.35 The list of participants suggested an interest on the part of both academics and Buddhist associations in discussing what the latter have achieved, but it did not suggest much interest on the part of state authorities above a certain level. Nevertheless, these meetings revealed that the various religious milieus—not only the Buddhists—were not waiting for the government to give permission before providing relief. Among the participants 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 had experience in philanthropy, such as the host, Zhengxing 正兴,

present at that event are scholars I have interacted with since then, and many of them also have no access to the proceedings. 32 Yu (2007: 30–31). 33 Wu (2017: 431). 34 Xu (2017). 35 See Fjnet (2008).

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and others, such as Chang Hui 常辉.36 Lay Buddhists associated with philanthropic activities in Taiwan and Japan also presented their views, along with representatives of other 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, director of the Xiamen Municipal Party Committee’s Office for Nationalities and Religions (minzongju dangzu shuji 民宗局党组书记), represented the government. The other officials were state representatives: Lin Zhizhi 林致知,vice director of the Fujian Province Bureau for Nationalities and 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), which was responsible for research on Buddhism and Daoism. None of them were the leaders of their respective organizations. Other meetings followed, including a third one in Xining, Qinghai in 2009, and a fourth one which met at Renmin University in 2010 and again focused on lay Buddhists’ role in philanthropic activities.37 The ideas discussed at these closed meetings between epistemic communities of scholars and religious representatives received cautious, indirect endorsement from certain CCP cadres. For example, Gao Hong, who worked in a local branch of the Party School, which trains cadres, published a paper that year suggesting that Chinese society could benefit from Buddhist charities. Using the example of Shanghai-based Buddhist philanthropy, she argued that the practice of charity affirms the religious values of Buddhist adherents and that cooperation between entrepreneurs and lay followers offers a good example of welfare provision and what she calls “institutionalized good deeds.”38 However, the article appeared in a less prominent journal published in Gansu, an impoverished province in the northwest, far from Shanghai, the center of economic power in her case study. On the other hand, considering the topic (using religious charity to fight poverty) and the journal’s location (in a province known

36 Zhengxing was the director of the Nanputuo Temple Charity; Changhui was active in a few different Buddhist charities in Hebei province. 37 There were no proceedings available for these events and little trace left online. See Yisilan zhiguang xun (2009); Gaoxiaowang (2010). 38 Gao (2010: 158).

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for its difficult conditions), it may have been extremely relevant to the authorities in that region. Some other meetings also took place on the margins of those sponsored by Renmin University. Shanghai, which has a long tradition of exchange with Protestant churches, hosted a conference on religious charity and social development in 2011, extending invitations to international experts.39 At this conference, participants expressed the view that secular and religious institutions have traditionally converged around the issue of justice—perhaps not surprising in Shanghai, the birthplace of the CCP, the city with the largest proportion of Catholics in any PRC province, where many Protestant missionaries had also lived. As with the previous events, Buddhist perspectives received much attention, with no less than 16 presentations on Buddhism.40 However, Christian perspectives attracted an equal amount of attention if one includes the contributions from Hong Kong. This contrasts with only three presentations on Daoist charity and one on Islamic philanthropy. The event also offered a unique opportunity to hear perspectives on Judaism, which has a long-standing presence in the city.41 There were many events in 2012, which indicate the state’s greater interest in religious charity. A sixth forum devoted to the issue of social services provision by religious associations took place that year. This time, the Taiwan-based Tzu Chi Foundation was present.42 In the same year, the government also convened a forum on Protestant churches. The eighth of its kind, this forum explored the social relevance of the churches in Chinese society.43 Altogether, these debates investigated the capacities of China’s different religions and brought together a mix of academics as well as representatives of the various religious milieus. Also in 2012, SARA launched the first “religious charity week,” which was intended to become an annual event during which religious institutions at all levels raise money for philanthropy. The donations collected amounted to 260 million RMB at the end of that first week.44 This was more than the 39 Tao and Liu (2012). 40 Of the presentations on Buddhism, four looked at the Taiwan-based Ciji Foundation. 41 See Xu (2012). 42 Dagongbao (2012). 43 SARA (2012). 44 Wu (2017: 432).

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amount raised individually by many large Chinese and transnational enterprises for that year. As Wu Keping discovered in her investigations in eastern China, however, religious actors had mixed feelings about these initiatives—some saw them as due recognition of the importance of religion, while others viewed them as a way for the government to extract money from them.45 Most significantly, however, one major development occurred in the final year of Hu’s administration, as top officials formally recognized what had been happening in recent years with the tacit approval of certain local leaders. In 2012, SARA, the 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 a legal opinion that encouraged religious actors to organize philanthropic activities in the public interest. Although not legally binding, this opinion opened the way for religious institutions to provide different social services according to their abilities. For the religious milieu, this opinion mattered because it not only reflected the pragmatic policies of a few local governments but because approval from the top could inspire hesitant local governments to follow this example. Thus, this opinion heralded a major change in approach, but at the time of writing, it has yet to become law.46 It remains unclear whether Xi Jinping, who was already on the CCP Standing Committee when it issued this opinion, intends to follow suit with his own policies. Although the conferences discussed above ostensibly included members of all the “big five” religions, Buddhist associations also met at specific conferences focused on their religion. This does not necessarily indicate preferential treatment for Buddhism; as I pointed out above, Protestant churches also had dedicated meetings. However, it may indicate a response to the specific concerns of Buddhist philanthropic associations. Hence in 2012, Tan Yuanfang 谭苑芳, a researcher in political science and civic education at Guangzhou University, published a paper outlining the difficulties faced by Buddhist charities in China and surveying the achievements of charities in Taiwan as possible solutions to these problems.47 This article revealed a greater appreciation of the

45 Ibid. 46 Hornemann (2012: 1). 47 Tan (2012).

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potential for Buddhist associations to serve state social policies in the final years of Hu’s administration. However, it also expressed a key reservation: according to Tan, adopting the management methods NGOs used in welfare provision risked undermining monastics’ spiritual authority over their followers. Numbers provided by the official religious associations reveal that religious milieus did not wait for the 2012 legal opinion to develop charities. Between 2003 and 2014, Fayin (法音), the BAC’s journal, reported 106 charitable activities supported by Buddhist associations.48 Tianfeng (天凤), the journal of the TSPM churches, recorded eightynine philanthropic activities sponsored by Protestant churches. Zhongguo Tianzhujiao (中国天主教), the Patriotic Catholic Association’s periodical, counted forty-six such activities in the same period. Zhongguo Dajiao (中国道教), the official journal of the DAC, counted forty-eight. These numbers provide another example of what Robert Weller has called “blind-eye governance,” wherein the government tolerates activities that do not benefit from explicit legal protection if they do not challenge the state’s authority.49 The following section explores debates about religious charity under Xi and assesses the extent to which the attitude prevalent under Hu continues unabated.

2

Religious Charity Under Xi Jinping

The transition from Hu’s leadership to Xi’s was a staggered process: although the CCP Standing Committee changed completely in 2012, much continuity at the policy level prevailed. SARA’s leadership, under Wang Zuo’an 王作安, ensured a measure of stability in religious affairs. First nominated to that position in 2009, Wang remained at the helm through the final third of Hu’s administration and the first half of Xi’s. Indicative of the political importance the CCP ascribed to religious work, Wang was also vice director of the UFWD, a post in which he served until March 2018, when SARA fell under direct CCP control. Similar degrees of consistency also obtained in other relevant State Council ministries responsible for charity and various aspects of social welfare. Hence the minister for civil affairs, Li Liguo 李立国, served in that capacity from

48 A list of all of these activities is available in the appendix. 49 Weller (2012).

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2010 to 2016.50 The minister of health, Chen Zhu 陈竺, remained in his post from 2007 to 2013.51 The minister of education, Yuan Guiren 袁贵 仁, served from 2009 to 2016. Finally, Yin Weimin 尹蔚民 was minister of human resources and social security for ten years after the MoHRSS was founded in 2008. As we have seen above, debates on religion and charity continued amidst changes in the political leadership in the last year of the Hu administration, when the CCP was preparing for Xi to succeed him. Yet many of these debates took place behind closed doors, and their conclusions were (and still are) difficult to access. Very few of the participants divulged the results of such meetings to the public. One rare example is the conference organized by the IWR, under the auspices of its director, Zhuo Xinping 卓新平, in 2012.52 One key aspect of that event and the resulting publication was the coining of the term “religious charity” to replace the concept of religion and charity. This semantic distinction suggested that religious associations could actively engage in philanthropy rather than merely formulating doctrinal principles to inspire religious believers to take part in charitable activities. Vice director Zheng Xiaoyuan suggested just that when she stressed four issues that she saw as necessary to improving religious charity. She emphasized the importance of organizational standardization (zuzhide guifanhua 组织的规范化), normalizing projects (xiangmude changtaihua 项目的常 态化), producing specific models (moshide tesehua 模式的特色化), and professional internationalization (zhuanyede guojihua 专业的国际化).53 Indicative of the remaining resistance to religious charity among the higher echelons of the CCP, the proceedings of that forum, convened in 2012, were published three years later.54 Party support appeared tepid at best. Apart from the IWR director and vice director, both of whom could be counted as officials, no high-ranking members of the government or the CCP participated in the event. The highest-ranking official 50 However, following an investigation by the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection, the CCP demoted him from that position in 2016. 51 In that year, the Health and Family Planning Commission superseded the ministry. 52 Zhuo and Zheng (2015). 53 Zheng (2015: 5–10). 54 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 at that time.

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was Zhang Daocheng 张道成, deputy secretary general of the CPPCC and vice president of the China Charity Federation. Only the BAC, which sent its executive director, Miao Xian 妙贤, and the DAC, which delegated its vice president, Zhang Jiyu 张继禹, sent high-ranking officers. The only two other participants who were not scholars and did not come from a religious milieu were Huang Jie 黄杰, director of the Anqing 安 庆 Municipal Bureau of Religious Affairs in Anhui province, and Zhang Hua 张化, a researcher sent by the Shanghai branch of the UFWD.55 The design of the conference, as transpires from the published proceedings, suggested a strong preference for Buddhism. In addition to conceptual contributions on the nature of charity and the general principle that religion should serve society, discussions of the specific inclinations of religions to contribute to the public interest tended to focus on Buddhist views.56 The texts on religion and development likewise paid more attention to Buddhism than to other religions. The volume presented three case studies of charities based in Beijing, Tianjin, and Jiangsu, as well as the activities of another in Tibet—all of which were Buddhist—but only one chapter introduced Protestant charities, even though, as I have shown above, Protestant churches have established as many such activities as Buddhists have. Observations on religious charities’ contributions to social development also focused more on charities operated by the BAC than on those run by the other “big five” religions.57 The proceedings also presented reflections by international scholars, who wrote about religious charity and social development.58 None of these ten academics came from the global South or an Asian country; four were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), and three were associated with the Catholic Church. This 55 Zhuo and Zheng (2015: 1–2). 56 Of the ten texts on religious ethics and charity, four present reflections by officials,

four focus on Buddhism, and there is only one on Daoism and one on popular religions. The view that charity is a central feature of popular religions represents an important change in tone. See Han (2015). 57 The other case studies include observations on charities in the USA, the LDS, Catholicism in Hebei, Islam in Ningxia, and devotion to the Eternal Mother in Shanghai. 58 These discussions on religious experiences and case studies in an international comparative perspective have likewise examined three Buddhist charities, along with one each for Catholicism, Islam, and the LDS. Two other chapters include a wide-ranging discussion of charity in the USA and a look at the Catholic Church in Shanghai prior to 1949.

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selection of case studies clearly suggested an interest in learning from the approach used in developmental states, and not from developing countries or states run by fellow socialist parties. In 2013, the annual report on China’s philanthropic development for the previous year outlined the challenges the sector faced at length and offered a rare attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of RNGOs.59 This report, submitted by Zheng Xiaoyuan 郑筱筠, director of the IWR, put things into perspective following the 2012 legal opinion.60 According to the report, the activities financially supported by foundations with links to religious associations covered a wide range of needs.61 Of 69 such foundations, most delivered services that constitute social welfare. Following the hierarchy of needs discussed in chapter two, seven of these associations provided services related to individual safety following natural disasters (anquan zainan 安全灾难), ten provided medical help, ten provided education services, and most of the rest provided services related to different aspects of social assistance. Medical services included emergency medical relief (yiliao jiuzhu 医疗救助—8 associations) and mental health services (xinli jiankang 心理健康—2 associations). Social assistance activities included help for disabled people (canji 残疾—4), support for the elderly (laonianren 老年人—4), support for children (ertong 儿童—3), and public health insurance (weisheng baojian 卫生保建—3). Some of these activities could be considered development activities with long-term forms of support: poverty alleviation (fupin 扶贫—5), environmental protection (huanjing 环境—4), rural improvements (sannong 三 农—3), and support for minority people (shaoshu minzu 少数民族—2). Furthermore, 12 of the philanthropic associations affiliated with a religion provided services related to culture. In a separate document, Wang Qun noted that the number of religious foundations had grown—from 5 in 2003 to 50 in 2013—and that most of them were affiliated with Buddhism and supervised by the Civil Affairs Department or the Bureau of Religious Affairs.62 However, the 59 Yang (2013). 60 Zheng (2013). 61 The information in this paragraph is taken from Zheng (2013: 109). 62 Wang (2018: 314). There is a significant discrepancy between Wang’s and Zheng’s

numbers. Wang used official government numbers, while Zheng relied on a research center for foundations, but their website (http://crm.foundationcenter.org.cn/html/201 2-07) is down at the time of writing.

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number of religious foundations remained very modest in proportion to the total number of foundations of all kinds. Looking at the China Statistical Yearbook over a ten-year period, Wang found 954 foundations in 2003 and 3549 ten years later.63 He found that barely 0.5 percent of these foundations identified with a religion in 2003—a proportion that would change little thereafter. After this report was issued, three legal changes affected the development of religious philanthropy: in 2014, the State Council issued Guidelines to Promote the Healthy Development of Charitable Causes; the Ministry of Civil Affairs and SARA issued a notice on Regulating the Activities of Receiving Orphans and Abandoned Children in the Religious Milieus; and in 2016, the NPC promulgated the Charity Law of the People’s Republic of China. The sums religious associations gave to support welfare activities represented a small amount relative to donations given by corporations and wealthy individuals. Hence Zheng’s report found that the cumulative sum raised by all Buddhist associations from 2007 to 2012 amounted to 1.86 billion RMB; this was followed by the sums raised by Protestants (350 million), Catholics (250 million), Daoists (240 million), and Muslims (180 million). However, these numbers underestimate the total. For example, if one includes the YMCA and its sister organization, the YWCA—two charities affiliated with Protestant Christianity—this would add an additional 48.81 million RMB raised by Protestant associations in the same period. Catholics have also raised money with their own foundations, such as the Jinde 进德 Catholic Service Center, founded in 1998.64 Writing the subsequent report in 2013, Zheng Xiaoyuan identified four “milestones” with regard to religious charities, which concretely indicated that the government wanted to give religious charities some responsibilities.65 Seven ministries jointly issued a communique calling for improvements in the work of looking after abandoned babies: in that year, 878 establishments took on this responsibility, of which 60 percent were temples or other religious organizations.66 In the same year, SARA formally issued a communique institutionalizing “religious charity week.”

63 Wang (2018: 299). 64 Zheng (2013: 107–109). 65 Zheng (2014: 120–130). 66 Ibid.: 115.

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This also marked a “harvest year” in the creation of religious foundations at the provincial level in Yunnan and at the municipal level by Buddhists in Emeishan and Shijiazhuang, by Daoists and Protestants in Wenzhou, and by Catholics in Shantou. Finally, Zheng noted that religious charities had coordinated a conference on raising children with the Ministry of Civil Affairs.67 Zheng also reported seven developments that provided a rationalization for religious activities: the regularization of the annual “religious charity week”; the recognition of charity as a traditional religious activity; the diversification of these activities; better coordination with other organizations; increased cooperation with international RNGOs; the cultivation of a culture of charity; and greater accountability among religious charities.68 In the first years of the Xi Jinping administration, conferences on religion and the public interest continued. The seventh forum on this issue met in Zhoukou, Henan in May 2013.69 While some of the previous meetings seemed to privilege Buddhism at the central level, conferences in previous years included other religions as well. In April 2014, as Teresa Carrino has reported, the Bureau of Religious Affairs in Jiangsu Province invited the Amity Foundation to organize a social development training program for people interested in contributing to “faith-based NGOs.” This program was open to all the “big five” religions in the province. This event, organized by Amity, trained people from all the religious associations, and included lectures by experts in social services provision. Following the event’s success, the government designated the foundation the “training hub in social development work for the five major religions in Jiangsu Province.”70 In 2016, the report of the annual Nationwide Working Meeting on Religions, organized by the UFWD and chaired by Xi, mentioned the need to build “a socialist theory of religion with Chinese characteristics.” At the 19th CCP Congress, Xi formally outlined his views on religion

67 See also MCA (2014). 68 See also the other contributions to the report by Yang (2014). 69 Henan (2013). This reference, posted by the IWR, was last accessed on June 24,

2019. It is inaccessible as of October 2020. 70 Carino (2017: 446).

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in what he called the sinicizing (zhongguohua 中国化) of religion.71 In the same year, the NPC finally adopted a Charity Law—the crowning achievement of a process that had lasted eleven years.72 As Wang Qun’s research on NGOs has demonstrated, those associations which he classified as religious charities serve the public in general, and not only their adherents.73 They frame their activities as non-religious and, aware of the government regulations, avoid proselytizing. These RNGOs scrupulously follow official directives, aware that this represents a condition for their operation. However, this does not protect them from abuse. Some local governments outsource social services delivery to religious foundations even when the latter lack the capacity to provide such services.74 As Wu Keping has argued, the government’s outsourcing of social services delivery to religious associations has changed the latter, as providing relief and other public goods requires a process of bureaucratization and professionalization.75 As Xi convened the 19th CCP Congress, religious philanthropy had re-emerged as an important aspect of social life and presented the state with an increasingly difficult quandary. On the one hand, an increasing number of religious charities had emerged, while on the other hand, the central government’s policy toward religion appeared to be growing more repressive. As Susan McCarthy has shown in her case studies of two faith-based philanthropic associations in Gansu and Yunnan, the government’s efforts to address social problems have offered an opportunity for such associations to pursue their religious goals.76 However, 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) took place in the same context that saw the mass internment of Uyghur Muslims. Likewise, the Yunnan government’s cooperation with Gospel Rehab (fuyin jiedu 福

71 As Benoit Vermander (2019: 3) has noted, the official translation was “be Chinese in orientation.”. 72 Shapiro (2018a: 9, 18). 73 Wang (2018: 314). Wang is a co-founder of the Research Infrastructure of Chinese

Foundations. 74 Wu (2017: 442). 75 Wu (2017: 434ff.). 76 McCarthy (2017: 67).

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音戒毒), a Christian NGO, unfolded at the same time as the Zhejiang government was forcing churches to remove crosses from their roofs. The potential for private philanthropy had increased by the time Xi took power, and it continued to do so after the renewal of his mandate in 2017. By 2016, China had more billionaires than the United States; Xi saw that wealth as a potential source of support for the government and urged the most fortunate to help the poor through philanthropy. Meanwhile, the government revised the law that allowed foreign NPOs to work in China, adding more restrictions, since it feared their advocacy work.77 Some analysts believe that this reliance on philanthropy represents a positive development for the welfare state because it awakens civil society’s potential for self-determination and reveals the positive role of NGOs as vehicles for a more progressive, liberal society.78 However, this interpretation seems at odds with many mainstream analyses in Western societies, which see reliance on philanthropy as a symptom of state failure or an illustration of the state’s unwillingness to tackle too many responsibilities. Still others see this reliance on philanthropy as a call to put an end to universalistic approaches to social policies which reintroduce exclusions. The effect of these strategies on religious charities in China remains unclear at the time of writing: on the one hand, the CCP is cautiously asking for their assistance; on the other, it fears the potential empowerment that could result from their work.

3

Conclusion

Chinese scholars closely attuned to the developments of the CCP’s religious work remain skeptical of the likelihood that the Party will relinquish its tight control over religious affairs anytime soon. For example, Yu Tao believes that the experience CCP leaders gained during the formative stage of their struggle against the GMD taught them about the disruptive potential of religious organizations and secret societies early on. The CCP’s vulnerability during the Republican regime, however, also made clear to its members the potential benefits incurred by rallying

77 Shapiro (2018a: 2, 9). 78 See, for example, Yu and Chen (2016).

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religions and secret societies to their side.79 With the benefit of hindsight, the destructive phase of anti-religious policy under Mao, which targeted all expressions of religiosity, appears to be an aberration in the Party’s general approach to religion. Notwithstanding persecutions of new religious movements such as Falungong and harassment of older faiths such as the Protestant churches and Islam, the CCP appears willing to coexist with religious institutions, confident that it will outlast them. What recent local government policies and actions have made increasingly clear, however, is the CCP’s differentiated approach to religion. On the one hand, it celebrates Buddhism and Daoism as examples of Chinese heritage; on the other hand, it expresses an almost open hostility toward Christianity and Islam as foreign religions, which is barely veiled by the discourse on “sinicizing religion.” Moreover, the CCP under Xi appears inclined to approve Buddhism and Daoism as “culture” rather than “religion”—a sentiment which some intellectuals associated with the Buddhist and Daoist milieus also espouse. This cultural logic may dissolve the boundaries between the religious and the political spheres, completing a project of total secularity, with the CCP in the vanguard. China thus offers a key test case in current debates about non-Western secularity, as the country sees an increase in faith-based social services provision to complement welfare regimes in contexts where state intervention faces limitations. The state’s retreat in many aspects of social policy since Mao has been reversed to some degree but claims by Deng’s successors that China will soon implement a more generous welfare state continue to face many obstacles. Obviously, the religious landscape in China and the CCP’s overbearing attempts to oversee religion’s withering away make it unlikely that any established religion could play a role comparable to that of Christian churches in Western societies as social services providers. China does not experience the kind of religious freedom enjoyed by liberal societies in Asia and in the West—a freedom that empowers churches to act as substitutes for the state.80 However, as the debates among scholars and certain party and state officials have 79 Yu (2017: 10). 80 Surveys in the USA 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 other two are offshoots of Protestant religious organizations. See Hien (2014: 18).

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shown, faith-based social welfare is likely to remain an important option in Chinese societies, bearing in mind the forecast of a significant rise in the number of elderly people in need of long-term care. In the next two chapters, I will focus on the relations between the CCP and the BAC, a religious institutional actor which the state considers less threatening than the transnational Protestant Church. I will also consider the extent to which the CCP has explored the possibility of mobilizing its resources to assist in implementing its social policies for vulnerable populations.

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Wu Keping. 2017. The Philanthropic Turn of Religions in Post-Mao China: Bureaucratization, Professionalization, and the Making of a Moral Subject. Modern China 43 (4): 425–455. Wu Shufang. 2014. 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 (89): 971–991. Xu Bin. 2017. The Politics of Compassion: The Sichuan Earthquake and Civic Engagement in China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Xu Lin 徐麟. 2005. 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. Xu Xin 徐新. 2012. Lun cishan zhi zhengyi genji: yi youtairen weili lunshu zongjiao yu cishan de guanxi 论慈善之正义根基: 以犹太人为例论述宗教与 慈善的关系. In Zongjiao cishan yu zhongguo shehui gongyi 宗教慈善与中国社 会公益, eds. Tao Feiya 陶飞亚 and Liu Yi 刘义, 49–57. Shanghai: Shanghai daxue chubanshe. Yang Tuan 杨团. 2013. Zhongguo cishan fazhan baogao (2013) 中国慈善发展报 告 (2013). Beijing: shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe. Yang Tuan 杨团. 2014. Zhongguo cishan fazhan baogao (2014) 中国慈善发展报 告 (2014). Beijing: shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe. Yang Yongjiao, Zhou Wen, and Zhang Dong. 2018. Celebrity Philanthropy in China: An Analysis of Social Network Effect on Philanthropic Engagement. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organization. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-018-9997-7. Accessed 7 July 2019. Yisilan zhiguang xun 伊斯兰之光讯. 2009. 300 xuezhe zhuanjia jiqi gaoyuan jiabei jiaoyu yu zongjiao cishan shixian 300 学者专家齐聚高原畅怀教育与宗 教慈善实践. Yiguangwang 伊光网. Available at: http://www.noorislam.org/ news/huaren/17110.html. Accessed 7 July 2019. Yu Jianxing 郁建兴 and Chen Kejian 陈可鉴. 2016. 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 (1): 69–80. Yu Ning 余薴. 2007. 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 (6): 30–31. Yu Tao. 2017. The Historical Foundations of Religious Restrictions in Contemporary China. Religions 8 (12): 1–14. Zheng Xiaoyuan 郑筱筠. 2013. 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 Tuan 杨团, 99–114. Beijing: shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe.

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Zheng Xiaoyuan 郑筱筠. 2014. 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, 113–131. Beijing: shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe. Zheng Xiaoyuan 郑筱筠. 2015. Jiaqiang ‘sihua’ jianshe, shixian zhongguo zongjiao cishan de zhanluexing kuayueshi fazhan 加强‘四化’建设, 实现中国 宗教慈善的战略性跨越式发展.” In Zongjiao cishan yu shehui fazhan 宗教慈 善与社会发展, eds. Zhuo Xinping 卓新平 and Zheng Xiaoyuan 郑筱筠, 3–11. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe. Zhuo Xinping. 2018. Religious Faith of the Chinese. Translated by Dong Zhao. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press. Zhuo Xinping 卓新平 and Zheng Xiaoyuan 郑筱筠, eds. 2015. Zongjiao cishan yu shehui fazhan 宗教慈善与社会发展. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe.

CHAPTER 5

The Institutionalization of Buddhism Since 1949

This chapter examines the claim that Buddhist associations have had the resources to support the state in its delivery of social services to vulnerable populations since the period of reform and opening. The CCP may feel inclined to rely on Buddhist institutions rather than other religious associations because—in contrast to Christian associations, whether Catholic or Protestant—the Buddhist Association of China (BAC) does not rely on foreign support. Even if one calculates based on the more conservative figures the Chinese government uses to count the number of Buddhists, China has more Buddhist devotees than any other country. In addition, more people claim to be Buddhists than claim adherence to any of the other four recognized religions.1 This special relation results from several factors: the most important Chinese Buddhist institutions are politically dependable, if not pliable, and as a result, Buddhism’s revival has benefitted from state patronage. Buddhism also represents a potentially strategic asset in relation to Taiwan. Moreover, Buddhist institutions have resources and a centuries-long tradition of philanthropy that the state can use. This does not suggest that Buddhist institutions have no agency or that they stand by as obedient subordinates of the CCP. The 1 According to estimates made by the Pew Research Center based on the analysis of several surveys conducted in China, more people identify with “popular religions” than say they are Buddhists. See Pew Research Center (2012: 32, 35, 46, 63).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 A. Laliberté, Religion and China’s Welfare Regimes, Religion and Society in Asia Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7270-5_5

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BAC and other Buddhist actors have interests of their own to defend, some of which are better served by cooperation with the state. Moreover, for reasons of institutional survival, many Buddhist elites believe that cooperation with the state protects them from competitors and forces that could otherwise undermine their growth, such as rampant materialism. However, the assertion that the state hopes Buddhist associations will contribute to the public interest raises a key issue: Do Buddhist associations have sufficient organizational capacity to undertake such philanthropic activities? Many people who identify as Buddhists may not be at all interested in charitable giving, and many people profess no interest in Buddhism. Although Buddhists have made charitable contributions throughout Chinese history, there are at least two reasons why this may not be the case in contemporary China. First, Buddhist institutions have few resources to spare after the periods of persecution they endured over the last century. Under Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, this situation appeared to change for the better, and growth among Buddhist institutions has been observed. However, there are troubling signs that the climate of ideological reconstruction promoted by Xi Jinping is reminiscent of the Maoist era’s anti-religious fervor. It is too early to tell whether this trend will continue, or whether Buddhist activities will continue. Whatever happens to Buddhist institutions, however, they have left traces of their activities which are conclusive enough to allow us to speak of a revival. Later on, I will explore the specific philanthropic activities undertaken by merit societies, temples, and foundations—all agencies designed to perform such activities. In this chapter, I consider the institutional environment out of which these philanthropic associations have emerged. I focus on Buddhist associations, which are primarily monastic associations, but which also include lay devotee associations—the latter may assist monastics, but they also exist for their own purposes—namely, group scripture reading and recitation, printing texts, charity, and a variety of other devotional practices, some of which support the clergy. These two kinds of associations interact with the state and the CCP, and both have played important roles in establishing merit societies. They have sought to reassure the regime that their activities are compatible with its priorities, and when needed, they have provided moral authority to Buddhist philanthropic associations.

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1

103

Key Institutions

While the total number of Buddhists in China remains a matter of speculation due to the lack of reliable data on the number of lay Buddhists, the BAC has provided slightly more precise data on the number of monastics. At the time of writing, the BAC is relying on figures that were last updated in 2012, counting 240,000 monks and nuns, and 33,000 Buddhist sites across the entire country. Among these, the BAC counted 130,000 lamas and nuns who practice Tibetan Buddhism and over 3000 monasteries; approximately 100,000 Han clerics, monks, and nuns, and around 28,000 monasteries; and 10,000 monks of the Theravada school across 1600 monasteries.2 One set of numbers, as provided by Ji Zhe, gives an impression of a steep decline in the number of Buddhist sites and monastics after 1949: a survey conducted by the Buddhist Association of China in the 1930s counted over 730,000 clerics.3 By 1980, China’s population had doubled relative to that of the Republic of China, which suggests that, relative to the population, the number of Buddhist clerics has shrunk to one-twentieth of what it was during the Republican era. Extrapolating from this figure and data obtained from the BAC and SARA, Ji counted the number of annual ordinations and arrived at an annual increase of about 3500. Therefore, it is highly likely that an additional 25,000 monks and nuns joined the BAC between 2012 and 2019. Ji Zhe has also identified four major institutional innovations undertaken by Buddhists—in the areas of education, lay movements, national associations, and monastic economies—which have changed relations between masters and disciples, between laypeople and monastics, and between Buddhism and society more broadly. These mechanisms are institutes for Buddhist studies (foxueyuan 佛学院), lay devotee lodges or “householder groves” (jushilin 居士林), Buddhist associations (fojiao xiehui 佛教协会), and temple entrance fees (menpiao 门票).4 Alongside these mechanisms, one should also add charity associations, which bring together clerics and lay devotees; which are becoming organizations, independent of the Buddhist associations; and which have also 2 ZFX (2017). 3 Ji (2012–2013: 13). The Buddhist Association of China that was active at that time

has no connection to the BAC. 4 Ji (2016: 734).

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become economic units. Such associations have helped Buddhists gain a newfound legitimacy, thus fending off the critique that their religion is superstitious and useless.5 I will examine these charitable institutions, merit societies, and foundations in detail in later chapters. What follows here is an overview of how two of the other four mechanisms—namely householder groves and Buddhist associations—have contributed to the vitality of Buddhist institutions, which in turn has made Buddhist philanthropy possible. Buddhist academies and pilgrimages are peripheral to the issue of philanthropy: Buddhist academies primarily serve to train monastics, and while the issue of entrance fees—an aspect of pilgrimage and tourism—represents a source of wealth for Buddhism, such fees are not necessarily used to fund philanthropy.6 Here, I focus on the official institution and its lay affiliates.

2

The BAC and Its Governance Structure7

Under the CCP, the BAC is the only organization allowed to represent all Buddhists in China at the national level. Its structure mirrors that of the state and that of the CCP, up to a point. It had a leadership structure made up of two agencies (jigou 机构), an operational department (gongzuo bumen 工作部门), and it is responsible for the administration of temples (zhishu siyuan 直属寺院), but it has no quasi-federal structure, as the CCP and the state do. The first of the two agencies, which acts as a governing body (lingdao 领导), comprises the BAC president (huizhang 会长), a select few honorary (mingyu 名誉) presidents, up to thirty vice presidents, and a secretariat, run by a general secretary (mishuzhang 秘书 长) with their deputy secretaries. In 2019, eight of the deputy presidents were non-Han—this represents a much larger proportion of non-Han than there are in the total Buddhist population of China.8 The second agency, which is much larger, fulfills different routine functions, many of which are ongoing through consecutive congresses—hence it is designated “permanent” (changshe 常设). This agency is subdivided 5 A point Ji Zhe made in a personal communication. 6 For a detailed discussion of Buddhist academies, see Ji (2019). 7 Much of the information in the paragraphs in this section is available in BAC

2017, unless otherwise indicated. 8 This number can vary: the BAC counted six Tibetan deputy presidents between 2010 and 2015.

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into four components that together ensure continuity in the BAC’s operations: the council (lishihui 理事会) and its permanent board (changwu lishihui 常务理事会), as well as the advisory (ziyi 咨议) and the special (zhuanmen 专门) committees. These organs represent the BAC’s “political” or deliberative structure. In 2015, the Ninth Council counted 406 members, most of whom were monks and nuns, from all the provinces, special municipalities, and autonomous regions, although regional representation did not reflect the demographic balance either in the population at large or among Buddhists.9 For example, almost 20 percent of BAC members are Tibetans—a proportion much larger than the proportion of Tibetans found in the total Buddhist population in China, even if one assumes that all Tibetans are Buddhists and uses the most conservative figures provided by the government on the number of Buddhist devotees among the Han.10 In 2015, the council’s permanent board was made up of 147 members who reproduced the same skewed proportion observed in the council at large. Both the council and the permanent board include members of the national headquarters (benbu 本部), comprising 52 and 28 members, respectively.11 An even smaller entity, the advisory committee (ziyi weiyuanhui 咨议委员会) has 70 members, of whom 20 are deputy secretaries and the rest are representatives of almost every province, special municipality, and autonomous region.12 The BAC has instituted nine special committees to focus on the following issues: Tibetan Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism, Han Buddhist teaching, general Buddhist education, philanthropy, rights protection (quanyi baohu 权益保护), international exchange, culture and art, and finally laypeople’s affairs. Each of these small committees comprises over thirty members, except for 9 To a certain extent, the BAC Committee mirrors the CCP Congress: it convenes a national meeting to select its leaders after a certain number of years. However, the timing of CCP meetings has been more predictable than BAC meetings. In contrast to the CCP National Congress, which has met every five years since 1992, the BAC has held its meetings irregularly: in 1980, 1987, 1993, 2002, 2010, and 2015. 10 For the number of Han Buddhists, see infra. The total population of Tibetans stands

above 6.5 million. 11 The council includes members from the different provinces, special municipalities, and autonomous regions, and the members of the national headquarters represent the whole country. 12 This recursive governance structure imitates the CCP’s governance structure, with its Standing Committee selected by the Central Committee’s Politburo.

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the much smaller committee on the Theravada tradition.13 The Charity Committee’s composition sheds some light on its purpose and its development strategy. Mingsheng 明生, who heads the BAC Charity Committee at the time of writing, is assisted by three colleagues who have experience with charity work, such as Zewu 则悟, the abbot of Nanputuo, one of the first monasteries to get involved in philanthropy.14 The qualifications of the other two deputy heads, however, are less clear; Shenzhen 身振, the chair of the Chongqing Buddhist Association, and Jingbo 静波, the abbot of a temple in Harbin, both hail from provinces where there are very few Buddhists and little foundation on which to build up philanthropy. Among the other members of this committee, two are notable for their involvement in social services: Changhui 常辉 from the Hebei Merit Society, and Miaoxian 妙贤 from the Tianjin City Merit Society. The largest contingent of the committee comes from Fujian, which is the Chinese province with the largest number of Buddhists: Xianzhi 贤志 (vice chair of the provincial association), Dingheng 定恒 (the abbot of a temple in Xiamen), Xiangyuan 向愿 (the abbot of a temple in Quanzhou), Guanglin 广霖, and Zedao 泽道. The second-largest group comes from Sichuan, even though the number of Han Buddhists is small in that province: Haikong 海空 (chair of the Nanchong Buddhist Association), Suchuan 素全 (chair of the Deyang Buddhist Association), Zhaoguan 照观 (the abbott of a temple in Leshan), and Da’en 大恩. The third-largest group comes from Guangdong: Faxing 法性 (chair of the Shantou Buddhist Association), Hongru 弘如 (an abbot from Zhuhai), and Yaozhi 耀智 (an abbot in Lufeng). Only three of the committee members come from Zhejiang, despite the demographic importance of that province in the world of Chinese Buddhism: Dingfang 净芳 (chair of the Shaoxing Buddhist Association), Ciman 慈满 (an abbott in Anji), and Jianzong 贤宗. Two committee members come from Nanjing, in Jiangsu: Fahai 法海 and Lianhua 莲华 (the abbess of a temple in Nanjing). Two other members come from Jiangxi, another province with many Buddhists: Jingming 净明 (chair of the Shangrao Buddhist Association) and Miaole 妙乐 (chair of the

13 See ZFX (2017). 14 Ashiwa Yoshiko and David Wank have a forthcoming book on Nanputuo’s charity

foundation.

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Buddhist Association in Lushan District, Jiujiang city). Two delegates come from Shanxi, a province with a small number of devotees: Yidu— 度 and Beiji 悲寂 (the abbot of a temple in Taiyuan). Only one delegate hails from Anhui: Shengqing 圣清 (head of the Jiuhuashan Buddhist Association), and there is also only one from Shanghai: Shiliang 世良. Other delegates from provinces with a small number of Buddhist devotees include Chenggan 成刚, head of the Jilin province Buddhist Association; Zhang Rulan 张汝兰, lay secretary for the Hainan Buddhist Association; Renchang 仁昌 from Shandong; and Zhifeng 智丰 from Chongqing. In all four of these cases, the number of Buddhists in the delegates’ home provinces are small, while some provinces with a larger number of Buddhists—such as Yunnan, Henan, and Guangxi—have no delegates to represent them. The rationale behind the selection of these committee members remains unclear. It makes sense to see more delegates from Fujian, a province with a large proportion of Buddhists, and the location of one of the major Buddhist philanthropic actors, the Nanputuo monastery. Personal connections may matter as well: Xuecheng, the former leader of the BAC, came from Fujian.15 However, as the cases of Changhui from Hebei and Miaoxian from Tianjin demonstrate, provinces with fewer Buddhists have proven themselves able to develop viable philanthropic associations. A province’s wealth does not seem to be a determining factor either: while Tianjin is a wealthy municipality, Hebei is a much poorer province. Is the inclusion of delegates from provinces with few Buddhists and/or limited wealth indicative of an underlying strategy to expand in places where the need is greater? Answers to such questions will have to wait until the archives are opened and access to the minutes of BAC meetings is granted. To complete this portrait of the BAC’s central governance structure, one must include its four working offices (shi 室), four departments (bu 部), and its few specialized institutions, although the extent to which each of these is involved in the organization of philanthropy is unclear. The four working offices fulfill the following duties: management, research, Tibetan and Theravada affairs, and special projects. Each of the four departments deals with a separate mission: religious affairs, international exchange, education and training, and the publication of the association’s

15 I am grateful to Ji Zhe for pointing this out in a personal communication.

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journal, Fayin 法音 (Voice of Dharma). In addition, the BAC runs a research institute on Buddhism, preserves books and artifacts, supervises the Buddhist academy, and manages Nanjing’s carvings.16 The BAC is also directly responsible for five temples: Guangji 广济, Lingguang 灵光, and Fayuan 法源, all of which are located in Beijing, as well as Hongfa 弘 法 in Shenzhen and the Chinese temple of Nepal.17 These various duties reveal that behind the appearance of a religion aloof from worldly affairs, there is a vast BAC bureaucracy involved in many mundane undertakings. Any description of Buddhist governance institutions must include an account of the regional Buddhist associations. As we have seen with the distribution of Buddhist sites throughout the country, the distribution of Buddhist institutions is also not uniform. The starkly different registration dates of various provincial Buddhist associations bring to light the contrasting logic of different local governments. Hence in some provinces and autonomous regions where many Buddhists live, such as Fujian and Tibet, Buddhist associations registered early. But in some provinces that count very few Buddhists, such as Tianjin and Liaoning, Buddhist associations also registered early. Conversely, the associations in Jiangxi and Guangxi, which count more Buddhists both in absolute numbers and as a proportion of their populations, registered later than the others. These discrepancies reveal a variety of approaches on the part of local governments, and one would expect the same when it comes to the registration of charities. By 2000, just before Hu assumed leadership of the CCP, the process of registering provincial Buddhist associations had reached its conclusion: every province, special municipality, and autonomous region had its own association. The logic behind the registration of each of these provincial associations varied. While concerns about national unity and good relations with minorities could explain the early registration of the Tibet and Inner Mongolia Buddhist associations, no such motivation existed in the case of the Qinghai association—another territory where most of the population adheres to Buddhism, but where the Buddhist association registered more than two decades later. Even more surprising, some of the 16 At the time of writing, director positions for the Department of International Affairs and the Buddhist Academy remain unfilled, which suggests some slowing down of their activities. 17 This constitutes an aspect of China’s religious diplomacy, as discussed in Laliberté (2018).

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Han Buddhist associations—such as in Tianjin—registered early, although judging by the numbers of self-identified Buddhists and Buddhist sites seen in Table 1, the Buddhist proportion of the population in that city is negligible. One can attribute the late registration of most provincial Buddhist associations to the turbulence of the Maoist era, which put a stop to the process for a time, but this does not explain the late registration of associations in provinces where Buddhists are relatively numerous, such as Guangxi and Jiangxi. Although the BAC nominally promotes the interests of Buddhists nationwide, it does not manage the dynamics of provincial Buddhist organizations. Ji Zhe, who was studied the BAC’s leadership for years, has offered a very plausible hypothesis: the registration has nothing to do with the number of Buddhists. It depends on the depth of the local leaders’ engagement with the central BAC. If Shanghai is the first place where a local association was created, it is because Zhao Puchu comes from there. Jiangxi is important, but there was no important leader before Yicheng一诚. The founder of the Jiangxi Buddhist Association is Guoyi 果一, but he is not an influential figure, and he did not become a monk until 1944.18

A look at intra-provincial Buddhist dynamics reveals that other complex dynamics are also at work. The registration process for prefectural and county-level Buddhist associations did not mirror the institutionalization seen at the provincial level. In contrast to the existence of a Buddhist association for each province, not all prefectures registered a Buddhist association, even where the number of Buddhist sites would justify such an effort. Conversely, Buddhist associations have registered in some counties where the OSAC (2019) survey did not identify a single Buddhist site. A now-defunct website for Buddhists in Hubei province, Hubei fojiao zaixian 湖北佛教在线, provided a good example of these contradictions. It showed that while many municipalities and prefectures (shi 市), counties (xian 县), and special economic zones (qu 区) had their own Buddhist associations, they arrived at that stage at vastly different moments, from 1955 to 2008.19 This dataset (see Tables 3 and 4) reveals that the

18 Personal communication. 19 The data shows information on local Buddhist associations up to 2008: the website

has been taken down, but a screen capture shows the list of sites with their founding dates and other details. See HubFX (2008).

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Table 1

Creation dates for Provincial Buddhist Associations20

Year

Province

1954 1956 1957 1959

Shanghai Tibet Shanxi Hubeia

— 1962

Fujian

— 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988

Zhejiangd Jiangsu Anhui Henan Heilongjiang Hunan Jiangxi Shandong Guizhou

— 1993 1997 1999

Guangxi Chongqing Hainan

Gansu

Liaoning

Tianjin

Sichuan

Shaanxib

Yunnanc

Qinghai Guangdong Xinjiang

Jilin

Beijing

Hebei

Ningxia

Inner Mongolia

a HubFX (2019) b SMSW (2012) c YFX (2019) d ZjFX (2019)

municipal Buddhist association in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, registered four years before its provincial equivalent. Not surprisingly, Hubei indicates no registrations at all between 1959, when a single countylevel Buddhist association registered, and 1992, when such registration activities resumed. This suggests a haphazard registration process, which appears to have been bottom-up rather than top-down. The tables below reveal no logic whatsoever on the part of the provincial authorities. Table 2 shows that in three of the prefectures in

20 Unless otherwise indicated, registration dates prior to 1999 are taken from Chen and Deng (2003: 592 ff).

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which Buddhists registered an association, many monastics and laypeople also registered a county association in subsequent years, presumably because the number of sites was too large to manage. Daye County, for example, boasts more Buddhist sites than eight of the prefectures which have registered a Buddhist association. In five other prefectures, no county-level Buddhist association has registered, presumably because the number of sites does not justify doing so. In three other prefectures, however, county-level associations existed before any prefectural association emerged. If the provincial association was guiding this process, then it did not impose uniformity. This raises questions about the potential to manage and coordinate eventual relief operations among Buddhists at the provincial level, let alone nationally. Table 3 sheds light on the unsystematic process of local registration: in five of Hubei’s prefectures, a dozen county-level Buddhist associations had registered by 2008, and there was no prefectural association above them. In half of these counties, the motivation for registration is unclear. The OSAC dataset did not identify a single Buddhist site in four of these five prefectures. Keeping in mind the incomplete nature of the information collected in the OSAC survey and the lack of up-todate information available on the Hubei Buddhist Association, it would be premature to develop a hypothesis at this stage. Only greater openness and updated information could help us better understand local dynamics. Nevertheless, one finding clearly emerges: no matter how much the central government would like to mobilize Buddhist associations at the grassroots level, the latter’s capacity to respond to such a government directive varies enormously. These tables also demonstrate another finding: in most prefectures where Buddhist associations have been registered, Buddhist sites far outnumber Protestant sites. This is not the case for most of the county-level associations shown in Table 4. In these cases, Buddhist associations’ ability to mobilize resources for relief appears more limited.

3

Lay Associations

When considering the mobilization of Buddhists to help the government with social services delivery, the UFWD looks to monastics and the associations they lead in the hope that they will inspire their followers to donate money or time, or to participate in fundraising and social services delivery. The CCP seeks to take advantage of the fact that in the Buddhist

Buddhist (& Protestant) sites 69 (22) 239 (25)

4 (0) 213 (3)

103 (22)

Prefectural association

Wuhan 武汉市

Huangshi 黄石市

Tianmen 天门市

Huanggang 黄冈市

Jingzhou 荆州市

Year

1955

1992

1995

1999

1999

1995 1996 1999 2000 2002 2004 2005 2006 1996 1996 1996 1998 1999 2001

1996 1999 1996 1999 2000 2002 2003

Year

— Luotian 罗田县 Huangmei 黄梅县 Xishui 浠水县 Wuxue 武穴市 Qichun 蕲春市 Macheng 麻城市 Hong’an 红安佛协 Tuanfeng 团凤县 Jingzhou 荆州区 Songzi 松濨市 Jianli 监利县 Shishou 石首市 Honghu 洪湖市 Gong’an 公安县

Xinzhou 新洲区 Huangpi 黄陂区 Yangxin 阳新县 Daye 大冶市 Xisai 西寨区 Xialu 下陆区 Huangshigang 黄石港区

County associations within the prefecture

32 (0) 23 (0) 34 (1) 30 (0) 12 (0) 9 (0) 11 (0) 17 (0) 5 (0) 4 (0) 79 (19) 4 (2) 1 (1) 1 (0)

41 (0) 11 (0) 49 (6) 122 (12) 29 (1) 32 (0) 4 (4)

Buddhist (& Protestant) sites

Table 2 Registration dates for prefectural and county-level Buddhist Associations in Hubei, with corresponding numbers of Buddhist (and Protestant) sites

112 A. LALIBERTÉ

21 (31)

1 (0) 4 (2)

Xianning 咸宁市

Shennongjia 神农架21

Xiantao 仙桃市

Qianjiang 潜江市

Yichang 宜昌市

2001

2005

2006

2006

2007

5 (0) 16 (7) 4 (3) 8 (6) 2 (1) 3 (0)

Jiangling 江陵县 Echeng 鄂城区 Huarong 华容区 Chibi 赤壁市 Chongyang 崇阳县 Tongshan 通山县

2002 2004 2005 1993 1995 2001

—

—

—

—

Buddhist (& Protestant) sites

County associations within the prefecture

Year

THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF BUDDHISM SINCE 1949

21 This district offered no data.

25 (19)

Ezhou 鄂州市

2001

— 1 (0)

Buddhist (& Protestant) sites

Prefectural association

Year

5

113

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Table 3 Registration dates for county-level Buddhist Associations, with the corresponding numbers of Buddhist, Protestant, Catholic, Islamic, and Daoist sites in each county Prefecture

Year

County

Buddhist sites

Enshi 恩施

1959

*a

Xiangyang 襄阳

1999

Laifeng 来 凤县 Xiangfan 襄樊市 Yicheng 宜 城市 Zaoyang 枣 阳市 Laohekou 老河口市 Maojian 茅 箭区 Zhushan 竹 山县 Zhangwan 张湾区 Cengdu 曾 都区 Yingcheng 应城市 Xiaonan 孝 南区 Xiaochang 孝昌县

2003 2004 2004 Shiyan 十 堰

2000 2006 2008

Suizhou 随 2002 州 Xiaogan 孝 2003 感 2004 2006

Protestant sites

Catholic sites

Islamic sites

Daoist sites

3

3

0

1

3

0

0

0

1

0

0

1

2

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

1

0

0

1

0

11

6

2

0

0

4

0

1

0

0

2

0

0

0

1

8

0

0

0

1

*

*

a The OSAC mentions that the database provided no information in these cases

religious economy, lay devotees donate to monasteries to accumulate merit. As Weller, Huang, Wu, and Fan have indicated, giving to monks in Chinese societies often comes with the expectation of a return—such as good health, a marriage prospect, or prosperity—which mirrors common practices in popular religions.22 This could represent a key incentivizing mechanism that monks could leverage for fundraising. However, lay Buddhists can also contribute to philanthropy in other ways, by giving their time and volunteering. Monastics may provide the leadership and

22 Weller et al. (2017: 59).

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115

guidance necessary to launch philanthropic activities, but laypeople represent the key enabling component of such efforts. Therefore, to get a sense of Buddhists’ capacity to provide philanthropic assistance, one needs to look not only at the provincial, prefectural, and county-level Buddhist associations, which are most often run by clerics, but also at lay devotee associations, such as the household groves. The household groves have an ancient lineage. In his discussion of recent Buddhist institutional innovations, Ji Zhe refers to an official report cited by Holmes Welch, a prominent scholar of Buddhism in the 1970s, who found that laypeople had managed most of the Buddhist associations in China in the 1930s. Welch found at least 571 such associations, which he divided into four categories: “merit clubs” (gongdelin 功德林), which promoted a vegetarian diet; “study societies” (xuehui 学 会), which focused on disseminating specific doctrines and texts; Buddha name recitation groups; and a variety of groups that did not focus on one particular activity, but brought them all together. Most of the latter were so-called household groves.23 The increase in the number of lay Buddhists in the Republican era, as I have shown elsewhere,24 enabled the expansion of charitable activities. Brooks Jessup, writing about lay Buddhists during the same period, describes how important household groves were in supporting Buddhism’s resilience during that period of warfare, political instability, and predation on the part of authoritarian leaders.25 Wealthy patrons, such as Wang Yiting, contributed significantly to the welfare of monastics, but also to the printing and circulation of scriptures, sutra recitations, and other activities for lay devotees. Although lay Buddhists, as patriotic Chinese, stood by the government and offered a variety of key humanitarian services, such as tending to those wounded in the conflict, the financial support they received from wealthy patrons— themselves Buddhists, who often had close relationships with the CCP’s adversary, the GMD—made lay devotees vulnerable to CCP attacks. During the first years under the new regime, most lay Buddhists preferred to embrace the new leaders and cooperate with the government, and the institutionalization of the BAC was a relief to them. It

23 Ji (2016: 742). 24 I refer to a companion book to this one, about Chinese Buddhist philanthropy,

beyond the case of the PRC. 25 Jessup (2016).

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suggested that the new regime accepted the prospect of Buddhism as compatible with socialism. Furthermore, many lay Buddhists believed that the frugal behavior displayed by Mao and his followers indicated that they were genuine bodhisattvas rather than enemies of religion. Xue Yu recounts Buddhists’ efforts to reconcile their religious beliefs with Marxism. However, he concludes that these efforts were in vain and did not prevent the CCP from dissolving Buddhist institutions, thanks in part to certain Buddhist leaders who had—in Xue Yu’s words—“converted” to Marxism.26 The Cultural Revolution led to the closure of most household groves for about ten years. For those lay devotees who sought to continue worshipping during that period, even private religious practice was difficult, because they feared being denounced by their neighbors. Because the Buddhist associations had been closed, keeping Buddhist practice alive was challenging. Even after the CCP issued Document 19 in 1982, thus officially permitting religious activities, it took time for Buddhism as an institution to recover, and some lay associations only resumed their activities in the late 1990s. The household groves faced one major obstacle over the next twenty years: although religious belief had once again become permissible, central government regulations forbade the creation of new household groves, to prevent the mobilization of certain social groups. This situation changed during the Hu–Wen era, so that by 2006, as Ji has noted, registries of Buddhist sites included 168 new household groves.27 Nevertheless, this number does not tell the whole story. Efforts to organize household groves did not imitate the path taken by the Buddhist associations. Buddhists monastics had created far more associations than there are provinces in China, registering prefectural or even county-level ones. The corporatist principle enforced by the CCP, according to which each statesanctioned association has a monopoly on group representation within its domain, was respected if only one Buddhist association ruled Buddhist affairs within a particular administrative entity. Lay Buddhist devotees acted likewise when they established household groves. A closer look at the localization of these groves, however, sheds lights on lay Buddhism’s regional specificities.

26 Xue (2016: 208). 27 Ji (2016: 748).

5

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The information about household grove activities in Table 4, which reflects the situation in 2009, showed them at what is their peak activity level. Since then, an online search suggests that many have either closed their doors, become more discrete about their activities, or changed addresses. However, some remain active. The ones I visited in Beijing in 2014 and in Shanghai in 2017 seemed small locations, in terms of both facilities and number of members, when one bears in mind the enormous dimensions of these two cities. Conversely, in 2013 the Shengze 盛泽 household grove in the Wujiang 吴江district in Suzhou boasted the capacity to welcome 350 people, out of an estimated population of 3500 “believers” (xinzong 信众) in the area.28 In 2009, the distribution of household groves in Fujian and Zhejiang reflected a level of Buddhist practice consistent with what we can infer based on the numbers in the above-mentioned surveys. Conversely, the number of household groves in Guangdong suggests more activity than the numbers of self-declared Buddhists and Buddhist sites would indicate, while those for Yunnan suggest far less. This may reflect different levels of tolerance on the part of the authorities, varying degrees of laxity in registering such spaces, or even simple indifference. Gareth Fisher is one of the few scholars who has used participant observation among lay Buddhists, and the insights he has provided are truly relevant in attempting to assess the extent to which they can contribute to relief provision. Fisher has mapped religious differences among Buddhists using the concept of textual communities and has distinguished between those communities that are based on a specific teaching—which he calls master-centered communities, some of which are virtual and some of which are centered on a certain location—and free-distribution communities, which receive their texts in more complex ways. These differences have led him to suggest that religious practice remains divided by social class.29 This insight is significant because it suggests that although Buddhists share absolute values—such as compassion and merit—in a very abstract sense, they may apprehend and respond differently when clerics call upon them to turn their tenets into charitable practice. 28 This is an underestimation, considering the population of Suzhou and the extent of Buddhist activity in the city, where Hanshan temple and Tzu Chi are both thriving. On the Buddhist lodge, see WJT (2019). 29 Fisher (2011).

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Table 4

Distribution of household groves per Province30 Buddhists (in millions)

Fujian

15.6

Zhejiang

13.4

Jiangsuc

11.2

Yunnan

6.2

Guangdong

5.7

Henan

5.2

Anhui

4.9

Qinghai

4.8

Guangxi

4.7

Jiangxi

3.7

Inner Mongolia

3.0

Shandong

2.9

Tibet

2.5

Shanghai

2.4

Shaanxi

2.4

Liaoning

2.3

Beijing

2.2

Jilin

2.2

Gansu

1.8

Sichuan

1.7

Heilongjiang

1.6

Provincial level

Prefectural level

County levela

Unspecified

13

11

8

2

16b

5

10

9

9

6

— 22

— 14

2

5

2

3

—

—

—

—

—

—

— 1

— 3

— 1

1

2

— — — — — — —

—

2

— 6 2

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

— 1

—

— 1

— 1 — — — 1

—

— 2

—

—

—

—

— 1

— 4

— 1

—

—

—

—

3 1 —

(continued) 30 The staff that was collecting, storing, and publishing information on the activities of

these Buddhist lodges in the online Buddhist resource library managed by Polin monastery has ceased operations. See FZK (2009).

5

Table 4

THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF BUDDHISM SINCE 1949

119

(continued) Buddhists (in millions)

Hunan

1.6

Hubei

1.2

Hebei

1.1

Shanxi

0.8

Guizhou

0.7

Chongqing

0.2

Ningxia

—

Xinjiang

—

Tianjin

—

Hainan

—

Provincial level

Prefectural level

—

— 1

— — — —

— 2 —

County levela 1 — — 2 1 1

Unspecified

— 1 — 2 —

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

— 1

—

—

—

—

— 2

—

—

—

—

a This includes townships and urban districts b This includes one village-level grove. c Some of the groves are identified as activity points or centers (huodongdian 活动点).

Even if it is true that the laity is fragmented, its role is vital in ensuring the survival of the Buddhist community, monastics included. When the BAC decides to follow up on CCP directives, its ability to mobilize becomes crucial. Therefore, assessing the extent to which the state can obtain assistance for its social policies from Buddhists requires us to focus on the changing relations between the CCP and the BAC over the years. Clerical calls for lay Buddhists to donate during “religious charity week” events include an obvious element of merit-making, as Weller, Fan, Huang, and Wu have argued in their comparative study of Buddhist charity in China, Malaysia, and Taiwan.31 However, philanthropy also competes with other activities by which lay devotees can gain merits, such as the production and circulation of Buddhist scriptures, or the “release of living.” Hence some of the lay communities Fisher has

31 Weller et al. (2017: 60–61).

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observed up close believe that gaining merit by distributing texts is more efficient than financial giving or volunteering because they themselves are socially marginalized and economically destitute: they gain an important sense of self-worth from this activity.32 Fisher argues elsewhere that the state tolerates the distribution of religious literature because it constitutes a veiled and therefore safe expression of discontent—one which remains confined to a particular religious site, in contrast to Protestant associations.33 In sum, appealing to Buddhists to take up philanthropic activities is more attractive to the CCP because Buddhists seem to be more pious than contentious.

4

Conclusions

Buddhist associations’ capacity to assist the state in social services provision depends on more than successfully asserting their religious authority over household groves and lay devotees and convincing them of the spiritual value of giving. The BAC’s and the local Buddhist associations’ ability to raise funds for charity depends on whether they have successfully managed to overcome the perception that Buddhism is a religion that lives at society’s expense. Monastics have struggled for centuries to shake the perception—shared by many non-Buddhists—that they live a parasitic existence. A mixture of contempt on the part of die-hard atheists in the CCP and skepticism on the part of the religiously indifferent majority in China has only reinforced such views. Since the end of the Cultural Revolution, the BAC and its related associations have adopted different strategies to ensure that monks and lay Buddhists in general do not have to face such prejudice.

References Chen Bing 陈兵, and Deng Zimei 邓子美. 2003. Ershi shiji Zhongguo fojiao 二 十世纪中国佛教. Taibei: Xiandai Chan 现代禅. Fisher, Gareth. 2011. “Morality Books and the Regrowth of Lay Buddhism in China.” In Adam Chau, ed., Religion in Contemporary China: Revitalization and Innovation, pp. 53–80. London: Routledge.

32 Fisher (2016: 75). 33 Fisher (2017: 267).

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Fisher, Gareth. 2016. “Mapping Textual Difference: Lay Buddhist Textual Communities in the Post-Mao Period.” In Jan Kiely and J. Brooks Jessup, eds. Recovering Buddhism in Modern China, 257–290. New York: Columbia University Press. Fisher, Gareth. 2017. “Lay Buddhists and Moral Activism in Contemporary China.” Review of Religion and Chinese Society 4 no. 2: 247–270. FZK (Fojiao Ziyuan Ku 佛教资源库). 2009. Jushilin 居士林. Hong Kong: Po Lin Temple. Accessed August 12, 2012. Previously available at: http://hk. plm.org.cn/organ.asp?. HubFX (Hubei Fojiao Xiehui 湖北佛教协会). 2008. “Quansheng ge shizhou jixianqu fojiao xiehui zeren renmindan 全省各市州及县区佛教协会负责人名 单.” Hubei fojiao zai xian 湖北佛教在线. Accessed June 10, 2011. Previously available at: http://www.hbfjzx.com/jcfj/hbfj/fxjj/200812/831.html. HubFX (Hubei Fojiao Xiehui 湖北佛教协会). 2019. “Jinian Hubei fojiao xiehui chengli 60 zhounian 纪念湖北省佛教协会成立60周年.” Huaibei xuefowang 淮北学佛网. Accessed October 29, 2020. Available at: https://huaib.com/ dongtai/tongqi/2019-06-27/2081.html. Ji Zhe. 2012–2103. “Chinese Buddhism as a Social Force: Reality and Potential of Thirty Years of Revival.” Chinese Sociological Review 45 (2): 8–26. Ji Zhe. 2016. “Buddhist Institutional Innovations.” In Modern Chinese Religion II: 1850–2015, ed. Vincent Goossaert, Jan Kiely, and John Lagerwey, 731– 766. Leiden: Brill. Ji Zhe. 2019. “Schooling Dharma Teachers: The Buddhist Academy System and Sangha Education.” In Ji Zhe, Gareth Fisher, and André Laliberté, eds., Buddhism after Mao: Negotiations, Continuities, and Reinventions, 171–209. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Jessup, J. Brooks. 2016. “Buddhist Activism, Urban Space, and Ambivalent Modernity in 1920s Shanghai.” In Jan Kiely and J. Brooks Jessup, eds.,Recovering Buddhism in Modern China, 37–78. New York: Columbia University Press. Laliberté, André. 2018. “Geopolitics of Buddhism.” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 25: 395–427. OSAC (Online Spiritual Atlas of China). 2019. Accessed August 12, 2019. Available at: https://www.globaleast.org/map/index.html. Pew Research Center (Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life). 2012. The Global Religious Landscape: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Major Religious Groups as of 2010. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. SMSW (Shaanxi sheng minzu zongjiao shiwuju weiyuanhui 陕西省民族宗教事务 局委员会). 2012. “Shaanxi sheng fojiao xiehui chengli wushi zhounian qingzu dahui juxing 陕西省佛教协会成立五十周年庆祝大会举行.” Accessed August

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12, 2019. Available at: http://mzzj.shaanxi.gov.cn/newstyle/pub_newsshow. asp?id=29003915&chid=100208. Weller, Robert P., C. Julia Huang, Wu Keping, and Fan Lizhu. 2017. Religion and Charity: The Social Life of Goodness in Chinese Societies. New York: Cambridge University Press. Xue Yu. 2016. “Buddhist Efforts for the Reconciliation of Buddhism and Marxism in the Early Years of the People’s Republic of China.” In Recovering Buddhism in Modern China, ed. Jan Kiely and J. Brooks Jessup, 177–215. New York: Columbia University Press. WJT (Wujiangtong 吴江通). 2019. “Shengze fojiao jushilin 盛泽佛教居士林.” Wujiang qu dang’anju difangzhi binzuan ke 吴江区档案局地方志编纂科. Accessed October 29, 2020. Available at: http://www.wujiangtong.com/web Pages/DetailNews.aspx?id=11789. YFX (Yunnan fojiao xiehui 佛教协会). 2019. “Benhui jieshao.” Accessed August 12, 2019. Available at: http://www.ynsfx.com.cn/guanyu/. ZFX (Zhongguo fojiao xiehui 中国佛教协会). 2017. “Zuzhi jigou 组织机构.” Benhui jiashao 本会介绍. Accessed October 29, 2020. Available at: http:// www.chinabuddhism.com.cn/e/action/ListInfo/?classid=533. ZjFX (Zhejiang fojiao xiehui 佛教协会). 2019. “Xiehui jieshao.” Accessed August 12, 2019. Available at: http://www.zjfjxh.com/Public/Default.aspx.

CHAPTER 6

Buddhism and the CCP Since 1949

The assertion that the state hopes Buddhist associations will contribute to the public interest raises a few issues: Does the number of Buddhist adherents in contemporary Chinese society justify this enthusiasm? Below, I present two key dimensions about the place of Buddhism in contemporary Chinese society: its numerical importance, and its boundaries with other religions. I introduce these data with the following caveats. The number provided below, in their indeterminate nature, reflects the difficulty of undertaking surveys about religious beliefs and practices in a society where the official discourse is biased against it. In relation to this, the responses of individuals to surveys about their beliefs is limited by the options on offer: they can indicate their belief in one of the five religions the state recognize, or they claim they identify with none. The latter option can mislead observers: they do not necessarily demonstrate one is an atheist, but a believer in another religion that the state does not recognize.

1

How Many Buddhists?

Any discussion of Buddhist philanthropy must start with a correct appreciation of the numerical importance of that religion, or more precisely, the number of people who claim that this tradition directly influences © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 A. Laliberté, Religion and China’s Welfare Regimes, Religion and Society in Asia Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7270-5_6

123

124

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their lives. China is not a Buddhist-majority country in any way comparable to Thailand or Cambodia; in an officially atheist country, Buddhism represents a minority religion among other minority religions, even if it is the largest one. To what extent do Buddhists represent a marginalized minority in China, with most people ignoring Buddhist calls for charity? To what extent do Buddhists constitute a large, influential minority capable of influencing the rest of the population by their example of good conduct? Counting the number of Buddhists in China is more difficult than counting Christians and Muslims. While the latter congregate in a place of worship on a regular basis, Buddhists rarely do so, and many people who visit temples may not consider themselves Buddhists. In the last year of the Hu administration, Ji Zhe estimated that between 200 and 300 million people were “sensitive to elements of Buddhist cosmology and participate[d] occasionally in the events organized by Buddhists.”1 Many aspects of religious life in China and of the government’s relation to religion complicate attempts to enumerate the followers of any given religion. No scholar can take the official numbers seriously: for many years, this official figure has hovered around roughly 100 million Buddhists, even though the total Chinese population has grown, and evidence of an increase in Buddhist practice suggests growth rather than decline. SARA’s figures from 2018, as quoted by Katharina WenzelTeuber offer the following numbers of Buddhist sites: 28,538 temples in the Han tradition, 3857 Tibetan sites, and 1705 Theravada sites. For the same year, SARA also indicated a total of 72,000 Han monastics, 148,000 Tibetan Buddhist clerics, and 2000 Theravada monastics.2 These numbers indicate a formidable increase in the data released by the official Bureau of Statistics in 2004, which provided a total of 17,000 Buddhist temples and other organizations, which they counted as economic units.3 The idea that the number of Buddhist temples doubled in such a short time beggars belief; thus this difference invites questions about the reliability

1 Ji (2012–2013: 12). 2 See Wenzel-Teuber (2018: 34). 3 See ACMRC (2010). While it was made available in 2010, this document compiled

a survey conducted in 2004. Although most of these are religious sites—such as religious association headquarters, temples, monasteries, Buddhist academies, household groves, and even charities—the purpose of the survey compiled by the Bureau of Statistics was to quantify the economic dimensions of religious sites: their financial assets, the number of people who manage them, their address, etc.

6

BUDDHISM AND THE CCP SINCE 1949

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of the various official sources. The more recent figures better reflect the reality, but the 2004 figures offer much more information: they provide the dates when the sites were founded, the number of personnel, available financial resources, addresses, and contact persons.4 For more detailed and qualitative information on economic activity and political affairs, local gazetteers, or almanacs (nianjian 年鉴) provide detailed data at the provincial and prefectural levels. However, information on religion ranges from vague to non-existent. Prefectural gazetteers provide timeseries data for periods of up to ten years and usually present their information in a uniform way across the country. Even if provincial economic performance and political circumstances differ, their data presentation tends to employ the same formulaic approach. Following basic demographic data, annual political events, and economic activity, the gazetteer usually offers a section on social life, with reports on social organizations sponsored by the CCP, social indicators, and near the end, information on minorities and religious affairs.5 Few gazetteers provide detailed information on the number of adherents to the five main religions.6 Adding up the number of Buddhists based on such fragmentary data is impossible. Counting temples might be a slightly better indicator of the extent of Buddhist activities, as I discuss below. However, counting temples simply tells us about monastics. It does not indicate how much the latter influence broader society outside the monasteries. It gives us no idea of how many people have taken the precepts or how many would be willing to follow the directives of their spiritual leaders. In 2007, the Chinese Spiritual Life Survey (CSLS) estimated that 185 million people consider themselves Buddhists, and 17 million have taken the vow of the “Three Refuges” (in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha).7 These results came as a shock because they suggested that BAC numbers had vastly underestimated the number of Buddhists in China. In 2012, the China Family Panel Studies (Zhongguo jiating zhui

4 The Bureau of Statistics has not replicated or updated that survey since. 5 In some cases, the demographic data includes numbers of believers. The section on

social life provides details on events. 6 A list of the gazetteers I consulted is available in the appendix. 7 For a discussion of the CSLS and the CFPS, see Wenzel-Teuber (2015).

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A. LALIBERTÉ

zong diaocha 中国家庭追踪调查, CFPS), a well-known survey agency in China, produced starkly different results. It asked respondents: “To which religion do you belong?” (nin shuyu shenme zongjiao 您属于什么 宗教) and gave them a choice of the five recognized religions. Only 6.7% of those surveyed chose “Buddhism”; nevertheless, this constituted the largest group among the ten percent who indicated that they had a religious belief. Many scholars have questioned the reliability of this survey in a context where many people consider religion a sensitive issue and would be unlikely to disclose too much. Hence in 2014, the addition of other questions about traditional beliefs—such as “karmic retribution”—led to a quite different conclusion, which came closer to the CSLS’s earlier findings. However, disagreements over these numbers do not change the fact that only a minority of the population consider themselves Buddhist. Moreover, in light of the discussion about the history of Buddhist philanthropy in my other book on Chinese Buddhism beyond the PRC, this minority has lost the cultural prestige and societal presence it once enjoyed, even if one accepts the story of Buddhism’s recent revival.8 Whether one accepts the figures provided by the government or by private surveys, the extent of the precipitous decline Buddhism experienced in the twentieth century is clear when measured against the much higher numbers of monasteries and temples under the Ming and Qing dynasties. In her study of Beijing temples, for example, Susan Naquin has examined the period from 1400 to 1900, and she notes that at the height of the Qing Dynasty, the capital city counted over two thousand temples dedicated to a wide variety of deities, a good proportion of which were Buddhist. Naquin further comments that this number is an underestimate because many shrines and other small places of worship have left little to no trace of their existence. It is possible to infer how many of these temples could be considered “Buddhist” by looking at their names. Naquin has compiled a list of 2564 temples used during the Ming–Qing period. Among them, she has identified 859 miao 庙 (temples), 783 si 寺 (monasteries or cloisters), 415 an庵 (convents or nunneries), 143 ci 祠 (shrines), 40 chanlin 禅林 (Chan monasteries), 28 ge 阁 (nunneries), 37 tang 堂 (halls), 34 dian 殿 (temples), 29 yuan 院 (sanctuaries or courtyards), and 7 ta 塔

8 This refers to the revival identified in Ji (2012–2013).

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BUDDHISM AND THE CCP SINCE 1949

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(pagodas).9 She acknowledges the limitations of her approach, however. Some temple and places of worship have more than one designation and might therefore represent more than one religion. Moreover, although some terms—such as miao, si, and an—can be used to refer to Buddhism, they can also apply to non-Buddhist temples and places of worship: for example, “mosque” is commonly translated qingzhen si 清真寺 (pure truth temple). Nevertheless, even if one employs a restrictive definition, the total number of Buddhist sites is a considerably larger number than the 39 Buddhist and Daoist temples which SARA registered in Beijing in 2012.10 Finding out which gods are worshiped at a religious site can also help infer its religious identity. Naquin compiled a table of the main deities worshipped in over 700 temples that she has studied closely. Based on this dataset, one can infer each site’s main religious identity. Naquin noted that 203 venerated the Goddess of Mercy (Guanyin 观音) as their main deity, 32 Ks.itigarbha, the bodhisattva of hell (Dizang 地藏),11 and another 16 venerated the Buddha, in addition to 50, 11, and 18 (respectively) dedicated to the worship of these gods as secondary deities.12 In other words, approximately 300 temples could qualify as Buddhist. This number of temples served a population that exceeded 2 million people when the Ming Dynasty chose Beijing as its capital. Although this population declined to 700,000 following the violent transition between the Ming and Qing dynasties in 1644, it had recovered to its previous peak by the end of Qianlong’s reign (1736–1796). The population continued to grow during the Republican era and declined again during the Sino– Japanese War and the Civil War, only to grow steadily for sixty years after 1949, by a factor of ten. The number of registered places of worship has not followed suit, however; according to the figures mentioned above, it declined by a magnitude of more than ten. In the Republican era, the number of temples decreased due to warfare, neglect, and predation on the part of various rulers. After 1949, that number fell further, although it experienced a modest revival after Deng Xiaoping took power. A very generous estimate of the number

9 Naquin (2000: 23). 10 For the SARA data, see Wenzel-Teuber (2015: 30). 11 He is worshipped for his vow not to achieve Buddhahood until all hells are emptied. 12 Naquin (2000: 37).

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A. LALIBERTÉ

of temples presented by different tourist agencies reveals that there are up to one hundred Buddhist sites in Beijing. However, the BAC and the Beijing gazetteers count far less than that number, reflecting the numbers government agencies prefer. Finally, recent attempts to count religious sites that rely on official sources and disseminate this information openly tend to grossly underestimate the number of sites. Hence the Online Spiritual Atlas of China (OSAC), which uses data from the 2004 Economic Census, lists 72,887 religious sites but counts only 2 Buddhists sites in Beijing—a number which is much lower than those found in other sources.13 The number of Buddhist sites has diminished since the imperial era, but a tendency to exaggerate this decline and to miscount the number of sites invites caution when assessing the extent to which Buddhist associations can assist the state.

2

Some Distinctions Within Buddhism

Even if one could accurately assess how many Buddhist sites exist, a host of other issues complicate the authorities’ efforts to mobilize Buddhism’s resources. The differences between Buddhists and other religious adherents are not always clear; the differences between groups of people who consider themselves Buddhists make coordinating among them difficult; and finally, the concentration of Buddhist groups varies considerably throughout China. The first difficulty in counting “Buddhists” refers to the practice of popular religions, which blurs the boundaries between discrete religious identities: the above discussion of attempts by Naquin and others to identify temples’ multiple religious affiliations has already raised this issue. Many people who say they do not consider themselves “Buddhist” nevertheless believe in some of the concepts associated with that religion, such as karmic retribution, and would even worship an effigy of the Buddha in a popular religious temple. Another source of uncertainty in counting Buddhists is the number of “new religious movements” that register as Buddhist and claim this affiliation to avoid government harassment. This is what Sun Yanfei has referred to as the third of the

13 The OSAC dataset counts 22 Islamic sites but no Daoist sites in Beijing: this may result from the fact that municipal authorities do not consider religious sites as economic units. Numbers for Shanghai better reflect the local religious reality: the OSAC dataset lists 73 sites identified with Buddhism, 21 with Daoism, 91 with Protestantism, 80 with Catholicism, and 7 with Islam.

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three types of religious actors in the Buddhist ecology, which she describes as “groups that practice the kind of religious form in which Buddhism is mixed with popular religion, self-appointed Buddhist monks and nuns, and religious sects with a Buddhist tinge.”14 Two other key distinctions within Buddhism are also important. The first relates to the three traditions of Han, Tibetan, and Southern Buddhism, which the authorities on religious affairs have construed as ethnic differences. While most Tibetans worship according to the Tibetan school, so do Mongols and other minorities, as well as many Han Chinese. Likewise, many different national minorities practice the rites of the Theravada tradition. The hierarchies within Tibetan Buddhism—which includes lamas, the Living Buddha, and other kinds of spiritual leaders— differ from those of Han Buddhism. Finally, Han Buddhist rituals may have more in common with those of Han popular religions and Han redemptive societies than with those of the two other Buddhist traditions. Although the BAC brings these three traditions under the same umbrella, the differences between them are considerable, and in the next chapters, I will focus on Han Buddhism, which has its own sources of complexity. The second distinction relates to the geographical dispersion and distribution of Buddhists throughout China. In some provinces, Buddhism is the religion practiced by much of the population—or by a majority of those who identify as religious. Buddhism has spread unevenly in China, and its contemporary distribution reflects the legacy of its long history as much as the consequences of local politics. Ji Zhe offers some particularly useful data on the regional distribution of temples in China in 2006. Three provinces have a far higher concentration of sites per capita: Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi, which count 58, 55, and 38 sites per million people, respectively. Guangdong and Yunnan come next, both with about 16 temples per million people.15 These numbers suggest that Buddhism is primarily a southern phenomenon. The Atlas of Religion in China, which relies on data provided by the 2004 survey mentioned above, with all of its limitations, nevertheless offers fine-grained results at the prefectural and county levels and enables comparisons between Buddhist sites and those associated with 14 The first type are the officially registered Buddhist associations; the second type includes PRC residents who are followers of Buddhist leaders who live outside the country. See Sun (2011: 499). 15 Ji (2013: 17).

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the other four state-recognized religions.16 The atlas does not provide a breakdown of Han, Tibetan, and Theravada Buddhist temples; however, it gives a good sense of the spatial distribution of sites in the areas with a Han-majority population. In conjunction with the OSAC dataset mentioned above, these data indicate—in addition to most of the counties in the three provinces Ji identifies—a concentration of Buddhist sites in southern Hunan, southern Anhui, and Jiangsu provinces, thus confirming that Buddhism’s influence constitutes a key aspect of Jiangnan culture. However, important concentrations of counties in which most religious sites are Buddhist also appear in eastern Sichuan and eastern Hubei.17 As the chapter on their regional distribution will demonstrate, Buddhist philanthropic activities do not necessarily correlate with these demographic centers of Buddhist practice. Bearing in mind the lack of precision about who counts as a Buddhist, when one relies on the absolute number of Buddhist sites rather than the proportion of self-declared Buddhists among the population, one arrives at a slightly different ranking of the relative importance of different provincial Buddhist communities. Hence, although Jiangsu boasts a smaller number of sites relative to Guangdong and Yunnan provinces, the survey results indicate more people per million who claim to be Buddhists in that province relative to the other two. Comparing the number of religious sites and the number of people who claim to be Buddhists in Fujian and Zhejiang, on the one hand, and in Jiangsu on the other, raises the question of whether the number of believers in Jiangsu has been inflated or whether the number of temples has been underestimated. Comparing the number of religious sites in the same province reveals other inconsistencies: the number of self-proclaimed Protestants is almost four times smaller than the number of self-proclaimed Buddhists, but the former manages more than twice as many places of worship. Similar discrepancies appear in Henan, in Anhui, and in the three provinces of northeast China. The numbers presented in this table vary considerably from those provided by the respective local governments in official gazetteers. Hence for 2014, Guangdong province counted over 2.6 million Buddhists—or close to half the number presented in Table 1—as well as 519,600 Protes-

16 Yang (2018). 17 See OSAC (2019).

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Table 1

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Numbers of Buddhist and Christian adherents and sites per Province

Province

Fujian Zhejiang Jiangsu Yunnan Guangdong Henan Anhui Qinghai Guangxi Jiangxi Inner Mongolia Shandong Tibet Shanghai Shaanxi Liaoning Beijing Jilin Gansu Sichuan Heilongjiang Hunan Hubei Hebei Shanxi Guizhou Chongqing Ningxia Xinjiang Tianjin Hainan

Buddhists (in millions)

Buddhists (as % of the population)

Christians (as % of the population)

Buddhist sites

Christian sites

15.6 13.4 11.2 6.2 5.7a 5.2 4.9 4.8 4.7 3.7 3.0

40.4 24 14.2 13.1 5.2 5.5 7.8 81.7 9.6 8.0 12.1

4 3.9 2.7 0.7 0.7 5.0 4.3 0.8 0.2 0.7 2.0

2678 2947 416 693 614 187 676 625 62 1132 113

1475 2519 993 655 315 1939 2040 13 72 575 210

2.9 2.5 2.4 2.4 2.3 2.2 2.2 1.8 1.7 1.6 1.6 1.2 1.1 0.8 0.7 0.2 – – – –

2.9 78.0 10.3 6.4 5.3 11.2 8.2 6.9 2.1 4.4 2.4 2.1 1.6 3.7 1.9 0.9 – – – –

1.5 0.0 1.9 1.7 2.0 0.8 3.3 0.3 0.3 3.6 0.5 1.7 1.1 1.6 0.5 0.3 1.2 1.0 0.4 0.5

14 1319 73 187 311 2 71 513 1412 96 764 759 100 279 178 102 211 46 6 2

256 0 95 279 733 3 705 168 93 415 144 160 75 228 118 46 13 91 15 –

a The numbers provided here are slightly lower than the CFPS estimates for 2012, which covered

only five provincial entities and offered the following results for the percentage of Buddhist believers among the people they surveyed in Guangdong (6.2), Henan (6.4), Shanghai (10.4), Liaoning (5.5), and Gansu (8.2). See Wenzel-Teuber (2015: 23)

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tants and 441,000 Daoists. The same source mentioned 4097 Buddhist religious personnel (zongjiao renyuan 宗教人员) compared to 937 Protestant and 824 Daoist personnel, but there is no data on places of worship. Likewise, it gives a breakdown of social organizations related to religious associations at the provincial, prefectural, and county levels—5, 72, and 152, respectively—but offers no details on which religious associations run these organizations or what their activities are.18 We cannot draw any definitive conclusions about the number of Buddhists in China. However, in official surveys, a greater number of people have identified themselves as Buddhists than as Daoists, Muslims, or Catholics. The only religion that can claim to attract as many followers as Buddhism is Protestant Christianity. While governments and various segments of the population in modern Chinese history have viewed Protestantism as a “foreign” religion, Buddhism has not suffered this reproach as often.19 Even though most Chinese consider Buddhism a national religion, decades of atheist education have permeated society to the extent that Buddhist devotees find it difficult to gain acceptance and avoid the critique of religion as the “opiate of the masses.” The question of demonstrating their loyalty to the regime and their acceptance, if not their embrace of the new society has run like a leitmotiv through Buddhist experience. Buddhist monastics and lay devotees understand the need to organize to ensure their survival as they face these adverse circumstances.

3

Relations Between the CCP and the BAC

While the GMD governed China, it recognized the Buddhist Association of the Republic of China (zhongguo fojiaohui 中国佛教会, BAROC) as the main organization authorized to represent Buddhists. This organization could not survive as an independent association under the CCP, so many of its leaders went into exile in Taiwan, where they later reconstituted the association. The first years of the PRC proved difficult for those Buddhist monastics who stayed, such as Xuyun 虚云 (ca. 1864–1959) and Yuanying 圆瑛 (1878–1953), who sought to create a national Buddhist association. The UFWD worked with the BRA to prevent the establishment of independent Buddhist organizations and encouraged the creation

18 Guangdong sheng renmin zhengfu (2014: 6). 19 I have heard people in national studies (guoxue 国学) make this claim.

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of a new Buddhist Association of China (zhongguo fojiao xiehui 中国佛 教协会, BAC) that would be under its control.20 Relations between the ruling party and Buddhism has gone through four distinct phases. 3.1

The Original Growth Phase

The First BAC Congress (1953–1957), held at Guangji 广济temple in Beijing, convened from May to June 1953 and choose Yuanying as its first president. The first meeting of that congress nominated Xuyun, the 14th Dalai Lama (1935–present), the 10th Panchen Erdeni班禅额 尔德尼 (1938–1989), and Chaghan Gegen查干葛根 (1988–1956) from Inner Mongolia as honorary presidents. Xuyun’s nomination constituted recognition of his efforts to create a national association on behalf of all Buddhists. The elevation of the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama, and Chaghan Gegen signaled that the government valued the loyalty of Tibetans and Mongols, an arrangement reminiscent of Qing Dynasty practice. When the BAC honored Yuanying and Xuyun, other important Buddhist personalities—such as Yinguang, Hongyi, and Taixu—had all passed away. When Yuanying passed away shortly after assuming his role, the BAC nominated Shes-rab Rgya-mtsho (Xirao Jiacuo 喜饶嘉措, 1884– 1968)21 to succeed him, someone who had worked with the GMD and later with the CCP. Ji has argued that the roles of the president and the vice presidents were purely ceremonial—Zhao Puchu, who was also the BAC secretary general, held the real power.22 The group of seven vice presidents nominated by the First Congress also reflected the ethnic diversity within Buddhism in China, although it was out of proportion in terms of the number of Tibetans and other minorities. This group comprised the Tibetan lama Shes-rab Rgya-mtsho; another lama from Sichuan, Ngag-dbang Rgya-mtsho (Awang Jiacuo 阿旺嘉措, 1894–1968); and a Living Buddha from Lhasa, Kun-bdegling ‘Jigs-med Rgyal-mtshan (Gongdelin Jinmeijicun 公德林·晋美吉村). It also included another Living Buddha from Inner Mongolia, Galsang (Helazang 噶喇藏, 1911–1965), and a Dai Buddhist leader, Kuba (Huba 祜巴). Only two members of that group, Nenghai 能海 and Zhao Puchu 20 For a detailed account of this period, see Hou (2012). 21 Another alternative is Sherap Gyatso. 22 Ji (2016: 325).

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赵朴初, were Han. Nenghai was a monk who had promoted esoteric and Tibetan Buddhism among the Han, and Zhao had become famous in Shanghai for his work sheltering refugees during the war, but most importantly, the premier of the PRC, Zhou Enlai, and the CCP trusted that he would support the new regime.23 Among these seven vice presidents, only Zhao could speak on behalf of the Han traditions. Ji Zhe has correctly described this line-up as indicating “the nakedly political ambitions of the BAC: it symbolized the unification of the new China.”24 Bearing in mind that Taixu also wanted to encourage a greater role for the laity, it is noteworthy that, apart from Zhao, the BAC chooses clerics as vice presidents. While the central leadership lavished praise on these clerics for their patriotism and their commitment to socialism and appeared to befriend them—arguably to gain international legitimacy—local government policies belied this impression. Lay devotees and clerics faced much hardship at the hands of the lower levels of government. As Jan Kiely recalls in his archival studies of temples in Suzhou in the years immediately following “liberation,” local CCP cadres engaged in a systematic campaign of suppression to deprive local Buddhist communities of the resources essential to their survival. Immediately upon entering the city, PLA troops requisitioned the monasteries of Baoji 宝积 and Nanlongxing 南隆兴 to house soldiers. Most problematic, he writes, the new regime imposed regulations on monasteries that deprived them of their means of subsistence.25 This was not an isolated case: Hou Kunhong 侯坤宏 reports that between 1949 and 1952, monastics in the district of Dinghai and the cities of Ningbo, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, and Chengdu had to leave monasteries to engage in productive work, or even turn their monasteries into factories.26 This was part of the CCP’s two-pronged approach to ensuring that Buddhists would conform to the new society. On the one hand, the CCP did not forbid Dharma talks, and local governments even repaired and restored famous temples that had suffered damage during

23 Ji (2017: 322–323). 24 Ibid.: 324. 25 Kiely (2016: 228–229). 26 Hou (2012: 85–89).

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the armed conflicts.27 On the other hand, devotees were required to join ideological reform movements.28 3.2

The Years of Calamity

The Second Congress (1957–1962) almost coincided with the outbreak of the Great Leap Forward famine. Shes-rab Rgya-mtsho remained in his position as BAC president, but the composition of the smaller group of six vice presidents indicated greater prominence for Han monastics. Of the previous group of vice presidents, only two remained in place: Nenghai and Zhao. Of the other four, two were not Han Buddhists: the Tibetan Living Buddha Gedeng Saichi 噶登赛持 (1939–1960), who was arrested in 1958 and died in captivity; and Songsuo Athani (Songliu Ajiamuniya 松榴·阿戛木尼亚 (1898–1974), a monk of Yi nationality from Jinghong, Yunnan, who was spared that fate. The other two other vice presidents were Yingci 应慈 (1873–1965), a monk from Anhui known for his patriotic attitude during the war against Japan, and Jingquan 静权 (1881–1960), a native of Zhejiang known for his promotion of Tibetan rites and his patriotism. In 1959, the CCP abandoned any pretense that Buddhism would help reinforce unity among different nationalities and invaded Tibet. The personal tragedies suffered by these individuals were a microcosm of the horrors and despair experienced by most of the population. The Third Congress (nominally 1962–1980) witnessed an even darker period in the modern history of Buddhism as its followers fell victim to the largest persecution of Buddhist devotees in recent times. The congress operated only from 1962 to 1966, as the BAC had to cease all its activities with the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. Only Zhao remained active, greeting Japanese monks on behalf of the BAC.29 The Panchen Lama, who had demonstrated his loyalty to the CCP rather than escaping abroad with the Dalai Lama following the 1959 uprising, went on a tour of Tibet and, after witnessing the conditions in the autonomous region, wrote a 70,000-character petition to Zhou Enlai. Although the initial reaction

27 Ibid.: 76–82. 28 Ibid.: 82–85. 29 This became possible after the negotiations that led to the establishment of Sino– Japanese diplomatic relations. Ji (2017: 328).

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seemed positive, the CCP leadership rejected the petition in 1962, and two years later, a Politburo meeting dismissed the Panchen Lama and prohibited him from occupying any position of authority, denounced him as an enemy of the Tibetan people, and sent him to prison. Nenghai and Shes-rab Rgya-mtsho suffered a far worse fate. Red Guards branded Nenghai a gangster and inflicted political persecution, maltreatment, and torture on him and his disciples; he died at Shancaidong temple in 1961. In Shes-rab Rgya-mtsho’s case, although the official record suggests that he remained president of the association until 1980, the reality was far more sordid. Red Guards beat him up in 1968, and he died a few months later. Those who survived these persecutions had to return to lay life because their temples were closed or destroyed. 3.3

The Years of Recovery

When the BAC resumed its activities and convened its Fourth Congress in 1980–1987, many of the veterans of the Third Congress had passed away. The lay Buddhist and former general secretary Zhao Puchu became president of BAC, a position he would hold for another twenty years. Only one of the former vice presidents, Juzan 巨赞, remained in his position. When he passed away in 1984, the BAC’s transition to new leadership under Zhao was complete. The association then had eight vice presidents, three of whom were non-Han. The practice of appointing Tibetan vice presidents to symbolize national unity remained in place. Moreover, four vice presidents had a connection with Tibet: Phags-pa-lha Dgelegs-rnam-rgyal (Pabala Gelielangjie 帕巴拉·格列朗杰), Jam-dbyangs Blobzang’-jigs-med Thub-bstan-chos-kyi-nyi-ma (Jiamusang luosangjiumei tudanquejinima 嘉木样·洛桑久美·图丹却吉尼玛), Zhabs-drung Dkar-po (Xiarong gabu 夏茸尕布), and ‘Jam-dpal Phrin-las (Jianbai chilie 坚 白赤列), who each represented different factions. Sgo mang Bstanpa’i-’jigs-med (Gongming Jiangbaqurimu 宫明·姜巴曲日木), an ethnic Mongol Living Buddha from Xinjiang, also served as a vice president. However, Zhengguo 正果, the most senior vice president of the BAC, and Mingzhen 明真 were both Han Chinese. Zhao remained the sole lay devotee among all the members of the congress. In those early years of recovery, Buddhist monastic associations had to find ways to rebuild their institutions. As Ji Zhe recalls in his account of the new relationship between Buddhists and the state in the period of reform and opening, the BAC once again adopted the slogan: “Combine

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Chan with agricultural work” (nong chan bingzhong 农禅並重), which had previously been promoted by Taixu and Juzan 巨赞. This slogan emphasized the fact that Buddhists needed to achieve self-reliance and would not depend on society for their subsistence—a call Zhao Puchu officially endorsed in 1983, as one of the “Three Excellent Traditions of Buddhism.”30 During that period of Buddhist revival, major changes occurred in Chinese society, which would in turn affect Buddhism in ways completely different from the ways Buddhism was affected under Mao. Local governments mobilized capital and technical resources to help poor peasants create state-owned enterprises, a process encapsulated by the expression: “build the stage to sing the opera” (datai changxi 搭台 唱戏). As many local governments relied on arts and cultural festivals to promote economic development, the expression: “culture builds the stage for the economy to sing the opera” (wenhua datai, jingji changxi 文化 搭台,经济唱戏) took hold. As Chang Kui-ming describes in her ethnography, this process eventually led to a situation wherein religion built the stage (zongjiao datai 宗教搭台), as local governments began to appreciate the value of temples in attracting investments from overseas Chinese.31 In 1983, during the Second Plenary Meeting of the Fourth Congress, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the BAC—and no doubt its recovery as well—Zhao Puchu made a keynote speech reporting on the previous year’s achievements; his words would prove decisive for the future of Buddhist philanthropy in China. He presented his own idea of “Buddhism in this world” (renjian fojiao 人间佛教) and had it inscribed in the BAC’s charter as a guiding Buddhist principle.32 At the time of Zhao’s speech, Buddhist institutions had yet to recover from the damage done by the Cultural Revolution; for many people in China, just talking about religion—let alone speculating on its social role—was a sensitive issue.33 Yet Chinese society was experiencing much intellectual ferment at the time, some of which was quite iconoclastic with regard to culture and politics, including the future of socialism and also, as we have seen in the previous two chapters, the compatibility of socialism and religion. Buddhist leaders 30 Ji (2004: 3). 31 Chang (2016: 1). 32 See ZFC CGW (2013: 35). Zhao made a point of stressing that his ideas differed

from Taixu’s. See Ji (2013). 33 It remained so when I began onsite research for this book in Hubei and Anhui, as late as 2004.

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such as Zhao wanted to send a clear signal that they strongly supported Deng Xiaoping’s modernizing agenda and stood alongside the CCP. Writing for one of the top journals on religion in China, Li Xiaolong later argued that Zhao had provided an early example of the sinicization of religion, which would become one of Xi Jinping’s key policies on religion.34 The Fifth Congress (1987–1993) experienced both continuity and expansion of the BAC’s governing structure. Zhao Puchu remained president, while five of the vice presidents resigned from their positions, and ten new ones joined the ranks of an increasingly larger board. Among the new leaders were four Living Buddhas: Gung-thang-tshang (Gong Tang Can 贡唐仓), a Tibetan born in Gansu; Dorje-drag Jam-dpal-blo-bzang (Duojizha Jiangbailuosan 多吉扎·江白洛桑) from Tibet; Jia-ya Blo-bzang bstan-pa’i rgyal-mtshan (Jia Ya Luosan danbai jianzang 嘉雅·洛桑丹白坚 赞), a Mongol from Qinghai; and Wulan Galasankairi Budandinima (乌兰· 嘎拉桑凯日· 布丹毕尼玛) from Inner Mongolia. Other non-Han clerics included the Tibetan Se-rje-hen-so Lhun-grub-thabs-mkhas (Sejiekansu lunzhutaokai 色结堪苏·伦珠陶凯), Yuanzhuo 圆拙, and Longlian 隆莲. Among the new vice presidents, three were lay Buddhist scholars: Li Rongxi 李荣熙; Dao Shuren 刀述仁, a local Dai leader from Yunnan; and Zhou Shaoliang 周绍良. Zhou acted as secretary general, with Dao’s assistance.35 The BAC continued to be a showcase of inter-ethnic harmony for the CCP, but more substantive, consequential changes were also brewing during that period. As Ji has noted, a greater number of increasingly wealthy lay devotees renewed the tradition of giving to monastics as one aspect of a religious practice known as “cultivating the good earth” (种福田 zhong futian) or “making merit” (做功德 zuo gongde). A religious obligation and an end, this practice also comes with the expectation of possible rewards in this life.36 The growth of this practice and the increasingly elaborate religious ceremonies expected by wealthy laypeople, along with the need to emphasize the religiousness of temples and monasteries, have driven efforts to enhance the ceremonies. Many local governments have seen the potential of this religious economy and have sought to divert some of its resources

34 Li (2017). 35 Zhengguo and Mingzhen retired during this congress. 36 Ji (2004: 6).

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into local welfare via the promotion of pilgrimage or heritage tourism. This has generated mixed feelings among Buddhists: many lament that intermingling Buddhist concerns with secular ones dilutes the religion and tarnishes its reputation. As one monk exclaimed to me in Shanxi: “When there is material wealth in a temple, its religious value is gone.”37 The Fifth Congress witnessed another period of political ferment, this time targeting the CCP itself. The student demonstrations that had begun in the mid-1980s over the issue of corruption in the system culminated in the 1989 government crackdown. A few individual Buddhist monastics got involved in this, but for the most part, the Buddhist establishment stood aside. When the regime went through a short-lived period of retrenchment between 1989 and 1992, the CCP largely spared the BAC and local Buddhist associations. It is in this context that one needs to understand the arrival of volunteers from the Taiwan-based Tzu Chi Merit Society in China. Welcoming Taiwanese “compatriots” to the PRC served the regime very well vis-à-vis Taiwan. Moreover, it represented another instance of the experiential approach to governance that the CCP had successfully tried out in the early stages of the reform and opening policy: the localities in which volunteers provided temporary relief served as live experiments indicating what the government could expect from Buddhist philanthropy.38 At about the same time as Tzu Chi came to China, Nanputuo temple in Xiamen also set up its own philanthropic society, and shortly thereafter a few others did likewise. The Sixth Congress (1993–2002) reappointed Zhao as BAC president.39 He worked with no less than twenty vice presidents during his tenure, including eight Tibetans, two Dais, and one Mongol. Many veterans remained in place, and eight vice presidents saw their mandates renewed. Among the new vice presidents there were thus twelve new monks, including six Tibetans, one Dai, and one Mongol. The political nature of the BAC and its proximity to the government became increasingly obvious: Vice President Phags-pa-lha Dge-legs-rnam-rgyal concurrently served as vice president of the National People’s Congress, the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) Political Consultative Conference, 37 In the light of the religious economy described above, this is not an opinion everyone shares. 38 Laliberté (2013). 39 He passed away in 2000, and one of the BAC vice presidents, Dao Shuren, succeeded

him.

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the TAR Congress Standing Committee, and the TAR People’s Government.40 The BAC also added a new governance structure with the inclusion of an advisory committee of fifteen people from a variety of backgrounds. The Sixth Congress saw the continued growth of monastic revival, and one event in particular consolidated Buddhism’s position in the political system: the controversies over Falungong. Buddhist scholars rebuked Falungong, which was initially translated into English as the “Buddha Law” by the foreign press, as a false religion. After the regime launched its persecution of Falungong, few people mistook one for the other. Meanwhile, Tzu Chi’s presence in China continued uninterrupted, although this was controversial in Taiwan: critics expressed their bafflement at a Taiwanese charity helping a country they perceived as an existential threat to Taiwan. In China itself, a few voices expressed discontent, if not envy over the ease with which some local governments granted land and permits to Tzu Chi.41 Most importantly, however, many wondered how to replicate Tzu Chi’s approach in China’s vastly different institutional context: the monopoly of a single national Buddhist association at the central level to represent all monastics and lay devotees has no equivalent in Taiwan, where many different associations coexist. Tzu Chi’s approach to registration in Taiwan during the period of martial law, when the island experienced a similar corporatist arrangement for the representation of social organizations, proved useful. The association never registered as a religious organization, but as a philanthropic one. Although the organization’s religious nature was clear, its statutes referred to it as a charity, and later as a foundation, so it could legally raise money to finance its hospitals and other projects. Many Chinese charities followed this path to self-organization. The Seventh Congress (2002–2010) chose Yicheng 一诚, one of Xuyun’s former disciples, as president, and he stayed in that position for the duration of that congress. Yicheng was also given several largely ceremonial political titles, becoming a member of the 11th CPPCC National Committee and, three years later, a member of the 12th National

40 These three institutions are nominally Tibet’s functional equivalent to a provincial upper house, a lower house, and public administration. 41 Weller et al. (2017: 56).

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Committee’s Standing Committee. The Seventh Congress saw the expansion of a new organ within the BAC’s governance structure: the secretariat, which had already grown to include five members, expanded to eight. This number included three consultants, two of whom were known for their scholarship on Buddhism, while the third, the entrepreneur Li Yuling 李玉玲, represented the CPPCC All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese. This expansion of the secretariat, as well as that of the advisory committee, which numbered 23 members, coincided with the BAC’s increasing visibility in public life. This included notably expanding the number of pilgrimages, convening two World Buddhist Forums, and organizing debates about charity and the public interest, which brought together academics and well-known clerics to discuss the compatibility of religion and socialism.42 The Eighth Congress, led by Chuanyin 传印, was relatively short-lived in comparison to the two preceding ones, its duration was the same as that of a Party Congress: from 2010 to 2015. Nevertheless, it continued its predecessor’s work. However, it also faced new challenges, as the promotion of Buddhist heritage led to some unease within the BAC. Some saw the potential benefits of this as a means of recovering from the destruction incurred during the Cultural Revolution, while others expressed concerns about the risk to the sites’ reputations as religious and spiritual centers. Resolving the contradictions between the valorization of temples as pilgrimage destinations and preventing over-commercialization proved difficult. Shaolin 少林 monastery, famous worldwide for its tradition of martial arts, provided a telling example. In 2011, a controversy erupted with the announcement that Shaolin would become part of a tourist agency and be listed on the stock market. It turned out that this decision had been made by the local government, despite the temple’s opposition. The project never materialized, but it stood out as a case in which a temple’s name was abused.43 The use of Buddhist sites for tourism generated discontent among Buddhist monastics, who protested outsiders’ misuse of their sites. Hence in 2012, plans for a public offering by a consortium of cable car operators and bus and ferry companies to provide transport services to pilgrims

42 See, for example, the proceedings of a conference held on this issue in ZFX and SFX (2002), Chen (2009). 43 For a discussion of this issue, see Ji (2004: 7).

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visiting the Putuoshan site triggered consternation among BAC leaders at the highest level because it could serve non-religious purposes. It also turned out that the consortium did not include a Buddhist entity.44 On the other hand, in the same year, the government criticized certain Buddhist associations and temples for displaying too much interest in material concerns. Hence SARA officials criticized temples for trying to go public and list shares on stock exchanges, claiming this practice damages the interests of religious people.45 As we saw in the previous chapter, during the Hu era, Chinese experts met with their international counterparts to discuss the feasibility of social services provision by religious organizations. Buddhist institutions received the lion’s share of this attention. Not only did Taiwan and Hong Kong provide laboratories for investigating this possibility, but the permission many local governments granted to Buddhist NGOs from these two societies to allow them to provide support in China offered opportunities to examine the conditions for successful replication of this approach in China.46 This process of learning, which is still ongoing in many locations, has inspired various initiatives on the part of local Buddhist associations seeking to emulate the achievements of their counterparts from Taiwan and Hong Kong, which I have discussed elsewhere, in a book about Chinese Buddhist philanthropy beyond the PRC. 3.4

The End of Recovery?

The Ninth BAC Congress, convened in 2015, saw the rise and fall of Xuecheng 学诚, the abbot of Longquan 龙泉 monastery in Beijing and a few others throughout the country. He was one of the youngest leaders of the BAC, but his career ended in disgrace in 2018, when female monastics accused him of sexual harassment.47 At the time of writing, many of the circumstances surrounding the case remain unclear. 44 Li (2012). 45 Reuters (2012). 46 Besides the Tzu Chi Foundation from Taiwan, the Hong Kong-based Tzu Hui 慈辉 佛教基金会 (Gracious Glory Buddhism Foundation) and Fu Hui 福慧 (Fu Hui Education Foundation) have provided scholarships to students in impoverished parts of China for the last ten years. 47 At the young age of 36, Xuecheng became secretary general of the BAC and editor of Fayin.

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However, there is no question that Xuecheng’s activities with the Ren’ai Foundation, which he established in Beijing, provided Buddhist charity with unprecedented visibility.48 One of the 32 vice presidents, Yanjue 演觉, immediately succeeded him. The practice of elevating members of minority communities continued with this large group of 32 vice presidents, which included 8 Tibetans, 2 Mongols, and 2 Dais. Only one woman was included in the group. The Second Plenary Meeting of the Ninth BAC National Congress, held in August 2018, emphasized a few key points following Xuecheng’s ousting. It summarized the challenges the BAC faced, stressed the urgent need to reinforce Buddhist education, and presented a roadmap for the future.49 In addition to professing loyalty to the government,50 Yanjue’s speech at this meeting expressed some of the BAC’s concerns. He urged his listeners to resist the adverse effects of Buddhism’s commercialization and encouraged them to strengthen Buddhist teachings at all levels and to promote better monastic training. His next two points emphasized the practice of “renjian fojiao,” even if he did not spell this out explicitly: Yanjue asked Buddhists to strengthen their culture in accordance with socialism’s core values and encouraged them to renew their engagement in charitable causes to help the poor. This last point suggested that Hu’s supportive policy toward Buddhist charity would remain in place under Xi. Yanjue also referred to other CCP priorities when he proposed sustaining exchanges between the three branches of Buddhism in China and supporting the “Belt and Road Initiative.”51 Among the BAC’s longterm future priorities, Yanjue mentioned the need to respond actively to the initiative on promoting the national flag at religious sites; charity and the need to serve the public interest, as briefly promoted under Hu, seemed to have receded in the background. As Chang Kui-min has argued, the CCP under Hu had accepted the inherent risks to its legitimacy in exchange for letting Buddhist temples “set the stage” so that the economy could “sing.” As long as temple activities did not lead to proselytizing, and if they did not affect the CCP’s 48 See McCarthy (2019). 49 ZFX 2018. 50 Yanjue enjoined Buddhists to study and implement Xi Jinping’s thought on “the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics” and pledged that BAC rules and regulations would conform to recent constitutional amendments and the revised laws on religion. 51 To borrow BAC terminology, these are the Han, Tibetan, and Southern branches.

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prestige and reputation, the CCP would tolerate Buddhist economic activities. For religious institutions, this had always presented a problem: for many devotees who oppose official atheism, Buddhist institutions’ cooperation with the government is understandable as far as it arises out of concern for their survival, but it has nevertheless damaged the reputations of monks and nuns.52 Despite demonstrating that they seek to follow contemporary trends and have overcome the problems of adapting to socialism, many Buddhists remain unconvinced. In an article published by the flagship journal of the CASS Institute of World Religions, the scholars Cheng Gongrang 程恭让 and Zhu Yucheng 朱玉盛 wrote that Buddhism still faces four problems in the age of Xi Jinping: excessive commercialism, confusing spirituality, an overemphasis on mysticism, and surrender to fundamentalism.53 These perceptions of Buddhism rest on a few cases that have attracted lots of media attention. However, this view does not do justice to the reforms undertaken within the BAC to make Buddhism more relevant to society.

4

Conclusion

Since its establishment in the PRC, the BAC has acted bona fide as a reliable United Front Work organization in support of the CCP. These efforts did not pay off when Mao launched its anti-traditionalist policies, as the associations and lay devotees suffered persecution just like other citizens. However, viewed from the perspective of the longue durée over the four decades since the reform and opening policy was launched, and with the benefit of hindsight, this persecution appears to be almost an aberration. After Deng repudiated Mao’s policies, the government encouraged state-sponsored associations to reconstitute themselves at all levels, and it tolerated the growth of household groves. Under Jiang, Buddhist renewal reached new heights: economic growth provided new opportunities for lay devotees to finance temple repair and increase their rate and amount of giving. Moreover, the BAC confirmed its loyalty to the CCP and secured its position in society by siding with the government in its campaign against so-called “evil cults.” Under Hu, monastics and lay devotees received further encouragement to play a greater role in society, with the

52 Chang (2016: 229). 53 Cheng and Zhu (2016).

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government officially taking the position that religion is compatible with socialism. During his twenty years at the helm of the BAC, Zhao Puchu’s efforts as president to meet the CCP halfway shaped the intriguing possibility that Buddhists in China could renew their tradition of providing succor to vulnerable populations, which began in the imperial era. An additional source of vindication for this approach came from prosperous Chinese societies nearby, as the achievements of Buddhist philanthropic associations in Taiwan and Hong Kong generated interest among CCP cadres in learning more about these kinds of activities. From Deng’s time to Hu’s, the CCP’s United Front Work had enjoined Buddhist actors to act in the public interest. BAC leaders agreed with this mandate and displayed their agency as they actively supported a system that sees philanthropy as a source of social good, thereby legitimizing their existence in the eyes of the government. However, many obstacles have stood in the way of this strategy. The lack of professional personnel and limitations on institutional resources represent some of the most obvious difficulties which the BAC had to overcome in the first decades of the reform and opening period. Moreover, previous policies had left an institutional memory of mistrust of party officials among religious leaders, which proved difficult to overcome. The leadership of Buddhist personalities such as Zhao Puchu contributed to eroding this mistrust. With the consolidation of Buddhist resources in the context of a path dependency marked by isolation from international trends, the activities of ethnic Chinese Buddhists from Taiwan and Hong Kong also played a key role in this learning process. One reason for the attraction of resorting to the BAC as a source of welfare is that official Buddhism does not constitute a force for political change in the way that “engaged Buddhism” does elsewhere in Asia, or even in Tibet.54 Despite a few exceptional individuals who have taken a stand in favor of dissidents, most mainstream Buddhists support the CCP. Due to present political dynamics, relations between the BAC and the state are unlikely to follow the pattern observed in Taiwan, where Buddhist associations contributed to pacification during the delicate phases of political transition.55 The philanthropic activities I will discuss in the next chapter will show that such actions, even when they

54 Ji (2012–2013: 19), Laliberté (2012: 115). 55 See Laliberté (2004), Madsen (2007).

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are the result of goodwill on the part of lay and monastic Buddhists, can only develop sustainably with the government’s blessing.

References ACMRC (All China Marketing Research Co.). 2010. The Atlas of Religions in China. Beijing: National Bureau of Statistics of China. Chang Kuei-min. 2016. “Spiritual State, Material Temple: The Political Economy of Religious Revival in China.” PhD diss., Columbia University, New York. Chen Xingqiao 陈星桥. 2009. “Aiguo aijiao liushinian, yu shijujin puxinpian 爱 国爱教六十年, 与时俱进谱新篇.” Fayin (法音) 11: 6–7. Cheng Gongrang 程恭让 and Yucheng Zhu 朱玉盛. 2016. “Dangdai zhongguo fojiao wenhua de sida weiji jiqi zhuanxin fazhan de fangxiang 当代中国佛 教文化的四大危机及其转型发展的方向.” Shijie zongjiao wenhua 世界宗教文 化102 (6): 105–108. Guangdong sheng renmin zhengfu 广东省人民政府. 2014. Guangdong nianjian 2014 广东年鉴. Guangzhou: Guangdong nianjian she 广东年鉴社. Hou Kunhong 侯坤宏. 2012. Haojie yu chongsheng: yijiusijiu nian yilaide dalu fojiao 浩劫与重生: 一九四九年以来的大陆佛教. Tainan: Miaoxin 妙心. Ji Zhe. 2004. “Buddhism and the State: The New Relationship.” China Perspective 55 (October): 2–10. Ji Zhe. 2012–2013. “Chinese Buddhism as a Social Force: Reality and Potential of Thirty Years of Revival.” Chinese Sociological Review 45 (2): 8–26. Ji Zhe. 2013. “Zhao Puchu and His Renjian Buddhism.” The Eastern Buddhist: New Series 44 (2): 35–58. Ji Zhe. 2016. “Buddhist Institutional Innovations.” In Modern Chinese Religion II: 1850–2015, ed. Vincent Goossaert, Jan Kiely, and John Lagerwey, 731– 766. Leiden: Brill. Ji Zhe. 2017. “Comrade Zhao Puchu: Bodhisattva under the Red Flag.” In Making Saints in Modern China, ed. David Ownby, Vincent Goossaert, and Ji Zhe, 312–346. New York: Oxford University Press. Kiely, Jan. 2016. “The Communist Dismantling of Temples and Monastic Buddhism in Suzhou.” In Recovering Buddhism in Modern China, ed. Jan Kiely and J. Brooks Jessup. New York: Columbia University Press. Laliberté, André. 2004. The Politics of Buddhist Organizations in Taiwan, 1989– 2003: Safeguarding the Faith, Building a Pure Land, Helping the Poor. London: Routledge. Laliberté, André. 2012. “Buddhist Charities and China’s Social Policy: An Opportunity for Alternate Civility?” Archives de sciences sociales des religions 158 (April–June): 95–117.

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Laliberté, André. 2013. “The Growth of a Taiwanese Buddhist Association in China: Soft Power and Institutional Learning.” China Information 27 (1): 81–105. Li Xiaolong 李晓龙. 2017. “Lun Zhao Puchu renjian fojiao sixiang ‘zhongguohua’ wendu 论赵朴初人间佛教思想的 ‘中国化’ 向度.” Shijie zongjiao yanjiu 世界宗教研究 165 (3): 79–88. Li Yao. 2012. “IPO on Buddhist Mountain Makes Business of Religion.” China Daily, August 23. Madsen, Richard. 2007. Democracy’s Dharma: Religious Renaissance and Political Development in Taiwan. Berkeley: University of California Press. McCarthy, Susan K. 2019. “Spiritual Technologies and the Politics of Buddhist Charity.” In Ji Zhe, Gareth Fisher, and André Laliberté, eds., Buddhism after Mao: Negotiations, Continuities, and Reinventions, 77–96. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Naquin, Susan. 2000. Peking: Temples and City Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. OSAC (Online Spiritual Atlas of China). 2019. Accessed August 12, 2019. Available at: https://www.globaleast.org/map/index.html. Reuters. 2012. “Thou Shalt Not launch IPOs, China Tells Temples.” Reuters, June 6. Sun Yanfei. 2011. “The Chinese Buddhist Ecology in Post-Mao China: Contours, Types and Dynamics.” Social Compass 58 (4): 498–510. Weller, Robert P., C. Julia Huang, Wu Keping, and Fan Lizhu. 2017. Religion and Charity: The Social Life of Goodness in Chinese Societies. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wenzel-Teuber, Katharina. 2015. “Statistical Update on Religions and Churches in the People’s Republic of China.” Religions and Christianity in Today’s China 5 no. 2: 20–41. Wenzel-Teuber, Katharina. 2018. “Statistics on Religions and Churches in the People’s Republic of China—Update for the Year 2017.” Religions and Christianity in Today’s China 8 (2): 26–51. Yang Fenggang. 2018. Atlas of Religion in China: Social and Geographical Contexts. Leiden: Brill. ZFC CGW (Zhongguo fojiao xiehui cishan gongyi weiyuanhui 中国佛教协 会慈善公益委员会). 2013. Zhongguo fojiao cishan 中国佛教慈善. Beijing: Zongjiao wenhua chubanshe 宗教文化出版社. ZFX (Zhongguo fojiao xiehui 中国佛教协会). 2018. “Zhongguo fojiao xiehui jiujia erci lishihui yilai de zhuyao gongzuo he jinhou yiduan shijian de gongzuo chongdian 中国佛教协会九届二次理事会以来的主要工作. 和今后一

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段时间的工作重点.” Accessed October 29, 2020. Available at: https://wemp. app/posts/4199fa08-738d-4374-b396-c51655b016ab. ZFX (Zhongguo fojiao xiehui 中国佛教协会) and SFX (Shanghai fojiao xiehui 上海佛教协会). 2002. Fojiao yu shehuizhuyi shehui xiangshiying yantaohui (lunwenji) 佛教与社会主义社会相适应研讨会 (论文集). Beijing: zongjiao wenhua chubanshe. Accessed August 12, 2019. Available at: http://www. chinabuddhism.com.cn/e/action/ListInfo/?classid=533.

PART II

Buddhist Philanthropy After 1978

CHAPTER 7

Toward a National Buddhist Philanthropic Association

The chronological overview I provide in this chapter brings to light the bottom-up nature of Buddhist philanthropy’s expansion in the Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin era. I offer here an overview of the achievements enabled by changes in relations between state and religions. Under Deng and his successor, based on pragmatic considerations rather than directives from central organizations, local authorities have tolerated, if not encouraged the growth of Buddhist philanthropy. However, Buddhists took longer than their Christian counterparts to establish a national association. Although China counts many times more Buddhists than Catholics among its population, the latter also managed to register a national philanthropic association seven years before their Buddhist counterparts did so.1 Thus, we cannot infer from this relatively late registration that Buddhist charitable activities were not taking place throughout the country. In fact, since 1949 Buddhist philanthropy has never entirely ceased, although the conditions for its expansion have changed dramatically. Whereas in previous chapters I have discussed the policy environment which impacted social assistance and the role of non-state providers, along with doctrinal and institutional transformation 1 The Catholic Relief Service registered in 2004. The year here refers to the mandatory waiting period imposed by the authorities before the registration process could be completed; Catholic philanthropy began much earlier. See Zhang (2020).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 A. Laliberté, Religion and China’s Welfare Regimes, Religion and Society in Asia Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7270-5_7

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within Buddhism, I now trace the main stages of the institutionalization of Buddhist philanthropy before Hu Jintao succeeded Jiang. I document this process as a gradual evolution from scattered initiatives to the establishment of a national charity association, and I focus on the process of learning through experimentation at different levels of government.

1

The Early Stages, 1978–1992

When the regime gradually embarked on the path of reform and opening, it sought support and investment from overseas Chinese communities. The reform policy, which aimed to lessen state intervention in the economy and spur individual initiative, proceeded cautiously during this decade and a half. At the time, the CCP did not conceive of religious actors as potential social services providers. On the other hand, the policy of opening, which included the creation of Special Economic Zones to favor foreign investment, meant that resuming international exchange within religious milieus—under careful state supervision—could serve the government’s interests. In that context, the Fujian government encouraged the expression of institutionalized religions, such as Buddhism and Daoism, and even popular religions, as expressed in the Mazu pilgrimage across the Taiwan Strait.2 More importantly, however, diplomatic support from wealthy Western countries—a precondition for the success of the reform and opening policy—required the government to lessen the pressure it had placed on Christian Chinese, who had maintained good relations with their co-religionists abroad. This aspect of opening to religion, which favored the revival of Christian philanthropy, did not affect Buddhists and Daoists to any comparable extent, because their networks abroad had not been maintained in the same way. Under these circumstances, the acceptance of religious philanthropy mostly meant cooperation between the Three-Self churches and the Patriotic Catholic Association, on the one hand, and sympathetic co-religionists abroad on the other.

2 For a good account of that pilgrimage, see Yang (2008).

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153

Religion and Charity’s Return to China

Chinese Protestant Christians had been active in social services provision before 1949: they had established hospitals and colleges, and encouraged famine relief, among other activities. These activities were interrupted during the Maoist period but were revived under the reform and opening policy. The prior incorporation of Christian organizations, such as the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), in the All-China Youth Federation no doubt facilitated this resumption of activities. The international connections of the YMCA and the YWCA, as well as these associations’ prior experience with charitable work, constituted an asset for the regime when it sought to nurture international cooperation.3 The Amity Foundation (aide jijinhui 爱德基金会) stands out as another example of CCP United Front Work directed at religious associations outside the country.4 Established in Nanjing in 1985 by Ding Guangxun, the chair of the TSPM and an internationally well-known Protestant leader, the foundation sought donations from abroad. One year later, together with the United Bible Societies, it set up a printing company to print Bibles. The profits from Amity’s share of this undertaking funded its social enterprises. During that period, this meant bringing foreign teachers to Chinese colleges and universities to help rebuild China’s higher education capacity, which had been damaged by the Cultural Revolution.5 In the eyes of the central government, the Patriotic Catholic Church of China, headquartered in Beijing, represented another asset to United Front Work. Zhang Zhipeng reported that between 1979 and 1998, Catholic charity work, which had been deeply rooted in Chinese society before 1949, experienced a spontaneous recovery.6 He reports that the Beijing diocese made donations to support education in the first decade of the reform and opening policy. In 1985, Catholics established the Catholic Cram School to prepare students for the college entrance examinations. Zhang also notes that the church founded homes for children 3 Academic publications on the YMCA in China in English focus only on the Republican period; see Xing (1996). 4 For an introduction to the Amity Foundation, see Carino (2016). For an authoritative history and an insider perspective, see Wickeri (2011). 5 See Amity Foundation (2017: 193). 6 Zhang (2020: 95–96).

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with disabilities and supported long-term care for the elderly in Hebei province. Throughout this period, the church also pioneered help for persons with intellectual disabilities and opened clinics for them across the country. Catholics founded an institution for abandoned infants in Shanxi in 1982, and between 1986 and 1991 they founded three more in Hebei.7 Additionally, they founded their first leprosy rehabilitation centers in Jilin.8 Throughout this period, there was no national Catholic charity to coordinate all these activities. However, prominent Catholic personalities such as Bishop Fu Tieshan, who became the director of the China Disabled Persons’ Federation, established the church’s credentials in the eyes of the authorities when it came to providing social services to people in need.9 Chinese Muslims lacked the kind of outside support that Chinese Christians benefitted from in developing their philanthropy anew. China did not see its relations with Muslim-majority nations as a priority because it was not seeking investment from that part of the world, and few overseas Chinese lived there. Although the Belt and Road Initiative could have changed this equation, concerns over the securitization of Islam—which the CCP sees as a source of extremism, terrorism, and separatism— continue to prevail.10 Moreover, Chinese Muslims were poor, and most lived in parts of the country that did not benefit from the early stages of the reform and opening policy. However, these disadvantages did not mean that Muslims did not develop mutual help and welfare: like their coreligionists elsewhere, Chinese Muslims view zakat, the ritual obligation to allot part of one’s wealth to charity, as one of the five pillars of Islam and thus as an important component of their religious obligations. They have abided by this tradition for centuries; the historian Ma Jianxiong 馬健雄 has found evidence that Islamic charity networks have existed since the Qing Dynasty.11 Wang Jianping has noted that in the 1980s, Chinese Muslims “quickly […] developed an educational Islamic system

7 Ibid.: 99. 8 Ibid.: 101. 9 Ibid.: 96. 10 On the contradiction between the CCP’s efforts to use Chinese Muslims in its

diplomacy with Central Asia and its domestic treatment of Chinese Muslims as a security threat, see Klimeš (2020). 11 Ma (2013: 147).

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and charitable organizations,” but he could not find evidence for this prior to the 2000s.12 Likewise, the webpage of the Islamic Association of China (Zhongguo yisilanjiao xiehui 中国伊斯兰教协会, IAC) provides very little information on the philanthropic activities of Chinese Muslims at that time, and its official publication, Zhongguo musilin 中国穆斯林, does not give much evidence of such activities either. Philanthropic activities sponsored by the Daoist Association of China (DAC) lacked the kind of perennial institutional support which the Christian religious associations enjoyed. Nor did the DAC benefit from international support. For the period in question, I found no traces of Daoist charitable associations comparable to the Christian associations I have discussed above, or to the Buddhist associations I present below. One could attribute this lack of evidence to the absence of charitable activities sponsored by the official Daoist association at that time. However, this does not exclude the possibility that Daoist individuals could have engaged in such activities on their own volition, acting in the context of groups that the government did not recognize. Daoism’s belief system and ritual practices open the door to this possibility, even if the scope and forms of Daoist charity differ from those of Christian charity. Hence, in her ethnography of a Daoist temple in Dongguan, Adeline Herrou briefly evokes the traditional role of priests as healers who prevent and protect from illness, and she mentions appropriate rituals in this context, such as the “request for peace” (qifu rangzai 祈福禳灾).13 She notes that these rituals remained forbidden by the government well into the 2000s, and thus they were unlikely to find their way into official DAC publications as more formal social services. Moreover, these activities, as Herrou has described them, are more locally based, in contrast to the other religions’ universalistic ideals about whom to help. The CCP could have found the other four religions more useful in terms of social services provision because of the moral obligation to help strangers which each of these traditions embrace. However, in many cases, the Party did not follow through on taking advantage of this potential.

12 Wang (2017: 71). 13 Herrou (2005: 353).

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1.2

Disentangling Buddhist Philanthropy from the State

Charities previously established by Christian missions have benefited from the support of fellow believers abroad, some of whom are wealthy and politically influential. Buddhists, however, have not benefitted from this kind of assistance.14 When it became possible for Buddhist devotees and clerics to resume their activities after 1978, they lacked the institutions and outside support to set up philanthropic activities on a scale comparable to the Amity Foundation’s activities. Absent any central coordination by agencies such as the BAC, SARA, or even the CCP United Front, and with little publicity for such activities at the time, there is only limited information available on charitable activities for that period. The few findings available point to variance at the regional level, across provinces and autonomous regions, and sometimes even across prefectures, with each following its own logic. In contrast to CCP efforts to standardize institutions such as Buddhist associations and ethnic and religious affairs administrations at all levels, Buddhist devotees and clerics adopted a variety of approaches as they sought to revive their pre-1949 philanthropic activities. Very often, volunteers did not find much to revive, due to successive destructive episodes precipitated by the war against Japan and the Civil War. When the CCP took power, pre-existing philanthropic resources had already been gone for over a decade in many parts of the country. As the overview of the Republican period I presented elsewhere made clear, considerable differences in regional circumstances meant that different regions were unequally prepared to support nascent Buddhist philanthropy when the opportunity to renew such activities emerged after 1949.15 The new regime had no incentive to mend these pre-existing disparities among Buddhist philanthropic associations. Moreover, Taixu’s influence on the Republican era should not be exaggerated: Buddhist charitable institutions were limited in comparison to Christian missions. During the twelve years following the initiation of the reform and opening policy in 1978, Buddhist philanthropy re-emerged in an uncoordinated, haphazard fashion. In the first decade, the CCP sought to

14 The closest thing to this type of official international cooperation among Buddhists is the series of meetings between the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Buddhist associations. 15 I refer to the book that complements this one, which addresses the issue of Chinese Buddhist philanthropy beyond the context of the PRC.

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prevent the rise of any rival source of power; as I have discussed in previous chapters, prior to 1978 the Party tested policies that sought to eliminate the social impact of religions. These policies did not spare Buddhism, and Buddhist philanthropy also faced restrictions. I have already mentioned the case of the Suzhou Buddhist community, as documented by Ian Keily, which the CCP deprived of any resources that would have made organizing charitable activities possible. By the time the reform and opening policy enabled the revival of Buddhist philanthropy, very few local associations had managed to emerge unscathed. One of these rare institutions, the Emeishan Buddhist Association in Sichuan province, documented philanthropic activities prior to the Great Leap Forward in the report on activities undertaken between 1956 and 2012 which it submitted to the BAC Charity Committee.16 Emeishan stands out as the only one of the four famous Buddhist mountains to have achieved this, and no other provincial or local Buddhist association has reported any philanthropic activity prior to 1978 to the BAC Charity Committee. The Buddhist association of Putuoshan, another of the four famous mountains, was the next (after Emeishan) to emerge during the reform and opening policy; it has reported charitable activities since 1979.17 These two sites constituted important tourist destinations, and their institution as philanthropic associations may have served to attract investors from overseas. However, the other two mountains—Wutaishan and Jiuhuashan—did not adopt this strategy. A few other sites which emerged during this period reveal different dynamics. In Liaoning, Buddhist devotees launched their own charitable activities in 1980, independently of the local Buddhist association.18 Buddhists in Shanxi did likewise in 1982.19 The pace of these developments was slow. According to the report they submitted to the Buddhist Charity Committee, devotees in Wuhan have been organizing philanthropic activities since 1987.20 The same is true for Buddhists in Hebei province, who have been active since 1988.21 These cases reveal something important about devotees’ motivations: the 16 ZFX CGW (2013: 1147–1160). 17 Ibid.: 768–771. 18 Ibid.: 584–586. 19 Ibid.: 556–563. 20 Ibid.: 897–900. 21 Ibid.: 424–432.

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provinces where they have established philanthropic associations do not count large numbers of Buddhists, relative to Fujian and Zhejiang. Moreover, at that time the local economies had yet to experience the kind of economic growth that would lead to the formation of a social elite willing to donate to charities. At the very least, this strongly suggests that Buddhists in these locations believed philanthropy represented a way to express their religious ideal of compassion. Fayin 法音, the BAC’s official journal, constitutes another source providing indirect documentation of the growth of Buddhist philanthropy—albeit an incomplete one. It recorded no charitable activities between 1978 and 1984, although the evidence mentioned above indicates otherwise. Therefore, the activities this journal records are not a complete reflection of events throughout the country. Nevertheless, this record still serves a purpose. Because this publication represents the BAC’s official showcase, and consequently indicates what the CCP approves, the articles published in the journal constitute both a statement on the part of Buddhists who want to contribute to social welfare and an illustration of what the government hopes these efforts will achieve. The activities recorded in the journal have met with the approval of both religious leaders and government officials. They cover a wide range of activities, from support for the elderly to running orphanages. However, many of the articles lack on specifics. The activities they mention fall under the vague rubric of social welfare (shehui fuli 社会福利) or poverty alleviation (fupin 扶贫). These activities occurred throughout the country, from the coast to the provinces and the autonomous regions where most minorities live (see Table 1). Between 1984 and 1992, the BAC coordinated only 7 of the 29 activities recorded in Fayin. This low level of involvement may be because at the time, the BAC had just recently resumed its activities after the Gang of Four was ousted; it had other priorities, such as recovering property lost or destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Local Buddhist associations and their leaders at the county and municipal levels were responsible for most of the other philanthropic undertakings. In regions far from Beijing, some of them ended up better positioned to help than outsiders were, especially where religious leadership and local political structures intermingled. For example, the Living Buddha Qingzhijia 青智尖, abbot of Lajia temple in Maqin county, Qinghai, also served as vice chair of

7

Table 1 Year

1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992

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Charitable activities recorded in Fayin, 1984–1992 Total activities

2 6 5 3 6 1 2 1 3

Activities related to: Relief

Welfare

Health

Elderly

Children

Other

– 1 – 1 1 – 1 1 1

– 3 2 1 1 – – – 1

– 1 1 1 – 1 1 – 1

1 – – – – – – – –

– – 1 – 2 – – – –

1 1 1 – 2 – – – –

the Maqin Political Consultative Conference.22 Likewise, two years later, when the city of Leshan, Sichuan suffered its worst flood in 30 years, monks from that temple were able to help because they were based near the disaster site.23 The largest number of activities in which Buddhist associations and devotees became involved fell under the rubric of social welfare. In contrast to disaster relief, this form of support extends over longer periods of time. It includes support for the blind and disabled, as well as support for students in impoverished counties. The health category primarily includes managing clinics or hospitals offering traditional medicine, but also helping people with disabilities. The issue of providing nursing homes and long-term care for the elderly did not receive much attention during this period. Apart from a case in 1984 in which this issue constituted a subject of discussion,24 such debates—if they happened—left little trace. Care for children received more attention. The residual category of “other” activities included meetings and debates on principles and strategies related to charity. Hence in 1986, Fayin published a long editorial quoting scriptures from the Pure Land tradition to emphasize the nature of Buddhism as a religion of compassion, and therefore to argue that providing relief, social welfare, and 22 Han (1988: 34). 23 Gan (1990: 43). 24 Shi (1984: 45).

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poverty alleviation constitutes a key aspect of Buddhist teaching. At the time, this statement appeared in the context of a comparison with Christianity, which was understood as the religion of love.25 Thus this statement suggests that Buddhist leaders wanted to assert their capacity and their willingness to emulate Christians, or perhaps that the CCP United Front and the BRA had encouraged them to promote this idea. The article suggested an equivalence between compassion and love, stopping short of arguing for the superiority of the Buddhist vision. Most of the time, county and municipal Buddhist associations provided relief and other forms of support to the local population; they rarely organized philanthropic activities beyond their own provinces, let alone outside China. Fayin mentioned one rare exception in 1985, when Zhao Puchu organized a fundraising event to provide relief in Africa.26 The limited expansion of Buddhist philanthropy during this period was the result of broader upheavals in Chinese society. Intensifying aspirations for social and political change, inspired by the leadership of Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, made ideas such as political reform conceivable, but they did not translate into calls for religious freedom, and even less for a return to charity. Social and economic conditions made it unlikely that greater religious freedom would lead to greater involvement in charitable activities, as Chinese society was still in the grip of widespread poverty. Moreover, the prevailing intellectual climate did not favor the development of charity. The common thread running through the aspirations of intellectuals and students, encapsulated in ideas such as the “fifth modernization,” received more attention due to the sense of urgency in this context of social and political change. However, these debates did not take place across all social milieus, and I could not find any evidence that monastic Buddhists were involved in such debates.

2

The Experimentation Stage, 1992–2002

In the first years of Jiang’s administration, the policies initiated under Deng with respect to religious philanthropy continued, as many saw that religions could provide some moral comfort and healing to those who were suffering the social consequences of the closure of state-owned

25 Fayin (1985: 8–15). 26 Zhao and Zhang (1986: 42).

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enterprises and the dismantling of the people’s communes, which had reached their final stages. However, the work of the Amity Foundation, the YMCA, and other Christian associations around social welfare presented the regime with the dilemma of depending on an outside source of support, which it saw as ever more threatening to its legitimacy as the number of Christians in China increased. This malaise, which came to the fore in the aftermath of the events of June 4, 1989, saw China briefly isolated on the international stage, and the authorities became aware of the key importance of cultivating support among overseas Chinese communities and therefore promoting the expression of a shared culture, including its religious dimensions. While some in the Party had come to see religion as a safety valve that could offset the social malaise caused by economic reforms, the adverse effects of the latter also had negative consequences for institutions affiliated with the five officially approved religions: since they were closely related to the existing social and political order, many people perceived them as compromised. With growing anxiety, the CCP observed the emergence of two kinds of religious trends in this context. First, the expansion of house churches with tenuous links to the state-approved Three-Self Protestant Church renewed fears of foreign infiltration. Second, the multiplication of groups offering the promise of healing through the practice of qigong alarmed the government, which perceived their mass gatherings and their organization outside state control as a threat. Moreover, as Patricia Thornton has argued, the government saw this as a public rebuke of its approach to healthcare.27 The latter appeared especially worrisome because qigong claimed to embody Chinese tradition, in contrast to “foreign” Christianity, and the nationalism implied in this aspiration competed with the CCP’s claim to legitimacy on the same basis.28 2.1

The Changing Landscape for Religious Charities

In an article published in 1996, Liu Peng, a prominent scholar of religion in China, accurately captured the legal-formal approach the CCP adopted in relation to religions under Jiang. The continuation of the reform and opening policy, he wrote, offered religions many opportunities to increase

27 Thornton (2002). 28 Østergaard (2004: 217–218).

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their influence in society, such as “building schools, hospitals, services for the elderly, and various charity organizations and social services,” but he cautioned that neither the state nor the government were prepared for such possibilities, due to their divergent interests.29 The regime saw its display of tolerance toward Chinese Christian churches as an effective way to cultivate the goodwill of their Western counterparts, which could in turn advise their governments to support CCP objectives, such as the PRC’s accession to the World Trade Organization. However, episodic tensions between China and the USA made this approach unreliable. During Jiang’s tenure as CCP secretary general, the social welfare work of the Amity Foundation and the YMCA in Shanghai continued to enjoy CCP approval. Both organizations also continued to receive donations from abroad. In its second decade of existence, Amity was present in all parts of China; in accordance with the central government’s “opening the West” policy, the foundation focused on that part of the country and paid special attention to farmers.30 The YMCA continued to serve the CCP’s United Front Work well, thanks to its many connections with sister associations in the Asia–Pacific region and in North America. Carsten Vala, Jianbo Huang, and Jesse Sun have found that during this decade, local Christian organizations also began to get involved in social welfare, even though they faced greater difficulties due to their limited funding. For example, the Hangzhou Christian Council had maintained close relations with the TSPM and succeeded in building a nursing home in 1991. However, some of the other congregations these authors studied did not have a relationship with the TSPM, and they struggled throughout the period. For example, the authors describe the tribulation of a small group of elderly Christian women who tried to establish a nursing home in Shanghai and faced obstacles raised by municipal officials, the TSPM, and dishonest entrepreneurs.31 In 1994, Chinese Catholics established a nationwide body to coordinate the delivery of social services: the Chinese Catholic Commission for Economic Development and Social Services.32 Two years later, the Shijiazhuang local government and the local Catholic church established

29 Liu (1996: 79). 30 Amity Foundation (2017: 193). 31 Vala et al. (2015: 311, 315–316). 32 Zhang (2020: 96).

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the Catholic Jinde (进德) Foundation, which in 1998 became the first Catholic non-profit organization approved by the government. It was named in honor of Bishop Hou Jinde, who was known for his work on behalf of the poor.33 Over the following years, Jinde extended its activities across Hebei province and beyond. It established health and rehabilitation centers to help people with intellectual disabilities in Jilin (1994) and Shaanxi (2001),34 and ten leprosy rehabilitation centers in six provinces.35 Indicative of its reach, Jinde extended its activities across seven provinces, where it founded eleven institutions for the adoption of abandoned children. However, of these latter institutions, only one was successfully registered in Shanxi, and only one was approved in Hebei province. This is indicative of the difficulties the church faced in gaining the government’s acceptance.36 Little transpired regarding Muslim philanthropic activities during this period. In these years, Chinese Muslims did not experience the kind of vilification by the authorities that would develop later in the twenty-first century, even though jihadism became a global issue during this period. Most Muslims remained poor, relative to other Chinese, because they lived in many of the more impoverished western provinces and regions. At the end of this period, the central government allowed some international cooperation with Islamic philanthropic associations, and the British-based Islamic Relief Worldwide foundation began operating in China in 2002.37 This latter event suggests a replication of the policy which Jiang adopted at the beginning of his tenure, when he opened the door to Tzu Chi and allowed some local governments to cooperate with this Taiwan-based transnational charity. I could not find any evidence of philanthropic activities undertaken by the DAC on a national level during this period. As was the case for the previous period, this does not mean that such activities did not occur at lower levels of governance. I have found mentions of philanthropic activities undertaken by local Daoist associations during this

33 Ibid.: 98. 34 Ibid.: 100. 35 Shaanxi (1998), Jiangxi (2000), Sichuan (2000, 2001, 2002), Guangdong (2001, 2002), and Hubei (2002); see Zhang (2020: 101–102). 36 Zhang (2020: 99). 37 I could not find any reference to Islamic charities from Muslim-majority countries.

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period. Hence, for Chengdu municipality, Chen Juan has documented charitable activities in the public interest undertaken by the municipal Daoist association since 1990, as well as by local Daoist charitable organizations, temples, and devotees on an almost yearly basis.38 These activities consisted of fundraising to help victims of natural disasters, such as droughts and earthquakes. They served people in Chengdu as well as residents of other provinces: in 2001, Chengdu Daoist Association collected donations totaling 422,900 RMB to help natural disaster victims in Gansu province.39 In sum, under Jiang, religious philanthropy became acceptable. 2.2

The Growth of Buddhist Philanthropy Under Jiang

Buddhist philanthropy presented the CCP with an important benefit in comparison to philanthropic associations run by three of the other four state-approved religions. As I mentioned above, while Chinese Christian philanthropy benefitted from its connections with wealthy co-religionists abroad, these links also represented a liability for a government weary of foreign influence, especially during the brief turn to more conservative politics that followed the international response to the crackdown on protestors on June 4, 1989. Chinese Buddhists did not have this problem: the CCP had encouraged the development of Chinese Buddhist relations with fellow Buddhists in Japan and South Korea since Mao’s time, hoping the latter would support the development of better relations with China. Far from experiencing a decline in 1989, official exchanges between the BAC and its counterparts in Japan and South Korea increased, and would maintain the momentum with about ten exchanges per year.40 Exchanges with fellow Buddhists of ethnic Chinese heritage from Southeast Asia, as well as from Taiwan and Hong Kong, added the value of shared linguistic and historical connections predating 1949. In the eyes of the UFWD, Taiwanese Buddhists represented an especially important group to cultivate, as both sides could find common ground, even if they had

38 Chen (2012: 97, 99). 39 Ibid.: 99. 40 See the appendix on exchanges between the BAC and its counterparts in Japan and South Korea, compiled from Fayin, 1981–2014.

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vastly different objectives. Taiwanese Buddhists hoped to see their religion develop in China, and they welcomed the CCP’s invitation to deliver relief throughout the country; this gesture of goodwill toward Taiwanese Buddhists served the CCP’s United Front strategy of cultivating allies in Taiwan who would support Taiwan’s annexation by the PRC. The presence of Taiwanese volunteers from the Tzu Chi Foundation in China from 1992 onward illustrated the implementation of this strategy. After they received invitations from local governments, volunteers from the foundation spent short periods in different locations to deliver relief to people who had been affected by natural disasters. They visited communities in distress, interacted with local governments, and contributed to the rehabilitation of villages affected by floods, typhoons, and other forms of natural disaster. I have visited some of these locations over the years, and I saw for myself the extent of the cooperation between local authorities and these volunteers, who sometimes brought technical expertise to repair infrastructure, and at other times funds to help rebuild schools, homes for the elderly, and even clinics.41 For the Tzu Chi volunteers, this relief delivery represented a significant expression of their religious belief, for which they expressed gratitude, as well as an investment in the future of their religion. Although they could not preach the Dharma and never stayed long enough to have the opportunity to propagate Buddhist doctrines, volunteers had no doubt that the power of their example would result in their master’s teachings taking root in China. Undoubtedly many of the local leaders of communities that received this support saw it not only as a welcome relief in their time of need but also as an improvement in relations with the island itself since this relief was delivered by Taiwanese volunteers. Most significantly, Tzu Chi’s activities in China served as an opportunity for the CCP to learn how Buddhist philanthropy could work to support local governments in social services delivery, should the state decide to encourage the BAC to set up a comparable organization. The above-mentioned report by the BAC Charity Committee mentions very few activities undertaken by China-based Buddhist associations under Jiang’s administration. If any such activities took place at the time, the official Buddhist associations provided scant evidence to that effect. The official record of little or no locally based Buddhist

41 See Laliberté (2003, 2013).

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philanthropy in many parts of China up to the mid-1990s is credible: it correlates with the observation that the population’s standard of living at the time had yet to increase significantly, and most Buddhist associations lacked the capacity to develop large-scale operations. Tzu Chi’s social services delivery offered local Chinese Buddhist associations an opportunity to gain experience about how to organize fundraising and mobilize a large group of volunteers to provide support to vulnerable populations, such as lone elderly people, orphans, individuals suffering from incurable diseases or disabilities, and victims of natural disasters. Moreover, as many volunteers have expressed to me over the years, such actions constituted the ethics of being a Buddhist. Local Buddhist knowledge about mobilizing resources, delivering relief, and running a philanthropic association, already weakened during the Civil War, had faced stigmatization and erasure throughout the intense period of political mobilization from 1949 until the end of the Cultural Revolution. Learning anew from fellow Taiwanese Buddhists represented a development which was welcomed by teachers in the schools that received such support, even if officials often preferred to downplay the significance of this support to outsiders.42 Throughout this period, many other activities developed without outside support, independently of Tzu Chi’s activities, and without the institutional structure of a registered charity. In one rare, welldocumented case—that of the Putuoshan Buddhist Association—devotees and monastics engaged in a variety of relief activities, without registering as either a philanthropic society or a merit society. Members raised 20 million RMB between 1979 and 1997, which constituted a large sum at the time. Part of this amount went toward the reconstruction and development of the pilgrimage site at Putuoshan: the money paid for the infrastructure necessary to provide access to the temple complex. Half of the 6 million RMB raised between 1979 and 1993 served these needs, while the other half was divided to support four different programs: education, healthcare, social assistance, and a broadly defined relief program for victims of natural disasters and people suffering from disabilities. Between 1994 and 1997, however, the allocation of funds changed dramatically. Since Putuoshan received twice the amount in four 42 During my fieldwork, I have often met individuals who expressed gratitude for the help they received from Tzu Chi. On separate occasions and in different locations, local officials have expressed displeasure at a foreigner researching this topic. I witnessed this attitude at the end of this period, but it was less prominent later.

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years as it had collected in the previous fourteen, it increased spending on the last of its four programs by a factor of twelve.43 However, at the time, the Putuoshan Buddhist Association did not register as a Buddhist philanthropic association, a merit society, or a foundation. Under Jiang’s government, the paths to institutionalization for philanthropic associations varied. Five such associations emerged from initiatives launched by provincial Buddhist associations: this was the case in Beijing, Chongqing, Sichuan, Guangdong, and Hebei. The Beijing household grove recovered its property only in 1994 and was then able to launch charitable activities, at the same time as other Buddhist charities were registering. This relatively late recognition of philanthropic activities in Beijing means that the Chongqing Buddhist Association, launched in 1993, is the oldest philanthropic association founded by a provincial Buddhist association. In two other cases, prefectural associations established charities in Lingkou (Liaoning) and Xuzhou (Jiangsu). Finally, in three other provinces, charitable initiatives originated with historically significant temples: Nanputuo (Fujian),44 Shaolin (Henan), and Dajin (Jiangxi). During this entire period, four foundations were registered: the Nanputuo Charity Foundation and a foundation for Shanxi Buddhist culture, both in 1994; the Hebei Buddhist Charity Foundation in 1995; and a foundation for Gansu Tibetan Buddhist culture in 1996.45 The formal registration of Buddhist philanthropic associations often represents the culmination of a long process that has been underway for years. For example, when the Sichuan provincial Buddhist association registered its charity, this was the culmination of eight years of fundraising—totaling 14.71 million RMB—by the Emeishan Buddhist association and the public to support a variety of social assistance, welfare, relief, and student assistance projects.46 Not only did the registration process take time, but the association also faced many limitations. According to the CCP’s principle of state corporatist management, only one Buddhist philanthropic association could register per province. In the case of heavily populated provinces, such as Sichuan or Hebei, managing the affairs of large numbers of devotees and volunteers could constitute

43 ZFX CGW (2013: 768–769). 44 On the temple’s recent history, see Ashiwa and Wank (2006), Birnbaum (2003). 45 Zhou (2017: 73). 46 ZFX CGW (2013: 1110).

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a drawback. The quasi-federal structure of the six tiers of government in China provides ways to overcome this problem. While only one association can represent all the Buddhists in Sichuan or Hebei, this does not prevent associations at the prefectural and county levels from representing smaller communities and lower levels of government with more specific needs. Buddhist philanthropic societies in Sichuan, Hebei, and Zhejiang have chosen this strategy. However, the process of institutionalization involves more than simply registering with the appropriate level of government. Different philanthropic associations have also made different choices in the registration process itself. Buddhist associations have established generic charities (cishanhui 慈善会 or cishan xiehui 慈善协会), foundations (jijinhui 基 金会) for the purpose of raising money, and merit societies (gongdehui 功德会). Half of the charities registered during the Jiang era chose the latter path, and four established foundations. The others took the path of diversification, creating two or even three different institutions, each with a specific purpose.47 Sometimes, as in Hebei province, local Buddhist associations adopted more than one path. Learning from its fundraising experiences in 1991, the Hebei Buddhist Association sponsored a committee to prepare the way for a province-wide foundation in 1995. Inspired by the Hope Project, the association had to wait another ten years before it could register a kindergarten for orphans and children from poor communities (hongde jiayuan 宏德家园).48 The last few years of the Jiang administration saw developments that enabled Buddhist associations to make greater contributions to social assistance and to the broader interests of the population. A few local associations recorded philanthropic activities during this period. In 1991, the Xuzhou (Jiangsu) Municipal Buddhist Association did so,49 followed by the Kaifeng Buddhist Association one year later.50 In 1994, Yonghegong temple in Beijing registered a charity,51 as did undisclosed Buddhist temples in Suihua city (Heilongjiang).52 In 1996, two other important 47 On these different approaches, see Jiang (2018). 48 ZFX CGW (2013: 424–429). 49 Ibid.: 705–706. 50 Ibid.: 893. 51 Ibid.: 370–375. 52 Ibid.: 618–619.

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temples launched philanthropic activities but did not register an association when these activities were reported: Guanyin temple in Tianjin53 and Kaiyuan temple in Fujian.54 In 2000, Jing’an temple in Shanghai also launched philanthropic activities without registering an association or a foundation until 2012.55 Finally, a group in the Guangxi autonomous region did likewise in 2001.56 The evidence collected by the BAC Charity Committee, which relied on the voluntary reports submitted by local Buddhist associations, provides a fragmentary portrait of philanthropy in this period. The range and scope of activities seem limited if one considers the evidence collected in the BAC’s official publication. Between 1993 and 2002, Fayin recorded no charitable activities in support of the elderly for healthcare. This finding may suggest that such activities were underreported, or it may reflect the reality—that little activity of this kind took place because many local Buddhist associations had no resources to support such activities. Whatever the case, this may also reveal a lack of government support for this aspect of Buddhist philanthropy. In the early 1990s, Fayin recorded Buddhist associations’ support for children in need, and by the beginning of the following decade, the journal reported an increase in activities related to welfare and relief (see Table 2). It is difficult to tell whether this reflects the real extent of the activities undertaken by Buddhist associations, which does not always agree with the information reported to the BAC Charity Committee.

3

Conclusion

This comparison of the five religions recognized by the CCP in terms of their involvement in social services provision since Deng’s tenure has brought to light the growing importance of Buddhist charity relative to that of the other four state-sanctioned religions in the eyes of the state. BAC leaders’ limited international contacts, which initially made international cooperation with fellow Buddhists more difficult—in contrast to

53 Ibid.: 414–421. 54 Ibid.: 819–820. For an in-depth study, see Huang (2019). 55 Ibid.: 656–657. 56 Ibid.: 1043.

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Table 2 Year

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Charitable activities recorded in Fayin, 1993–200257 Total activities

4 5 0 3 3 2 4 1 3 3

Activities related to: Relief

Welfare

Children

Other

1 – – 2 – 2 – – – 3

1 – – – 2 – – 1 3 –

2 5 – – – – 2 – – –

– – – 1 1 – 2 – – –

Christians and Muslims—also limited the institutionalization of their charitable activities during the first 15 years of the reform and opening policy. Under Jiang’s administration, exchanges across the Taiwan Strait between Buddhists on both sides helped to fill some gaps and served as a learning experience for the BAC. The chronological and geographical distribution of these Buddhist philanthropic activities testifies to the absence of coordination between the various associations. At the same time, it indicates a wealth of experience from which the central government could draw useful lessons. As we will see, the following decade saw an acceleration of the trends I have reviewed in this chapter.

References Amity Foundation. 2017. “Amity Foundation: A Pioneer Among Religious Welfare Endeavors.” Chinese Law and Government 49 (3): 190–193. Ashiwa, Yoshiko, and David Wank. 2006. “State, Association, and Religion in Southeast China: The Politics of a Reviving Buddhist Temple.” Journal of Asian Studies 65 (2): 337–359. Birnbaum, Raoul. 2003. “Buddhist China at the Century’s Turn.” The China Quarterly 174: 428–450.

57 I am grateful to Lucie Lu Lu for her help in compiling the data.

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Carino, Theresa C. 2016. “Faith-Based Organisations Between Service Delivery and Social Change in Contemporary China: The Experience of Amity Foundation.” HTS Theological Studies 72 (4): 1–10. Chen Juan 谌娟. 2012. “Dangdai Chengdu shi Daojiao cishan shiye yanjiu 当 代成都市道教慈善事业研究.” In Zongjiao cishan yu Zhongguo shehui gongyi 宗教慈善与中国社会公益, ed. Tao Feiya 陶飞亚 and Liu Yi 刘义, 94–103. Shanghai: Shanghai daxue chubanshe. Fayin (staff). 1985. “Zhao Puchu juankuan erwan yuan yuanzhu feizhou zaimin fojiaojie choukuan jiuzai 赵朴初捐款二万元援助非洲灾民佛教界筹款救灾.” Fayin 法音 4 (3): 42. Gan Yanru 干燕茹. 1990. “Leshan wuyou si sengren zhuankuan zhiyuan zaiqu 乐山乌尤寺僧人捐款支援灾区.” Fayin 法音 9 (10): 43. Han Deming 韩德明. 1988. “Huoyue zaikang xue jiuzai diyixian de qingzhi jiancuo huofo 活跃在抗雪救灾第一线的青智尖措活佛.” Fayin 法音 7 (1): 34. Herrou, Adeline. 2005. La vie entre soi: Les moines taoïstes aujourd’hui en Chine. Nanterre: Société d’ethnologie. Huang Weishan. 2019. “Urban Restructuring and Temple Agency—A Case Study of the Jing’an Temple.” In Buddhism after Mao: Negotiations, Continuities, and Reinventions, ed. Ji Zhe, Gareth Fisher, and André Laliberté, 251–270. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Jiang Yuxuan. 2018. “The Commodification of Han-Buddhism in Contemporary China Since the Economic Reform.” MA thesis, University of Ottawa, Ottawa. Klimeš, Ondˇrej. 2020. “Xinjiang in China’s Public Diplomacy in Central Asia: Case Study of Almaty.” In Transnational Sites of China’s Cultural Diplomacy, ed. J. Ptáˇcková, O. Klimeš, G. Rawnsley, 35–63. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. Laliberté, André. 2003. “‘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 (2): 243–261. Laliberté, André. 2013. “The Growth of a Taiwanese Buddhist Association in China: Soft Power and Institutional Learning.” China Information 27 (1): 81–105. Liu Peng. 1996. “Church and State Relations in China: Characteristics and Trends.” Journal of Contemporary China 5 (11): 69–79. Ma Jianxiong. 2013.“Re-creating Hui Identity and the Charity Network in the Imperial Extension from Ming to Qing in the Southwest Chinese Frontier.” In Charities in the Non-Western World: The Development and Regulation of Indigenous and Islamic Charities, ed. Rajeswary Ampalavanar Brown and Justin Pierce, 147–170. London: Routledge.

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Østergaard, Clemens Stubbe. 2004. “Governance and the Political Challenge of the Falun Gong.” In Governance in China, ed. Jude Howell, 207–225. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Shi Zhong 石中. 1984. “Qidong xian fojiaotu jueding huifu xuexizu jianli anlaoyuan 启东县佛教徒决定恢复学习组建立安老院.” Fayin 法音 3: 45. Thornton, Patricia M. 2002. “Framing Dissent in Contemporary China: Irony, Ambiguity and Metonymy.” The China Quarterly 171: 661–681. Vala, Carsten T., Jianbo Huang, and Jesse Sun. 2015. “Protestantism, Community Service and Evangelism in Contemporary China.” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 15 (4): 305–319. Wang Jianping. 2017. “Islamic Charity in China: Its Organizations and Activities in a New Era.” In Religion, Culture, and the Public Sphere in China and Japan, ed. Albert Welter and Jeffrey Newmark, 69–86. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. Wickeri, Philip L. 2011. Seeking the Common Ground: Protestant Christianity, the Three-Self Movement, and China’s United Front. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock. Xing Jun. 1996. Baptized in the Fire of Revolution: The American Social Gospel and the YMCA in China, 1919–1937 . Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press. Yang, Mayfair Mei Hui. 2008. “Goddess Across the Taiwan Strait: Matrifocal Ritual Space, Nation-State, and Satellite Television Footprints.” In Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation, ed. Yang Mayfair Mei Hui, 323–347. Berkeley: University of California Press. ZFX CGW (Zhongguo fojiao xiehui cishan gongyi weiyuanhui 中国佛教协会 慈善公益委员会). 2014. Shehui tuanti jigou dengji zhengshu: zuzhi jigou daimazheng. 社会团体机构登记证书 组织机构代码证. Accessed September 18, 2019. Previously available at: http://www.zfcs.org/bhgk/bhgk/201405-05/702.html. Zhang Zhipeng. 2020. “The Jinde Charities Foundation of Hebei Province and Catholic Charities in China.” In People, Communities, and the Catholic Church in China, ed. Cindy Yik-yi Chu and Paul Mariani, 93–108. Singapore: Palgrave Pivot. Zhao Jiaqian 赵家谦 and Zhang Shangying 张尚瀛. 1986. “Zhongguo fojiao he shehui fuli shiye 中国佛教和社会福利事业”. Fayin 法音 5 (1): 46. Zhou Yuanyuan 周缘园. 2017. “Jinhua yu bianqian: Zhongguo fojiao cishan de xiandaihua zhuanbian 进化与变迁: 中国佛教慈善的现代化转变.” Hainan daxue xuebao renwen shehui kexue ban 海南大学学报人文社会科学版 35 (3): 72–78.

CHAPTER 8

The Duty of Serving the Public Interest

The BAC established a philanthropic association at the national level more than three decades after the Protestant churches in the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) did so. In this chapter, I argue that the push to establish a Buddhist charity association at the national level has taken place in the context of the CCP’s ongoing concern over the emergence of Christian charity as a source of legitimacy for that religion. Moreover, because Christian charity receives support from abroad, the CCP sees this as foreign influence. Political leaders have also been worried by their observation of the contrast between the impressive achievements of Protestant and Catholic charities relative to the comparatively low levels of Buddhist and Daoist philanthropy, which I document below. The evidence for Buddhist charitable activities which I refer to here comes from the official data compiled by the BAC, the limitations, and merits of which I discuss in the next section, as well as material which I have collected from temples and associations over years of fieldwork. This chapter tracks the philanthropic achievements of the five religions recognized by the state, particularly the main Protestant and Catholic charities, through the administrations of Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping to highlight the efforts to catch up with other religions by Buddhist philanthropy. I record

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 A. Laliberté, Religion and China’s Welfare Regimes, Religion and Society in Asia Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7270-5_8

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the BAC’s main milestones in achieving, if not parity, at least a degree of institutionalization comparable to that of the Christian philanthropic associations.

1

The Flourishing Stage, 2002–2012

The government’s attitude to religious philanthropy under CCP Secretary General Hu showed early signs of a turn toward a more nationalistic, traditionalist bent, from which Buddhism and Daoism could theoretically benefit. The nationalism which the CCP promoted sent positive signals regarding Confucian ethics and Buddhist compassion as inspiration for religious philanthropy, but also warned the Chinese religious milieu about foreign influence. This admonition translated into campaigns against Christian infiltration, both on university campuses and in society more broadly.1 In one of his last speeches, Hu also urged Muslims to “resist and eliminate the influences of extremist religious thinking.”2 As I have shown in the previous chapter, the CCP’s nationalist turn in its domestic policy and diplomacy had positive repercussions for Buddhists, as the government used its United Front Work to promote the BAC’s presence at international events, such as the World Buddhist Congress, as well as Buddhist academies and monasteries abroad. The CCP’s traditionalist turn, embodied in its “harmonious society” slogan, evoked Confucian ethics and promoted the peaceful resolution of social conflicts, which were a growing concern during this period. However, this emphasis on tradition, which included Daoism alongside Buddhism, did not go as far as to rehabilitate Falungong, to promote popular religions, or even to recognize new religions—such as Yiguandao—whose teachings expressed moral values deeply embedded in Chinese customs. Meetings between government officials, academics, and religious personnel to discuss the issue of religion and philanthropy during this period revealed a bias that favored Buddhist associations as social services providers for vulnerable populations.

1 See ZZB and GB (2011). 2 Hu (2012: 71).

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1.1

THE DUTY OF SERVING THE PUBLIC INTEREST

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Religious Charity Despite the Fear of Christian Infiltration and Islamic Extremism

Despite the official discourse expressing the fear of infiltration by foreign Christianity, state-approved “patriotic” Protestant philanthropy continued to grow during this period. Vala, Huang, and Sun have found that officially registered churches faced less difficulty than unregistered churches in launching projects and soliciting funds: in 2009, such churches ran over 400 nursing homes throughout the country.3 However, they also noted discrepancies among the TSPM associations, between urban churches— which are generally wealthier, thanks to the properties they rent—and poorer provincial associations, which are more likely to look to international funding sources for support.4 In the latter case, such churches are thus exposed to outside influence. The TSPM had three primary methods for preventing such influence on its social welfare programs: channeling international funding, restrictions on proselytizing, and locating projects far away from congregations in order to limit their access to Christian communities.5 The “unregistered” Protestant churches, free of the restraints imposed by such official policies, were able to develop their own projects, provided they remained small enough to avoid government scrutiny.6 In the absence of aggregate nationwide data on these activities, however, I cannot provide estimates of their scale relative to TSPM activities. Catholic charities expanded rapidly under Hu, and they have left a detailed record of their activities. Based on incomplete statistics, Zhang Zhipeng reports that in 2007, church-affiliated organizations operated at least 360 public welfare institutions throughout the country. These institutions included 212 clinics and hospitals, 68 nursing homes, 35 kindergartens, 4 schools, and 5 care facilities for people suffering from AIDS.7 Between 2002 and 2012, Catholics founded 15 centers for people

3 Vala et al. (2015: 310). 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid.: 312. 6 Ibid.: 312–313. 7 Zhang (2020: 96).

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suffering from leprosy in 6 provinces,8 3 health and rehabilitation institutions for people with intellectual disabilities,9 and 4 institutions for the adoption of abandoned infants in Shanxi, Hebei, and Shandong.10 Founded in 1997 by a Catholic priest, the Jinde Foundation finally obtained the status of a not-for-profit, non-enterprise organization from the Hebei provincial Civil Affairs Department in 2011.11 Thus church leaders have taken the opportunity, in the words of Susan McCarthy, to “repurpose” their philanthropy. Jinde supports the state’s goals, but it also serves as a vehicle for expressing and practicing Catholic spirituality.12 Wang Jianping, a scholar of contemporary Islam in China, has offered an account of Muslim philanthropy during the Hu era and has pointed to some of the reasons why the CCP was able to sponsor Islamic charitable organizations in particular.13 At the time, the CCP recognized Islam’s relevance for many national minorities, and Hu implemented policies reminiscent of American “affirmative action,” which claimed to offer Muslims preferential treatment in education, employment, and exemptions from the one-child policy. The authorities believed that Islamic charities had the relevant knowledge necessary to address the specific needs of the Muslim population in terms of dietary requirements, burial rituals, and other customs. However, these supportive views did not lead to the creation of a nationwide Islamic philanthropic association, and as result, Muslim social welfare remained largely localized. Central state authorities probably feared the consequences of allowing religious activities to spill over into the secular sphere—a phenomenon McCarthy has described in her fieldwork with the Gansu Province Association for Minority Nationality Cultural and Educational Promotion (GAMCEP).14 The need to contain such a religious “overflow” with radical Islamic characteristics appeared all the more plausible at a time when many countries in the region were grappling with militant Islamic movements.

8 Ibid.: 101–102. 9 Ibid.: 100. 10 Ibid.: 99. 11 McCarthy (2013: 56). 12 Ibid.: 55. 13 Wang (2017). 14 McCarthy (2017: 73–81).

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The DAC does provide information on its philanthropic activities but tracking these activities has proven difficult due to inconsistencies in data availability. The national association’s website advertises a section on charity, but this reflects local initiatives and does not provide dates. Ian Johnson has also reported on Daoist charitable activities in 2006.15 Likewise, Li Yuyong has provided details on Daoist charities’ spending between 2008 and 2010.16 Chen Juan has provided the following details on Daoist philanthropy in Chengdu municipality from 2005 to the first half of 2008. In 2005, the association provided disaster relief in the Indian Ocean after the catastrophic tsunami that year. In 2006, for the first time, Daoists raised close to 2 million RMB for various projects, ranging from support for schools to poverty alleviation. The following year, however, they could not repeat that performance, and they raised a fraction of that amount. In the spring of 2008, when the province was devastated by the Wenchuan earthquake, they barely surpassed the previous year’s donations.17 At the time this information was circulating, however, no national Daoist philanthropic association existed to coordinate these activities. 1.2

Epistemic Communities Promoting Buddhist Philanthropy

A few more Buddhist philanthropic associations registered in the ten years after 2002, but the BAC did not set up a nationwide philanthropic organization until the end of the Hu administration. The government clearly pressed ahead with the creation of such an organization with a view to other priorities, such as United Front Work directed at Taiwan and Hong Kong. From the beginning of the Hu administration, as the government explored all the possibilities for non-state social services provision, scholars and people from religious milieus met on many occasions to discuss the merits of religious philanthropy. They paid special attention to the achievements of associations such as Tzu Chi in Taiwan, and they saw Tzu Chi’s activities in China as a demonstration of how society could benefit from this approach to social services provision. Hence in March 2008, the UFWD and the China Charity Foundation jointly established

15 Zhang (2012: 81–83). 16 Li (2012: 90–91). 17 Chen (2012: 99).

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a Buddhist Charity Foundation, with offices in three locations: Beijing, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Barely two months later, the Wenchuan earthquake offered the first opportunity to use this framework to coordinate a response across the Taiwan Strait, as Buddhist volunteers from Tzu Chi, Foguangshan, and Dharma Drum delivered assistance, along with other Chinese and international NGOs. The 2008 earthquake represented a turning point for Buddhist philanthropy, as the mobilization of many volunteers left a good impression on the authorities. This confluence of factors led the BAC to constitute a national Committee for Charity and the Public Interest (zhongguo fojiao xiehui cishan gongyi weiyuanhui 中国佛教慈善公益委 员会) in 2010, which explored the possibility of creating a Buddhist equivalent to the Amity Foundation on a national level. In sum, this committee sought to meet the objectives promoted by the Buddhist Charity Foundation two years previously. By the end of the Hu administration, 50 municipal and prefectural organizations had registered philanthropic associations, foundations, or merit societies, while 13 provinces had registered a total of 20 provincial Buddhist philanthropic organizations.18 Some of these organizations responded to local priorities, as they had gained official recognition prior to the earthquake. The Wenchuan calamity and the period of recovery that followed, however, brought to light the acute need to coordinate relief delivery and post-disaster rehabilitation. Looking at the number of charitable activities for the whole period, as recorded in Fayin, 2010 appears to be a peak year for charities affiliated with Buddhist associations. While there were no more than six events per year under Deng’s administration and a maximum of five under Jiang’s, the number of charitable activities under the Hu–Wen administration grew after 2007 (Table 1). The activities of Buddhist charities in this period, as documented in Fayin, included relief, welfare, and poverty alleviation, as well as care for children. The journal did not register any activities related to elderly care, which again hints at the limitations of Buddhist philanthropy in addressing one of the most pressing and costly social problems in contemporary China. This came as a surprise to me, as many of my respondents over the years have expressed their view that care for the 18 As the next chapter clarifies, most provinces do not have a province-wide Buddhist charity organization, while those that do have opted to create more than one for the sake of operational efficiency.

8

Table 1 Year

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

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Charitable activities recorded in Fayin, 2003–201219 Total activities

8 1 2 4 2 10 8 18 13 12

Activities related to: Relief

Welfare

Health

Children

Other

2 – 2 1 – 6 3 11 2 2

2 1 – 1 – – 3 3 – –

2 – – – – – – – – –

2 – – – – 2 1 – 1 1

– – – 2 2 2 1 4 10 9

elderly represented an important example of charity—a view that echoes Gareth Fisher’s findings in his many informal discussions with Buddhists over twenty years of research.20 In my fieldwork in Jiangsu, I met with Buddhist devotees who evinced a clear sense of the extent of this problem in our discussions, as well as an awareness that their institutions could do something to address the issue. The outpouring of international support in 2008, however, had brought China’s lacunae in the philanthropic sector into sharp relief. The significance of international religious NGOs as part of the relief effort also revealed the potential support that religious milieus could provide. Finally, it did not escape the CCP’s notice that, among the Chinese religious NGOs, Amity dwarfed all the other faith-based philanthropic associations in terms of assets. Tzu Chi’s wealth, which was not far behind that of the Amity Foundation, exceeded that of the largest Buddhist philanthropic association registered with the government many times over. If all the Buddhist foundations which submitted reports on their assets in 2011 had pooled their resources, they would still have constituted only the second-largest Chinese religious philanthropic association, behind Amity (see Table 2). By adding the assets of other Buddhist foundations—for which I do not

19 I thank Lucie Lu Lu for her assistance in compiling the data. 20 Personal communication.

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Table 2

Buddhist foundations in 201121

Name

Date founded

Hainan Sanya 三亚 Henan Zhongyuan 中原 Hunan Foci 佛慈 Tianjin Charity Merit Beijing Ren’ai 仁爱 Shanxi Jinglin 金陵 Chongqing Jinyushan Suzhou Hehe 和合 Shaanxi Famen 法 门 Beijing Yunjusi 云 居寺 Wuxi Lingshan 灵 山

2005 2008

Net assets (in million RMB)

Total revenue

Donations collected by 2011

35.93 12.41

23.45 8.93

14.98 8.87

2000 2005

8.41 5.27

2.76 1.47

1.29 0.93

2006 2006 2007

4.25 3.96 3.44

2.49 0.07 0.00

6.65 0.07 n/a

2011 2009

3.0 2.44

n/a 1.66

n/a 1.65

2011

1.92

n/a

n/a

2004

1.21

14.6

14.6

have data, but which have a record of important philanthropic activities— such as the Nanputuo Charity Foundation in Fujian, as well as multiple foundations in Zhejiang, Guangdong, and Hebei, Buddhists could potentially establish the wealthiest faith-based philanthropic association in the country. It was in this context that epistemic communities of experts, officials, volunteers in the philanthropic sector, and religious leaders examined the potential of Buddhist philanthropy. Renmin University represented a key factor in thinking about this issue, sponsoring a series of events to discuss religion and public welfare.22 In 2007, its first forum included the Jinde Foundation, the Christian Charity Foundation, the Nanputuo 21 China Foundation Centre (2012). It is important to note, however, that this source is missing data on seven other foundations established during this period: in Shenzhen (2000), Jiangxi (2006), Jiangsu (2007, 2008), Chongqing (2007), Gansu (2009), and Fujian (2010); see Zhou (2017: 73). 22 Six proceedings have been published: (1) on cooperation with Catholics and Protestants, “Retrospect and Prospect of Chinese Religious Public Welfare” (Religious Culture Publishing House); (2) on educational cooperation between Buddhists and Muslims in

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Charity Foundation, the Salar Salvation Association of Qinghai, and the Tzu Chi Foundation. Following the Sichuan earthquake in the summer of 2008, the second forum on religion and social services, which took place later that year, emphasized Buddhism. In a panel on the development of Buddhist charity, participants identified the following difficulties, which they said had limited its growth: a small organizational scale, a weak fundraising capacity, and a lack of cooperation among various organizations. To remedy these problems, participants argued for the need to improve the legal framework for charities; to reform the dual management system, which burdened existing Buddhist charity organizations; and to promote the value of Buddhist charitable organizations in society more broadly. Practically, their recommendations included implementing longterm fundraising methods and attracting professional staff to work for Buddhist charitable organizations. Although a third symposium on religion and public welfare was convened, it focused on education and did not leave a mark on Buddhism. In December 2010, Renmin University organized a fourth symposium on religion and public welfare, choosing to focus on Buddhism and the culture of philanthropy. I could not find any trace of a fifth forum on religion and public welfare at Renmin University in 2011, although Tao Feiya and Liu Yi organized a conference on religion and philanthropy in Shanghai, at which the stress on Tzu Chi in the discussion on philanthropy stood out. In 2012, a conference convened by CASS offered more diverse views, as it considered many of the locally based Buddhist charities. In 2012, the sixth forum on religion and public welfare— once again held at Renmin University and billed as the second Tzu Chi forum—specifically discussed the issue of Buddhist philanthropy. It brought together scholars of religious studies from Renmin and Fudan universities and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, as well as the president of Tzu Chi University.23 The other religious groups that participated in this forum included the Catholic Jinde Foundation, the Christian

Xining, “Education, Religion, Charity” (Gansu People’s Publishing House); (3) on Christian philanthropy; (4) on cooperation with lay Buddhists, “Buddhism and Philanthropy,” in Beijing; (5) on “spirituality and religions’ public interest” in Fuzhou; (6) on “Buddhism and charity,” in cooperation with Tzu Chi, in Beijing. 23 By the time Chinese scholars began to discuss Tzu Chi’s activities in China, the Taiwan-based association had already managed to establish a solid presence in the country. As a philanthropic society headquartered in Suzhou, it was able to register on the

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Charity Foundation, the Nanputuo Charity Foundation, and the Salar Salvation Association of Qinghai. The event also brought in people from SARA, which suggested a strong interest on the part of government officials. As mentioned above, in 2010—three years after the first of these ongoing debates, and two years after the Wenchuan earthquake—the vice director of the BAC, Mingsheng 明生, formally established the BAC Committee for Charity and the Public Interest (CCPI).24 The structure of this committee, however, did not reflect the demographic realities of Buddhism in China. Ethnically speaking, the committee did not include any monks from the Tibetan or the Mongol national minorities, in which most of the people practice Buddhism.25 In fact, the committee’s composition did not even reflect the geographical distribution of Buddhists among the Han population. While some members of the committee represented provinces with small numbers of Buddhists, such as Hainan and Shandong, other provinces with especially important Buddhist activities had only one monk on the committee. Moreover, the committee included only one lay devotee, even though most of the fundraising and day-to-day management activities of Buddhist charities required the involvement of non-monastics.26 Finally, the committee completely failed to represent the Buddhist community in terms of gender: it included only two nuns.27 national level and establish many centers throughout the country. Although its headquarters, located in the Taiwanese town of Hualian, suggest autonomy from the BAC, PRC residents constitute an increasing proportion of its membership. 24 On that meeting, see Donglin zuting (2010). 25 This finding comes as a surprise, since the governing structure of the BAC, as we

have seen in the previous chapter, tends to overrepresent the same minorities. Miaoxian 秒贤, a well-known nun heading a charity in Tianjin, who identifies as Manchu, is an exception. 26 Li Liufa 李留法, who worked for a fertilizer company in Henan, became one of the most successful entrepreneurs in China, making a fortune in steel, tourism, and minerals. He heads the Tianrui Group. 27 Although I do not have hard data on sangha and lay Buddhist community membership according to gender, years of participant observation in mainland China and in Taiwan have shown that women represent a significant proportion, if not many of the devotees. For a corroboration of this finding, see Fisher (2014), in which his demographic survey of Guangji temple in Beijing documents the fact that most lay Buddhists are women. Although there are many nuns in highly visible positions of authority in the Taiwanese sangha, I have found very few in China.

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Beyond the ethnic, regional, and gender dimensions of the representatives, however, the composition of the committee reflected the collective experience of monastics who had been involved in successfully running philanthropic associations over the years. This was the case for Miaoxian, who established the Tianjin Charity Merit Foundation, and Changhui 常 辉, who was the BAC’s executive director (changhu lishi 常务理事), vice president of the Hebei Buddhist Association, and executive vice chair of the Hebei Buddhist Charity Foundation. However, one could also note striking omissions: the committee did not include Shenghui 圣辉, the founder of the Nanputuo Charity Foundation, or Juexing 觉醒, a prominent actor in Shanghai’s philanthropic milieu. Also notable for his absence was Xuecheng 学诚, who had been the abbot of the revived Longquan temple in Beijing since 2005, and who would go on to establish a Buddhist philanthropic association in the capital—the Ren’ai Foundation—one year later.28 Two years after its founding, the committee published its first and (to my knowledge) only report. Although Hu’s administration had been largely supportive of such activities, the attitude of his successor, Xi Jinping, seems far more ambiguous.

2

Religious Philanthropy Suspended? 2012–2020

Research on religion in contemporary China has once again become difficult since Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power. Official calls for the “sinicization” of religion represent the latest expression of this malaise, as religious persecution accompanies this campaign.29 For the most part, Westerners have heard about the forced removal of crosses from atop churches, on the grounds that they are too ostentatious, or the forced internment of Muslims in Xinjiang. These instances of persecution have been scrutinized by international human rights organizations and institutions that observe restrictions on religious practice in China. Evidence of continued limitations imposed on Tibetan Buddhists, persistent persecution of Falungong followers, and ongoing campaigns against other unregistered religions suggests a continuity with the misgivings already present within the CCP under Jiang and Hu. The state appears to maintain a supportive attitude toward Han Buddhists and Daoists, but

28 See Chapter 10 for a discussion of this case study. 29 Bitter Winter documents many of these cases.

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evidence of more restrictive policies also exists. According to sources in Bitter Winter, a publication on religious issues in China that is critical of the CCP, the government has also imposed some strict measures of control on Buddhist associations. Local authorities have dynamited statues of the Buddha and replaced such representations in temples with images of Xi and Mao.30 In some cases, they have forcibly repurposed temples, substituting CCP propaganda for religious texts and symbols.31 It is difficult to confirm testimonies about these events or to get a clear picture of their scale. It is impossible to tell whether they constitute an exception or illustrate a more generalized trend because of restrictions imposed on research undertaken by outsiders. I could not find any trace of large-scale academic meetings on religions, charity, and the public interest in general after 2012, much less on Buddhism’s role specifically. Zheng Xiaoyuan, the vice director of the Institute of World Religions, writing about the challenges of contemporary religious philanthropy, mentions the “low-key expansion of the religious charity experience.”32 Zheng views religious charities as having advantages in terms of strong social mobilization capacity, strong credibility, and transparency. However, she also points to unresolved issues with fundraising, institutionalization, and internationalization, as well as the most important issue: legislation on charity at all levels of government. She notes that the promulgation of the 2016 Charity Law was a step in the right direction, and the challenge is how to adapt. She notes five other challenges that religious charitable associations need to address: strengthening material conditions; internationalization; creating a “religious milieu” (zongjiaojie 宗教界); better integration into society more broadly; and resolving what she views as the contradiction inherent in the greater visibility of religious charity as it meets the standards of modern philanthropy. Presumably, she is referring to the fact that religious associations need to attract more attention in order to support successful fundraising, which goes against the CCP leaders’ wish to see less visibility for religious organizations in the public space.

30 Ye (2020). The author’s name cited here is a pseudonym, due to the sensitive nature of the information. 31 Zhou (2019). 32 Zheng (2017).

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Her article deplores the fact that the funds raised by religious charity organizations are not primarily invested in activities such as orphanages and nursing homes. While the ideational aspect of religious philanthropy is well developed, the material dimension—including professionalization—falls behind.33 Internationalization refers to the examples provided by religious organizations with connections outside China. This includes Amity and Jinde, but Zheng also stresses Tzu Chi and Ren’ai as examples from which to learn.34 Furthermore, Zheng’s idea of “religious milieus” reveals some ambiguities. On the one hand, it suggests strengthening different charities in the same religious tradition across regions, as the example of the BAC Charity Committee suggests.35 On the other hand, as the “religious charity week” movement orchestrated by local governments under CCP guidance suggests, this idea of “religious milieus” can often represent another case of United Front Work, rather than an instance of spontaneous initiatives. Zheng’s reference to better social integration brings to light a fundamental dilemma: as people outside the religious milieu may hesitate to support religious charities, the leaders of the latter believe that downplaying their religious identity may help them to grow. This perspective has been endorsed by some Buddhist leaders in the charity sector, who argue that their focus on selflessness and humility, which downplays religious identity, nevertheless serves Buddhism by sowing the seeds of its values, such as compassion.36 Modern philanthropic standards, such as the legal obligation to disclose the identity of donors and beneficiaries, also represent an important issue: religious charitable associations are required to publish information about the income they receive through donations, their operation costs, and staff salaries. The lack of professional staff at some religious charities will present them with huge challenges in this area.37 The remark I made at the beginning of the previous chapter—about CCP officials downplaying the importance of social services delivery by non-state actors, and particularly by religious groups—has become relevant again under Xi Jinping. However, Xi’s celebration of the Chinese 33 Ibid.: 134–135. 34 Ibid.: 135. 35 Ibid.: 135–136. 36 Ibid.: 136. 37 Ibid.: 136–137.

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national tradition has reinforced the inflection observed under Hu, when “foreign” religions such as Christianity and Islam were separated from traditional “culture” as expressed in the teachings of Buddhism and Daoism. I observed this attitude firsthand when I was doing research in China at the time of Xi’s first mandate. I witnessed state representatives displaying the official attitude toward religion when I sat in on a meeting between representatives of a municipal People’s Political Consultative Conference and the director of a municipal Christian association, which had supported a particular welfare institution for years. Although the members of the delegation expressed their admiration for the quality of the work done by the volunteers at this home for the elderly, they candidly admitted that the CCP would not publicize this because “it is the work of a religious association.” Nevertheless, this kind of official attitude has not prevented that association’s volunteers from continuing to offer social services, as they have done for decades. At about the same time, I joined a group of volunteers from a Daoist philanthropic association who were caring for elderly people. Local CCP officials openly supported this expression of traditional culture, in contrast to the stance they took toward Christians, as I observed it. These observations, while extremely limited, nevertheless concretely illustrate how the official line translates into action. The COVID-19 outbreak in the winter of 2020 has had unexpected consequences, although it remains too early to tell whether there will be long-lasting repercussions. Despite the conditions depicted above, with the CCP under Xi imposing more constraints on religious associations, many of the individuals affiliated with these associations have increased their volunteer activities in the very recent context of uncertainty caused by the pandemic, and the population has welcomed their efforts. This trend affects each of the five state-sanctioned religions, while the existing restrictions on the others remain firmly in place.38 2.1

Growing in the Shadow of the CCP

In 2016, the CCP promulgated a series of measures that were symptomatic of its tightening control over organizations in general. It issued an Opinion on the Reform of the Social Organization Management System

38 Johnson (2020).

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and the Promotion of the Healthy and Orderly Development of Social Organizations, which—as the name suggests—revealed the CCP’s dissatisfaction with the existing legislation because of the autonomy it had granted to charities. In the same year, the National People’s Congress (NPC) passed a law on charity, with two aims in mind: to define the term “charity” officially and more broadly than before, and to create a new social organization, the “charity organization.”39 Also in 2016, the NPC passed a set of measures on the Accreditation of Charity Organizations. Local governments remain fully in charge of the qualification process, which means social organizations that want to apply for this new status need to submit applications to their local civil affairs departments.40 One year later, a revision of the regulations on religious affairs included regulations on charity.41 In theory, this legislation affects all the five state-sanctioned religions. These developments unfolded in a context of growing restrictions on Christian associations. As part of his attempt to “sinicize” Christianity, Xi promulgated a directive of “Five Introductions and Five Transformations” (wujin wuhua 五进五化), which included introducing churches to the importance of health and medical treatment and supporting people in need.42 Thus Xi signaled that he does not want to return to Mao’s policy of eradicating religion, but he does expect religious believers and their leaders to show their patriotism by providing social services; the specific reference to “introduction into churches” meant including the importance of social services provision in sermons. Some religious believers choose to look at charity to express their love for their country—even though they must be quiet about it. Many pastors and church members criticized Xi’s directive, fearing that it would contribute to converting their places of worship into “mere philanthropic associations.”43 Many Chinese Christians, however, took a different view. In 2018, thanks to online fundraising, the Amity Foundation received 176,580,000 RMB in donations—more than half of its total revenue of over 311,600,000 for

39 Jiang (2018: 86–87, 93). 40 Ibid.: 86. 41 Ibid.: 93. 42 See Schak (2020: 218), Lam (2016). The other three “introductions” include:

policies, laws, and regulations; popular culture and science; and building harmony. 43 Richie (2016), quoted in Schak (2020: 218).

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that year. These funds served to pay for its commitments to a wide range of projects, with total costs of over 215,000,000 RMB.44 The Amity Foundation engages in a wide range of activities. These numbers—which are widely available to the public—serve as a particularly useful benchmark against which to measure Buddhist philanthropic associations’ fundraising capacity, as well as their ability to deliver relief and to assist with poverty alleviation. Chinese Catholics face a similar situation. The Jinde Foundation’s financial report for June 2019 shows much lower donations than the amount the Amity Foundation received, which is not surprising considering that the Chinese Catholic flock is much smaller. In 2018, Jinde raised 13,350,039 RMB and spent 14,525,206, mostly for emergency assistance to households (5.8 million), social development (2.5 million), natural disaster relief (2.3 million), assistance for students (0.7 million), and elderly care (0.7 million).45 Zhang Zhipeng’s useful indication of all the recorded activities of Catholic charitable institutions, complied in his 2020 research article, unfortunately provided accurate data only up to 2013. For this reason, it is difficult to tell whether Catholic charitable activities have experienced a slowdown: for example, the Jinde Foundation established only one clinic for people suffering from leprosy and closed two.46 As of May 2017, as Zhang has noted, Jinde was the only Catholic foundation out of 62 organizations with religious backgrounds and 5919 charity foundations throughout China.47 I could not find any reports on the IAC’s philanthropic activities at the national level. Scholars who have researched religion and charity in China have tended to focus mostly on Buddhism and Christianity and have totally overlooked Islam in some cases.48 A rare instance of documenting the fundraising work coordinated by provincial and municipal Muslim associations appears on the IAC’s website. It provides information on the sums raised in 2016 by 16 provincial Muslim associations to

44 See Amity (2018: 72–75). 45 Jinde Foundation (2018: 47). 46 Zhang (2020: 102). 47 Ibid.: 98. 48 The proceedings of a conference convened by Tao and Liu, published in 2012, included 13 case studies of Buddhist charities, 6 of Protestants, 5 of Catholics, and 3 of Daoists, but not a single Muslim case.

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help the impoverished Sandu Autonomous County, inhabited by the Shui people (Sandu shuizu zizhixian 三都水族自治县), located in Guizhou province. Altogether, these 16 associations raised about 650,000 RMB for poverty alleviation programs in 2016. In 2018, the number had jumped to 23 associations, which raised over 1,050,000 to fund solar-powered streetlamps for villages in that county.49 The Shui people do not practice Islam, and there are very few Muslims in the province. Due to the political conditions in Xinjiang, Ningxia, and other areas where there are large Muslim communities, finding up-to-date information—even online—is difficult for researchers. The government’s attitude toward Islam has hardened significantly in the last few years, and at the time of writing there is no sign of improvement. Alongside the forced internment of Uyghur and Kazakh Muslims in so-called “vocational training camps” in Xinjiang, local authorities in other parts of China have issued restrictions on halal practices.50 In the context of Xi Jinping’s policy of sinicizing religion, Christianity and Islam face more restrictions than Buddhism or Daoism. Despite these limitations, however, the numbers I have mentioned above provide a good indication of the extent to which the state has accepted some religious associations raising funds to pay for social services, administering these funds, and even managing social services delivery, if the state remains in charge. Considering the CCP’s increasing wariness of Protestants, Catholics, and Muslims under Xi, one would expect the state to encourage Buddhists and Daoists to get more involved in social services delivery. Neither religion has a significant level of foreign support, to the extent the three other state-sanctioned religions do. Moreover, the state’s entanglement with these two religions over the centuries has made the CCP more likely to support the expansion of Buddhist and Daoist philanthropy. However, many believe that Xi is suspicious of religious engagement in secular society more broadly.51 Thus far, Buddhists and Daoists have avoided raising the government’s suspicions that their philanthropic activities may have ulterior motives. 49 ZYX (2019). 50 For a detailed account of the camps, see Zenz (2020). On the anti-halal campaign,

see Zhang (2019). 51 As the case studies presented in Chapter 9 document, even Buddhist volunteers live under the shadow of the risk of a sudden termination of their philanthropic activities, which the authorities could impose at any time.

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Perhaps to pre-empt critique from the more doctrinaire among those who criticize religion as a legacy of feudalism, the CCP under Xi looks at both religions as aspects of Chinese culture and is better disposed toward them than toward the other three. At all levels, the government has supported and recognized contributions to welfare made by Buddhist and Daoist associations, temples, and organizations. Before we investigate Buddhism in depth, however, information on Daoist charities may shed light on the CCP’s alleged preference for “Chinese religions,” as some conservative intellectuals close to the regime see Daoism as the only “purely Chinese” religion.52 However, this status does not appear to be effective. Daoist charities have received official support from the state, but their capacity does not match that of their Buddhist counterparts, as measured by the lower numbers of temples, clerics, and people who claim to be Daoists. The information on Daoist philanthropy at the national, provincial, and local levels proved as incomplete as that on Muslims. In 2015, the Shanghai Daoist Association established the Ci’ai Public Welfare Foundation, although I could find no trace of this association’s activities online. At the national level, the only evidence of a Daoist charity association I could find was the DAC’s Shangshan 上善 Charity Fund, established and approved by SARA in 2016. In 2017, in coordination with Daoist milieus in Hong Kong, this association managed to raise 20,784,200 RMB and 100,000 Hong Kong dollars for a variety of projects spread over 17 provinces.53 However, the nature of these projects reveals a broader problem: the polysemy of the term “cishan” opens up the same possibilities for ambiguity around the term “philanthropy,” which includes not only charity as a form of social assistance, but also the broader concept of support for the arts and heritage preservation. Hence the Shangshan Charity Fund’s activities in 2017, as announced by the DAC, consisted mostly of repairing Daoist temples. A separate announcement for the Shangshan Charity Fund, however, indicated forms of social assistance, including funding for road repairs, a monthly allowance of 300 RMB to 500 elderly people, and a fundraising objective of 1 million RMB to organize cataract surgery and relief for children in Sandu 三度 county in southeast Guizhou.54 Start-up funding for Shangshan, at 10 million

52 A point raised by “national studies” students and their professor. 53 ZDX (2017). 54 ZDXY (2016).

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RMB, represents a fraction of the sum Amity managed in the same year. However, it comes close to the amount Jinde raised. 2.2

The Reorientation of Buddhist Philanthropy?

Under Xi, the continuation of Buddhist philanthropic activities has suggested that the regime supports the developments initiated under Xi’s predecessors. These activities have not ceased; however, limited evidence points to almost no change in the direction of greater institutionalization. Until the sudden outbreak of COVID-19, China under Xi had not experienced a major collective trauma that could compare to the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, and therefore had little incentive to update the official approach to Buddhist philanthropy dramatically. Although a few academics have explored this issue, I could not find any follow-up to the high-profile discussions on the future of religion and philanthropy, which took place under Hu, since the early years of Xi’s administration. Despite the promising start made by the BAC Charity Committee in 2012, the constitution of a national Buddhist philanthropic association comparable to Amity or Jinde has not come any closer to realization. The closest thing to a Buddhist charity operating in China is still the Tzu Chi Foundation, which has continued its activities throughout this period; its connections in Taiwan and among overseas Chinese communities abroad have placed it in an enviable position, so that it can channel donations and occasionally technical support, when needed. However, as Tzu Chi operates outside the framework of the BAC and Buddhist associations at lower levels, it lacks the ability to shape the broader agenda, which is perhaps one reason the state tolerates its peculiar position. This situation could change, however, as local Chinese make up a growing proportion of Tzu Chi’s volunteers. Despite slow progress when it comes to official recognition from the central government, Buddhist charitable associations have remained active under the Xi administration, and local associations have even received public appreciation from second-tier authorities. For example, in a November 2019 ceremony celebrating philanthropic achievements in Zhejiang, provincial authorities granted the award for best charity of the year to a Buddhist philanthropic association, honoring Jing Fang 净芳, chair of the Shaoxing Buddhist Association and president of the Lufeng

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炉峰 Charity Association.55 In Fujian province, meanwhile, the Nanputuo Temple Charity Association teamed up with other philanthropic associations to raise funds to help treat children suffering from leukemia.56 The Guangdong Buddhist Association stopped announcing the expansion of its network of clinics in 2017, but in the fall of 2019 it was still organizing activities related to poverty alleviation.57 In Sichuan, the Xingyuan Foundation, established by the Emeishan Charity Foundation (峨眉山行 愿慈善事业基金会), was still active in June 2020; it discloses the names of its donors and announces its various activities on a monthly basis.58 Both Buddhist and Daoist charities appear to be faring well under Xi’s administration, as they receive support from local governments.59 The field of Buddhist philanthropy is also undergoing a restructuring. Some associations have either stopped advertising their activities or ceased them completely, while others continue their activities in different forms. The most recent report on philanthropy in Shanghai by the municipal Buddhist association, for instance, dates from 2017. The association still exists, but it has either lost interest in philanthropy or has simply stopped advertising its activities in this area.60 The former hypothesis seems more credible, as philanthropy—which relies on trust—needs to display its achievements as it seeks support to continue its activities. The cessation of such activities may point to the reconfiguration of the philanthropic field at the local level. Hence, in Shanghai, the Juequn Cultural and Educational Foundation, which was in an annex of the Jade Buddha temple during my visits to Shanghai between 2007 and 2015, relocated elsewhere in the city in 2017. It remained quite active in 2019, offering healthcare services to the elderly and to children.61 Some other associations that remain active, such as the Buddhist philanthropic foundation in Hubei province, do not have much news to 55 ZSFX (2019). 56 FSFX (2020a). At the time of writing, Nanputuo has adapted its activities to cope

with the 2020 pandemic. See FSFX (2020b). 57 GSFX (2019). 58 Emeishan (2020). 59 I joined a municipal Daoist charity in Shanghai in the summer of 2017, and together we visited nursing homes for the elderly as well as retirees who chose to stay at home. The Shanghai city god temple, a major tourist site in the city, organized this activity. 60 SFW (2019). 61 Juequn (2019).

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report. The foundation’s website only credits the Hubei Provincial Civil Affairs Department with enabling its establishment and mentions the Hubei Provincial Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee as the foundation’s business unit.62 Some provinces, such as Hebei, have an active Buddhist philanthropic association but no corresponding website. The contrast between Shanghai and Hebei may reveal more than a difference in local organizational capacity, as I will discuss in the next two chapters. On the one hand, the visibility of Juequn in Shanghai and the Ren’ai Foundation in Beijing suggests an attempt to display “soft power” to certain key foreign audiences. On the other hand, many CCP members at all levels remain committed to the view that religion should wither away, and that religious charitable work is a throwback to the past. Such views have found expression in CASS, where scholars of religion work alongside other scholars in the Research Center for the Study of Science and Atheism (kexue yu wushenlun yanjiu zhongxin 科学与无神论研究中心) in the Institute of Marxist Studies.63 The authorities’ lukewarm support for Buddhist philanthropy may also reflect the low levels of activity among Buddhist philanthropic associations. For example, looking at the support Buddhist temples and associations provided to poor children through various programs, which collectively fall under the rubric of zhuxue 助学, the available evidence I have collected from 2011 to 2015 shows continuity in this activity, but its scope remains modest.64 On average, these kinds of activities generated between 100,000 and 200,000 RMB, and they usually provided support to a few dozen children. Documentation of these activities, which is available for those temples and local Buddhist associations that maintain a website (many do not), also finds its way into news about Buddhist affairs on websites such as fjnet and foxue, as well as SARA’s websites. However, the abundance of information one can find about these activities online does not always reflect the reality, as such sites sometimes repeat information about a single activity, which inflates the real number of activities. On the other hand, media and government publications often do the opposite, downplaying the extent of Buddhist philanthropy, or even ignoring it altogether.

62 HSFX (2019). 63 For an example of this type of study, see Xi (2011). 64 The data compiled for 2016 and the subsequent years is incomplete.

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Nevertheless, while keeping in mind these limitations regarding sources of information, it remains possible to affirm a few facts. The donors who support Buddhist philanthropic activities include a wide variety of actors: official Buddhist associations at provincial or local levels, charity networks, lay Buddhists, temples, and foundations. These donations come from all over the country, although a disproportionate number originate from the Buddhist associations located in the special municipalities of Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin. These three cities may not count the largest number of Buddhists relative to other provinces, such as Fujian and Zhejiang, but Buddhist patrons in these cities are arguably wealthier than their co-religionists in other provinces. However, the importance of Buddhist philanthropy in some of the poorer provinces, such as Shandong and the autonomous region of Guangxi, which also count small proportions of Buddhists among their populations, suggests that other dynamics also matter: the growth in the number of Protestant sites in both places is significant, and one can only speculate on the extent to which local authorities would prefer to encourage the growth of Buddhism to curb this development.65 Conversely, the limited information available about Buddhists from relatively wealthy provinces with larger numbers of temples, associations, and laypeople—such as Fujian and Zhejiang—suggests that they have contributed less relative to others, or that they have underreported their activities. Two other possibilities present themselves: political authorities may have encouraged or dissuaded the disclosure of these activities online, or Buddhist websites may simply fail to record their activities.66 Gaining a better understanding of these discrepancies requires taking a closer look at the different regional dynamics, which I will do in the next two chapters. Academic interest in discussing the merits and shortcomings of Buddhist philanthropy seems to have abated during Xi’s tenure. If scholars convened conferences to discuss the relevance of Buddhism to philanthropy, they did not leave much trace of such events online, in contrast to those events that took place under Hu. This does not indicate a total lack of interest, as some scholars have paid attention to this issue. However, most of the articles on this subject have been published

65 On the relative importance of religious sites in both places, see Yang (2018: 144–145, 167–168). 66 Such data is available in the Zhuxue sections of most Buddhist websites.

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in less prominent journals which are less likely to attract the attention of CCP leaders. Some scholars have discussed the merits of Buddhist services for the elderly in broad terms, relative to other forms of traditional private nursing, and have praised them for their tradition of public service, their steady income, their networks of social workers, and the welcome spiritual succor and hospice care they provide when family support is absent.67 Others have drawn attention to the fact that while Buddhist nursing homes have long catered to elderly people without family support, in recent years they have also offered care to others, including non-believers, and are well positioned to address this major issue in China.68 Zhou Yuanyuan’s survey of Buddhist charity since the founding of the Nanputuo Charity Foundation identified 22 Buddhist foundations established prior to 2011.69 Significantly, as Zhou published this study well into the first five years of Xi’s administration, the data suggests that no new Buddhist association registered a charitable foundation under Xi’s regime. This may not indicate an absence of Buddhist philanthropic activity, however, as other paths to institutionalization exist. Wang Jia has differentiated between three types of charities, depending on whether they focused on relief (jiuji 救济), service (fuwu 服务), or propagating the Dharma (hongfa 弘法). In all three cases, such organizations could register as charitable societies, merit societies, or foundations.70 Jiang Yuxuan has added to this complexity by noting that Buddhist charitable societies can register as social organizations—again either as merit societies, charity associations, or foundations—while some choose not to register at all.71 However, not all scholars approach Buddhist philanthropy from the angle of diversity; some prefer to promote a model that all associations should emulate. Hence Yuan and Guo have expressed the hope that their examination of the Hebei Buddhist Charity Foundation will serve as a reference point and an inspiration for the future development and normalization of Buddhist charity foundations in China.72 67 Zhong and Wu (2013). 68 Jing and Gao (2018). 69 Zhou (2017: 73). 70 Wang (2014: 289–290). 71 Jiang (2018). 72 Yuan and Guo (2017).

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Although the BAC managed to establish a foundation to coordinate donations in the aftermath of the 2008 earthquake, it took longer to establish a preparatory committee that would lead this foundation to the next stage of Buddhist philanthropy: an association whose leaders have a certain level of professionalization needed to raise funds, but also to distribute relief directly, to provide counseling, to visit the elderly, and to support if not run clinics, orphanages, nursing homes, and institutions for vulnerable people. In 2013, the BAC finally registered its own charity association with the Ministry of Civil Affairs, three years before the DAC did so, but almost three decades after the Amity Foundation, and almost two decades after its Catholic counterpart.73 This late registration date relative to Amity has yet to lead to the constitution of a nationwide agency to coordinate Buddhist philanthropy. Although the BAC CCPI held its Second Plenary Meeting in 2013 and met again barely one year later to discuss whether to establish a charity foundation, it has not come any closer to creating a national institution.74 I could not find evidence of subsequent meetings, either on the BAC website or those of the Phoenix network for Buddhist affairs. The greater fragmentation of Buddhist philanthropic associations, who are less centralized relative to their Christian counterparts, may arguably explain this. In 2017, as Xi’s first mandate was ending, Buddhist philanthropy had yet to fulfill the goals that the creation of the CCPI had seemed to herald. At one BAC meeting, the leaders convened to discuss Buddhist charity, and Mingsheng read the report on the CCPI’s activities under his leadership. While the report lauded past achievements, it also pointed to persistent shortcomings. As Mingsheng stated, Buddhist philanthropy suffers from “ineffective integration of resources, insufficient communication and cooperation between organizations, weak internal and external collaboration, uneven development of organizations, and insufficient charity platforms.” He also identified lacunae in innovation and talent, and he deplored the absence of laws and regulations to guide the activities of Buddhist charitable associations. In his view, these shortcomings have prevented Buddhists from harnessing their energy and thus from bridging 73 This opening seems to have ended in 2020. The ZFX CGW 2014 source, which was accessible until September 2019, now leads nowhere. A few derivative sources confirm the registration of the Buddhist charity and even refer to other meetings, but its activities seem to have stopped thereafter. 74 See Fenghuang (2014).

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the gap between Chinese Buddhist philanthropy and its counterparts in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and abroad.75 In the spring of 2020, as the deadly new COVID-19 virus struck China, the BAC issued a “notice to Buddhist groups, colleges, and activity sites to do a good job in the prevention and control of the epidemic situation.”76 It stated: “Buddhist circles in all regions should continue to make epidemic prevention and control work their top priority at present.”77 The BAC requested the suspension of public religious activities, and anecdotal evidence from foreign journalists indicates that while economic activities have resumed after the drastic confinement imposed on many parts of the country in the spring, religious sites have remained closed. On the other hand, the BAC has also instructed monastics in Buddhist academies to continue teaching, through online videos and other online methods.”78

3

Conclusion

Under Hu’s administration, the CCP endorsed Buddhist philanthropy in an increasingly overt manner, as it saw the advantages of Buddhism as a religion less likely than Christianity or Islam to receive support from nonChinese outsiders whom the CCP perceived as hostile, and more likely to receive support from overseas Chinese. As far as Buddhist involvement in public charity under Xi Jinping is concerned, however, the evidence has become more difficult to interpret at the time of writing. On the one hand, the CCP’s increasingly nationalist orientation has targeted Christians as agents of foreign influence and has seen the practice of Islam as a source of defiance, which could open the door for more focused attention in supporting the development of Buddhist and Daoist philanthropy. During the first years of Xi’s administration, the government demonstrated continued support for the latter two traditions and an increasingly hostile attitude toward Chinese Christians and Muslim minorities. However, recent CCP actions against BAC leaders as well as the demolition of Buddhist and Daoist statues suggest an official unease, with

75 Mingsheng (2017). 76 ZFX (2020). 77 ZFX (2020). 78 See ZFX (2020).

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some cadres targeting all forms of religion.79 In other words, the restrictions which many have observed under Xi’s second mandate as secretary general suggest that these are not limited to targeting unregistered temple sites. They relate to the more general trend observed throughout society of greater restrictions imposed on all religions, as well as many other civic and non-state associations. This increase in state regulation reveals a suspicion of any organization that could represent a potential source of opposition to the state. If the CCP under Deng and his two successors appeared to establish a clear separation between the spheres of the religious and the secular, Xi’s policies are increasingly moving in the opposite direction, with the state renewing the pre-Republican, paternalistic approach to supervising religion.80 Xi may not want to return to the state of exception that broke out when Mao whipped up the Red Guards into an anti-religious fervor against Chinese traditions in order to regain power. On the contrary, he has repeatedly stressed the importance of this tradition and of the CCP as the main source of its rejuvenation.81 However, Xi has qualified this tradition in official speeches as socialist, while also referring to the traditions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism as “China’s treasures.” In the end, Xi is promoting the restoration of the instrumentalist approach to religion, which encourages religion as a social force that bestows legitimacy on the ruling apparatus— an approach codified by the imperial state.82 The difference between Xi and his three predecessors is that he sees the CCP as a spiritual competitor to organized religions and is reluctant to cede too much space to religious milieus in the expression of public morality. The ongoing support for Buddhist philanthropy, rather than Christian or Muslim charities, illustrates this approach: the path dependency of reformed Buddhism’s relation with the Chinese state, as we have seen in the previous chapter,

79 Bitter Winter has collected an impressive amount of evidence on these demolitions since it was founded in 2017. The arrest of over 40 China-based informants has lent the group a credibility which the association’s members did not expect to receive in this way. See the report in Chinafile 2019. 80 This paternalistic approach in imperial China did not equate to effective control, as the central government often depended on local gentry. The CCP aims to achieve tighter surveillance and management of religious affairs, to such an extent that the boundaries between the spheres of the religious and the secular dissolve. 81 On Xi’s traditionalist restoration, see Yang (2017). 82 On Xi’s revisionist religion, see Bell (2016: 88).

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has facilitated the process of legitimization supplied by a secularized religion. However, under Xi, this is happening within increasingly narrow parameters. In this chapter, I have shown that central government officials took a long time to endorse philanthropic initiatives on the part of local Buddhist associations. This delay gave the CCP time to assess the merits of Buddhist philanthropy and to decide whether the central authorities should extend this approach nationwide. This approach mirrors that of the early stage of economic reforms, when the CCP Central Committee allowed different provinces to experiment with different paths to economic development, departing from the concept of the people’s communes, and used the most successful cases as benchmarks for economic policies that were extended across the whole country. The chronology I have spelled out shows that a variety of actors have launched philanthropic activities, including temples, religious leaders, and lay devotee associations. This has also brought to light an important and perplexing finding: Buddhist philanthropy does not necessarily emerge in the wealthiest parts of the country, nor where Buddhist devotees are most concentrated. The next two chapters, in which I look at Buddhist charity from a regional perspective, seeks to understand the logic underpinning these developments.

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Zhou Xiaolou. 2019. Buddhist Temple in Shaanxi Forcibly Modified for Public Use. Bitter Winter. Zhou Yuanyuan 周缘园. 2017. Jinhua yu bianqian: Zhongguo fojiao cishan de xiandaihua zhuanbian 进化与变迁: 中国佛教慈善的现代化转变. Hainan daxue xueabao renwen shehui kexue ban 海南大学学报人文社会科学版 35 (3, May): 72–78. ZSFX (Zhejiang sheng fojiao xiehui 浙江省佛教协会). 2019. Zhaoxing shi fojiao xiehui huizhang Jing Fang fashi ronghuo ‘Zhejiang cishan kaimo jiang’ 绍兴 市佛教协会会长净芳法师荣获 ‘浙江慈善楷模奖’. Available at: http://www. zjfjxh.com/Public/NewsInfo.aspx?type=1&id=a5223144-484e-44ac-8e0b4fb2c04d9f1f. Accessed 5 June 2020. ZYX (Zhongguo yisilanjiao xiehui 中国伊斯兰教协会). 2019. 2016 nian, 2018 nian gedi yisilanjiao xiehui bangfu sandou tuopin gongjian juankuan tongjibiao 2016 年, 2018 年各地伊斯兰教协会帮扶三都脱贫攻坚捐款统计表. Available at: http://www.chinaislam.net.cn/cms/gyhd/gongyicishanwenzha ngliebiao-gai-/201808/09-12509.html. Accessed 25 Sept 2019. ZZB (Zhonggong Zhongyang Bangongting 中共中央办公厅) and GB (Guoyuyuan Bangongting 国务院办公厅). 2011. Zhuanfa Zhongyang tongzhanbu, jiaoyubu deng bumen “Guanyu zuohao diyu jingwai liyong zongjiao dui gaoxiao jingxing shentou he fangfan xiaoyuan chuanjiao gongzuo de yijian” de tongzhi 转发中央统战部, 教育部等部门 “关于做好抵御境外利 用宗教对高校进行渗透和防范校园传教工作的意见” 的通知. Beijing: Zhonggong Zhongyang Bangongting Wenjian 中共中央办公厅文件.

CHAPTER 9

A Sketch of Regional Systems Analysis

In the previous chapters, I provided an account of Buddhist philanthropy as viewed from the top and looked at the slow move toward the creation of a national Buddhist philanthropic association. This sequential perspective has revealed that the CCP’s support for Buddhist philanthropy was reactive, and that Buddhist philanthropy did not come about as the result of a directive from the central government. Buddhist lay devotees, their associations, and even the monastic community did not act as passive instruments of the state. However, the nature of the process of institutionalization has also revealed the weakness of the BAC, which proved equally reactive to the initiatives taken by local Buddhist associations. Thus, the corporatist structure of control for Buddhism—which is theoretically meant to ensure uniformity in doctrine and practice, as well as compliance with directives from the CCP, SARA, and the BAC— has disclosed its inherent limitations. The constitution of a national Buddhist philanthropic association, encouraged by scholars of Buddhism and some Buddhist leaders, did not rank among the priorities of many State Council departments, except perhaps for those concerned with security and ideology. The rise in conversions to Christianity alerted these departments to the potential for religious organizations to serve as conduits for opposition to the regime and led them to realize that tolerating Buddhism’s growth could encourage an alternative to the expansion © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 A. Laliberté, Religion and China’s Welfare Regimes, Religion and Society in Asia Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7270-5_9

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of those religious movements which they do not trust. However, like the emergence of the new religious movements the CCP opposes, Christianity has not developed uniformly throughout the country, and some provinces count larger proportions of Christians among their populations than others. We have already seen that the central government sees the expansion of Christianity as a threat; the extent to which provincial and local governments agree with this assessment and have felt compelled to respond by sponsoring Buddhism’s development is not always clear. In other words, because of the variety of conditions throughout the country, the factors that may have encouraged the growth of Buddhist philanthropy have varied across regions. Both laypeople and monastics were able to undertake Buddhist philanthropic activities under the auspices of different kinds of organizations: charity associations, merit societies, and foundations. Many different actors took the initiative here: local Buddhist associations at all subnational levels of governance, as well as temples and monasteries. Sometimes, as David Wank’s ethnographic investigation of Nanputuo temple has suggested, registering a charity association enabled Buddhist institutions to carve out a space away from the restrictive strictures of the Bureau of Religious Affairs (BRA).1 All of these actors usually launched their activities in coordination with officials from ethnic and religious affairs, civil affairs, and sometimes social services departments, as well as CCP United Front Work Departments, either at the same government level or at higher levels. These different conditions no doubt provide for possible variance. In this chapter, I present the foundations for a regional analysis of Buddhist philanthropy that could help explain the variances that I describe at length in the next one. The regional analysis that I introduce below looks beyond the cleavage between the coast and the hinterland, and consider finer, macro-regional divisions based on a complex set of factors predating 1949—factors that continue to structure both the economy and society. I then discuss the merit of a multi-scalar approach implicit in that regional analysis to obtain a more nuanced approach of Buddhist philanthropy. I finally outline some of the political causalities that could account for the observed variations. 1 See Wank (2009: 146). The eleventh chapter will provide further details on this temple.

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The development of Buddhist philanthropy does not represent a case of religion obediently serving the state, nor does it represent a case of independent civil society carving out a legitimate space for itself. While the previous two chapters have demonstrated the extent to which the CCP has reactively endorsed developments it had hitherto tolerated, a look at the development of Buddhist philanthropy below the national government level gives us a better understanding of the various social forces and local political conditions that have shaped these evolutions. In other words, developments at the center do not represent the logical outcome of local processes of change: the pathways to the institutionalization of Buddhist philanthropy have varied from one location to another. Because of these different local experiments, the central government ends up with a selection of different options to study and assess, eventually choosing either to impose one option on the entire nation uniformly or to maintain a constellation of different, independent regional clusters. Below I will introduce the framework that structures these differences.

1

A Cluster Analysis of Nine Macro-Regions

In this chapter, I use a spatial analysis to group together clusters of temples and monasteries, as well as Buddhist lay associations. Due to the limited information available, this constitutes a first crack at the data. Nonetheless, I hope this effort will inspire future researchers to investigate these trends more deeply. Keeping its limitations in mind, this approach— inspired by William Skinner’s work on China’s macro-regions—borrows from prior research which historians of China’s economy and society have recognized as a milestone. Grouping China’s provinces, special municipalities, and the two autonomous regions with significant numbers of Han Buddhists—loosely adapted from Skinner (1977)’s nine macro-regions— would bring them together as follows2 (Table 1): The historian of religion Wu Jiang has adopted Skinner’s framework—with only minor changes—and concluded that this could serve as a relevant framework with which to analyze the spatial distribution of Buddhist sites. He agreed that “the viability of these sites relied 2 In his delineation of the macro-regions, Skinner included Ningxia in Northwest China and Guangxi in Lingnan.

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Table 1

Nine macro-regions according to Skinner and Wu

Southern Coast Lower Yangzi Middle Yangzi Lingnan Yungui Upper Yangzi Northwest China Northern China Northeast China

North Guangdong, Fujian, South Zhejiang North Zhejiang, Shanghai, South Jiangsu, South Anhui Hubei, Jiangxi, Hunan South Guangdong, Hainan, Guangxi Yunnan, Guizhou Chongqing, Sichuan Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shanxi Henan, North Anhui, North Jiangsu, Shandong, Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang

heavily on regionally and locally distributed factors.” Among these, he found that “local factors such as economy, transportation, ethnicity, and dialect zones [were] the most influential.”3 The boundaries of these macro-regions cut across provincial frontiers and make sense in delimiting the lineages of monasteries. In this book, however, I have decided to adopt a slightly different approach, one determined by the political and administrative geography of the contemporary state. The political organization of Buddhism—as framed by Buddhist associations at the central, provincial, and local levels—does not perfectly mirror Skinner and Wu’s macro-regions, and as the discussion below will outline, neither does the development of Buddhist philanthropy. As this chapter examines the sub-national and provincial politics that shape the development of Buddhist charities, I have elected to combine the two approaches. I have grouped provinces into political macro-regions that mirror Skinner and Wu’s macro-regions to some extent, with only a few significant differences. Hence, in defining the Southern Coast, I have opted to limit this macro-region to Fujian province, while the original macro-region extended to the whole area inhabited by speakers of the Min languages. The differences between the political macro-regions I use here and Skinner and Wu’s macro-regions mostly concern the cases of Lower Yangzi, Northern China, and Lingnan, though only

3 Wu et al. (2013: 182).

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marginally.4 The tripartite distinction I have made elsewhere—between developing states and their welfare insecurity, developmental welfare states and their limited welfare regimes, and post-socialist states grappling with the legacies of their previous welfare commitments—is also relevant to this cross-regional analysis.5 Large proportions of the population living in the Middle and Upper Yangzi, the Yungui, the Northwest, and the Northern macro-regions experience a welfare insecurity typical of developing societies. Large swathes of the population in these macro-regions have limited access to elderly care, healthcare, and education due to local governments’ limited resources. In addition to these existing burdens, many local governments face demands generated by large numbers of relatives—either elderly parents or children—of the millions of migrant workers who have moved to wealthier macro-regions and are not always able to send remittances to sustain those they have left behind. In many cases, local governments with limited resources have welcomed social assistance from outside, whether provided by the central government or by non-state actors. In this context, locally based religious institutions are significant non-state actors, especially where local corporate philanthropy is limited. All of these macro-regions represent potential areas of expansion for Protestant and Catholic missionary activities, but because the CCP has warned the population against Christianity, this creates an environment conducive to preferential treatment for the growth of Buddhist and Daoist charitable institutions.6 The provinces on the coast—from Lingnan to the Yangzi Delta—bear all the institutional characteristics of a developmental state in terms of their political economy, and they are more likely to see private wealth 4 I have included Anhui, which was originally part of the Lower Yangzi macro-region, as part of the Middle Yangzi, based on its poverty relative to Jiangsu and its similarities with Jiangxi. Moreover, both provinces are part of the same cluster of provinces included in Jiang’s “Rise of Central China” plan. The Northern China macro-region includes the entirety of the provinces of Shanxi and Henan, along with Shandong, Hebei, and the special municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin. Finally, the Lingnan macro-region includes the two provinces of Guangdong and Hainan, as well as the Guangxi Special Autonomous Region. 5 The reader can look at the theoretical discussion in the second volume which presents Buddhist philanthropy in a broader context beyond the PRC. 6 Taken together, these macro-regions present a portrait of greater religious diversity than the two other groupings of macro-regions. See Yang (2018: 13).

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channeled into religious philanthropy both within and outside the region, as the state provides limited welfare relative to its previous commitments, but private sources of social welfare funding abound. From Guangdong province to Jiangsu, the development of new industries has led to the growth of a prosperous middle class, and the resultant rise in income has created conditions which facilitate access to private social security. However, the influx of migrant workers—both from outside these macroregions and from impoverished rural counties within them—has also generated considerable inequalities in terms of access to social services, providing opportunities for non-state actors to fill gaps in social services provision. The predominance of Buddhist sites in these regions, relative to other religions, presumably puts them in a better position to channel resources from the wealthy to the poor in ways similar to what we have seen in Taiwan. Finally, in the Northeast macro-region, the legacy of the previous socialist welfare regime is more strongly felt due to early industrialization and the high level of social security that state-owned enterprises provided to workers and their dependents, similarly to the most generous corporatist-conservative welfare states found in Western Europe as well as the welfare regimes of the Soviet Union and its satellite states. Unmet demands for the government to fulfill these previous welfare obligations to the millions of workers who lost their employment in heavy industries led to unrest in the first two decades of the reform and opening policy. Coinciding with this rise in social instability, the three provinces in this macro-region witnessed the emergence of two kinds of religious phenomena that worry the authorities: a higher concentration of Protestant churches, and the emergence of redemptive societies such as the Falungong.7 In this case, the smaller proportion of Buddhists relative to other religions has not prevented the development of philanthropy, which may suggest political intervention to prop up Buddhist philanthropy as an acceptable alternative to other religious philanthropy.

7 On the prevalence of churches in this part of the country, see Yang (2018: 101–102,

103–105, 108–110). In his detailed study of Falungong activities prior to the 2000 crackdown, James Tong found that Falungong’s founder, Li Hongzhi, a native of Changchun, had taught 56 training sessions in Changchun, Harbin, and Beijing from May 1992 to September 1994, which attracted estimated audiences of 20,000–200,000, according to both Falungong and sources hostile to the movement. See Tong (2002: 640).

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2 Understanding the Variety of Pathways to Institutionalization The institutionalization of Buddhist philanthropy proceeded at local levels for three decades prior to the registration of a nationwide Buddhist charity federation in 2012. Four provincial Buddhist associations registered philanthropic societies at the beginning of Jiang’s administration, and four others did likewise under Hu’s tenure. The same periods saw even greater number of prefectural and county-level Buddhist associations sponsoring philanthropic organizations, most of which registered in the absence of a provincial Buddhist philanthropic association above them. Only in Sichuan and Chongqing did lower-level Buddhist philanthropic associations register in provinces that already had a provincial association. This suggests that while most provincial Buddhist philanthropic organizations enforced a corporatist monopoly on the registration of these types of activities in the areas under their jurisdiction, Buddhist philanthropy in most provinces began as a local activity—another example of the kinds of local policy experiments of which the most successful would serve as models for relevant nationwide policy. The earliest attempts to develop Buddhist philanthropy reveal some surprising facts about the organization of Buddhist institutions at subnational levels. One would expect the earliest Buddhist philanthropic institutions to have been registered in wealthy provinces where large concentrations of Buddhists live. However, a closer look invalidates such a conclusion. While one of the first provincial Buddhist philanthropic associations registered in Guangdong in 1994, in other provinces where even larger proportions of Buddhists live, such as Fujian and Zhejiang, no provincial-level Buddhist charities registered for more than twenty years. Conversely, Buddhists living in provinces where they constituted a smaller proportion of the population established provincial-level Buddhist philanthropic societies earlier than was the case in other provinces with larger numbers of Buddhists. Hebei Buddhists, for example, registered a provincial philanthropic association in 1996. Looking at the establishment of charity organizations at lower levels of governance may better reflect the realities faced by the Buddhist sangha. While the CCP seeks to enforce political uniformity at the ideological level, the state structure manages the diversity of ethnocultural and socioeconomic conditions. This is reflected in the multiple designations at all levels of government—in autonomous regions, prefectures, and

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counties—to accommodate ethnic minorities, for example. Likewise, the central and lower levels of government have designated some prefectures, counties, and townships as forestry districts (linqu 林区), industrial park zones (gongye yuanqu 工业园区), or economic and technological development zones (jingji jishu kaifaqu 经济技术开发区) for the sake of preserving natural resources or attracting investment. The geography of Buddhist institutionalization reveals similar diversity. While the BAC constitutes the central Buddhist authority, I have shown in Chapter 6 that lower-level Buddhist authorities do not mirror the CCP’s ubiquitous presence at the provincial and lower levels. This proves to be even more the case for Buddhist philanthropy: there are no uniform paths to the institutionalization of philanthropic associations. As I suggested in the previous two chapters on the creation of a centralized Buddhist philanthropic association, this developed from the bottom-up. The dynamic I described at the national level also applies to lower levels of public administration. The evidence I have collected over the years and summarized below suggests that provincial Buddhist associations, provincial governments, and party organizations at all levels have approved the creation of provincial philanthropic associations only after prefectural and county-level Buddhist associations and temples have sponsored philanthropic organizations in the absence of a provincial Buddhist philanthropic association above them.8 The institutionalization of Buddhist philanthropic activities at the provincial level which began at lower administrative levels thus presents us with another example of local policy experiments from among which the central government chooses the most successful to serve as models for nationwide policies. This bottom-up sequence of institutionalization suggests that while the CCP expects provincial Buddhist philanthropic organizations to enforce a corporatist monopoly on the registration of such activities in the areas under their jurisdiction, this principle is more theoretical than it reflects the reality on the ground. Once quantified alongside the list of official Buddhist associations at the provincial, prefectural, and county levels, Buddhist philanthropic 8 Only in Sichuan did Buddhist philanthropic associations at the county and prefectural levels register independently since a provincial Buddhist philanthropic association was already established.

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organizations across the different Chinese macro-regions—as presented in the previous section—appear relatively modest in scope. In other words, many provincial and local Buddhist associations have not sponsored charitable associations at all. Most prefectures and many of the large cities have Buddhist associations. However, the number of such associations far exceeds that of all the Buddhist philanthropic associations put together, regardless of their origin (see Table 2).9 This finding suggests that most associations have not wished to or have not been able to establish such organizations.10 It also suggests that while the CCP may have preferred the development of Buddhist rather than Christian charities, many Buddhists have not acted accordingly. This ranking of provinces according to the number of Buddhist charity associations in each suggests different levels of institutionalization. However, it also reveals an intriguing discrepancy between the number of Buddhists and the importance of the philanthropic activities they sponsor. Buddhist philanthropic associations have not proven more likely to arise in provinces where more people self-identify as Buddhist, nor where Buddhists represent a greater proportion of the population. Hence, although Fujian counts the largest number of Buddhists of any Chinese province—measured both in absolute numbers and as a proportion of the total provincial population—it has only two philanthropic organizations, as compared to Jiangsu, which counts nine such organizations. Even Sichuan—which has one of the smallest Buddhist populations of all the provinces, both numerically and proportionally—counts more Buddhist charities than Fujian. Admittedly, the number of charity associations is an imperfect proxy for the Buddhist philanthropic sector’s robustness: Nanputuo temple, for example, as one of only two such associations in Fujian, stands out for its efficiency and its “industrial philanthropy.” These local experiences have revealed important macro-regional differences at play, and this finding raises the question of which dynamics better explain the variety of outcomes observed among provincial Buddhist philanthropic associations.

9 I have counted 249 associations out of 334 prefectures, with numbers compiled from the database at Polin monastery in Hong Kong. 10 I cannot substantiate whether this indicates an absence of local initiative on the part of Buddhist devotees or monastics, or action taken against such an eventuality by Buddhist associations.

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Table 2

Number of Buddhist institutions established per province

Provinces

Jiangsu Sichuan Zhejiang Guangdong Liaoning Jiangxi Hebei Chongqing Fujian Henan Shanghai Shaanxi Beijing Gansu Heilongjiang Yunnan Qinghai Inner Mongolia Shandong Jilin Hunan Hubei Shanxi Tianjin Anhui Guangxi Guizhou Hainan Total

Charities Associations

Buddhists Buddhists (in millions) (as % of population)

Temples/sites

Prefectural Other 9 6 5 4 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1

13 19 7 19 13 6 4 29 7 16 7 12 – 13 13 15 8 9

44 52 56 48 17 14 5 1 51 19 4 27 – 40 9 40 9 12

11.2 1.7 13.4 5.7 2.3 3.7 1.1 0.2 15.6 5.2 2.4 2.4 2.2 1.8 1.6 6.2 4.8 3.0

14.2 2.1 24.0 5.2 5.3 8.0 1.6 0.9 40.4 5.5 10.3 6.4 11.2 6.9 4.4 13.1 81.7 12.1

416 1412 2947 614 311 1132 100 102 2678 187 73 187 2 513 96 693 625 113

1 1 1 1 1 1 – – – – 60

12 9 3 9 11 – 16 5 9 – 284

13 2 13 14 24 – 40 5 21 – 580

2.9 2.2 1.6 1.2 0.8 – 4.9 4.7 0.7 – 103.4

2.9 8.2 2.4 2.1 3.7 – 7.8 9.6 1.9 – –

14 71 764 759 279 6 676 62 178 2 15,012

In the case of municipalities, the first-order division is districts (qu), the second streets (jiedao 街 道), and the third community (shequ 社区)

Criteria such as wealth do not suffice to understand local Buddhist associations’ incentives to establish philanthropic associations. We should avoid overemphasizing the supply-side economics of charity and pay attention to the demand side. Hence any analysis of Buddhist philanthropy must pay attention to the demographic data on the area in which

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an association is established—such as the proportion of elderly people, as well as other factors within this cohort, such as how many are elderly people without children, or widows without relatives. Two other populations that Buddhist philanthropy targets are also distributed unevenly throughout the country, and their access to care is likely to differ significantly: the first of these is orphans or children whose parents have migrated out of the province for work, and the second is people who suffer from disabilities, either since birth or caused by an accident or a workplace injury. Whether these vulnerable populations receive support from state-funded hospitals and nursing homes or private philanthropic organizations, especially religious ones, is in the end a political decision. As the debates around the dismantling of the people’s communes and the introduction of a market economy have revealed, different opinions have prevailed on these issues across provinces and over time. The development of charitable organizations and activities is no different. Elucidating these dynamics is a research project that would require teams of researchers based in China who have access to socioeconomic data at the local level. Even more crucially, it would require the political will to fund such extensive research.

3

The Influence of the Local Political Climate

In the previous chapters I described the national political climate, which outsiders can analyze to the extent that they have access to credible and reliable sources of information. I am aware that the diversity of regional development patterns that I will present in the next chapter raises some important questions: How could poor regions manage to develop wealthy philanthropic societies? Why would regions with small proportions of Buddhists prove extremely active in developing philanthropic associations relative to other regions with more devotees? To what extent do these evolutions reveal political intervention on the part of central and/or local governments? Understanding local dynamics at provincial and lower levels has proven difficult due to the sensitive nature of religious affairs and philanthropy for many local leaders. Moreover, even on the serendipitous occasions when one can gain access to local religious milieus and their interactions with local Party cadres, generalizations and patterns of causality remain difficult to establish. Did provincial, municipal, and local authorities order Buddhist associations to develop philanthropic institutions so that they

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would be ready to assist in times of crisis, to deliver social services when the official workforce was overstretched? When natural disasters strike and the need for many volunteers arises suddenly, such additional help certainly matters. Alternatively, were the authorities reactive, extending legal recognition to groups of volunteers that had already been active for years or decades, belatedly coming to the realization that they could provide a useful form of assistance? The variety of situations on the ground calls for more in-depth investigation, but the political context under Xi means that such issues are just one among many “sensitive issues” that are off-limits to research by outsiders. Under Jiang, only four provincial Buddhist associations registered a philanthropic organization or a merit society: in Chongqing, Guangdong, Sichuan, and Hebei. When the Chongqing Buddhist Merit Society, the first of its kind in the country, registered in 1993, the municipality had yet to acquire the status of a special municipality, which placed it under the central government’s direct control. The city’s status was related to the highly controversial Three Gorges Dam project, which the NPC approved in 1992.11 This major construction project implied mass resettlements, social dislocation, and the risk that relocated people would fall into extreme poverty. In this context, the merit society was no doubt founded at an opportune moment, when activists both in China and abroad were paying attention to these issues and to the immense psychological distress that they feared could ensue. Concerns over social unrest or instability may also explain the registration of a Buddhist charity foundation in Guangdong in 1994, as the province was becoming one of the major destinations for migrant workers.12 With many living in precarious conditions, the growing need to provide social assistance to people working far from their places of origin may have provided a motive for the creation of a Buddhist philanthropic association. These kinds of explanations, although necessary, are far from sufficient. Zhejiang and Jiangsu present socioeconomic conditions like those in Guangdong, but these provinces did not take the same path to the institutionalization of philanthropy. Conversely, both Sichuan and Hebei, where socioeconomic conditions differ significantly

11 Heggelund (2006: 181). 12 On the situation of migrant workers and the fear of social unrest this generates, see

Froissart (2018).

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from those in Guangdong, took the same path—in 1994 and 1997, respectively. Moreover, they have not been affected by the same kind of dislocation that Chongqing has experienced. As I will illustrate in the next chapter, it is individuals’ vision and participation in the regime’s organs of legitimation, such as the NPC and the CPPCC, that have proven relevant. The creation of Buddhist philanthropic associations at lower levels does not show a clear pattern either. The prefectural charity associations established under Jiang emerged in cities where circumstances differed widely. Since 1986, Xuzhou 徐州 (in Jiangsu) has emerged as an important cultural center thanks to its historical relics, and the State Council has included it as one of the 131 Famous Historical and Cultural Cities (lishi wenhua mincheng 历史文化名城).13 Putuoshan was likewise a major pilgrimage center where the revenue from tourism could finance a charity. However, Jinzhou 锦州 (in Liaoning) does not fit the category of a wellknown cultural center. Below the prefectural level, temples with a long history have also established philanthropic associations. Such is the case with Nanputuo and Shaolin, which each drew on their reputation, both internationally and in Buddhist circles in Taiwan and overseas. Nevertheless, the cases of Guangfu 光福 (in Sichuan) and Dajin 大金 (in Jiangxi) are less clear. A cursory look at the spatial distribution of philanthropic societies also demonstrates little to no coordination with central policies. One of Jiang’s signature policies, the development of the west, affected provinces from Yunnan to the South to Inner Mongolia. Of the eleven charities that I know of which registered at the time, only three are in that region: two in Sichuan and one in Chongqing. The situation changed slightly under Hu: at the provincial level, only the Inner Mongolia Buddhist Association registered a Buddhist philanthropic organization.14 Of the prefectural associations that registered, 4 out of 7 were in western areas,15 and 7 of the 27 temples that registered a charity are located in the west. These charities served populations with especially acute problems: for instance, Xinshuangbanna 西双版纳 prefecture, located in Yunnan on the

13 Very few of these cities established a Buddhist charity. See ZJW ZQW (2015). 14 The other associations are those in Tianjin, Hunan, and Hubei. 15 Two of these prefectures are in Sichuan, one in Chongqing, and one in Yunnan.

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border with Myanmar and Laos, has suffered a high rate of HIV/AIDS infection.16 The provincial Buddhist associations of the three provinces with the largest numbers of Buddhists had all registered a provincial philanthropic organization by the time Xi entered his second mandate. The Jiangsu Buddhist association established a foundation in 2015, although it would take three years before this turns into a philanthropic society. The composition of the working committee that set it up was politically revealing. Along with representatives of the national and provincial Buddhist associations, temple abbots, and various leaders of the BRA at different levels, the only political representation was a UFWD representative from the Municipal Party Committee in Changzhou, where the meeting was held. However, the information about that original meeting has been scrubbed offline, although brief notice about the founding of the Jiangsu charity exists. No CCP cadres were present then, but officials from the religious bureau have attended the event.17 Conversely, when the Fujian Buddhist Association registered its own philanthropic association in 2018, many Party cadres at the provincial, prefectural, and county levels attended, along with many monastics, but there was no official representative of the Fujian government present.18 I found traces of a Buddhist charity association in Zhejiang only in 2020, and the information about those who attended one of its meetings showed that they came from Buddhist milieus and the provincial BRA bureaucracy. However, the designation of the BRA as the “ethnic and religious affairs committee” suggests that by this time, religious affairs governance, which used to fall under the state’s remit, had come under the CCP UFWD supervision.19 I could not find any evidence of provincial Buddhist philanthropic societies registered in Anhui or Jiangxi, two other provinces where large numbers of Buddhists live. These limited findings reflect what the official documents, such as the 2012 BAC Charity Committee report, have disclosed; the more recent data suggests an ongoing process of institutionalization. At

16 For details on the prefecture, see Hyde (2007). The author does not mention a Buddhist philanthropic association involved in the region, although the Buddhist Charity Committee does. See also McCarthy (2013). 17 See Sohu (2018). 18 See Lin (2018). 19 See ZY WSZ and SFX (2020).

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the time of writing, when travel and access that would allow me to crosscheck information in China is difficult, the survey above is valuable as a recent historical account. The number of Buddhist philanthropic associations, which is small in comparison to the number of Buddhist associations, strongly suggests that setting up such associations has not been an official priority—either for CCP United Front organizations, or for various ministries and departments, or indeed for Buddhist associations themselves. One can choose to read these findings in quite different ways. Lay devotees may have plenty of reasons for refusing to join such associations. I have encountered a fair number of monastics and laypeople in China over the years who have expressed their reservations regarding Buddhist officialdom. The many ethnographies undertaken over the last twenty years have amply documented this reality for devotees in most parts of the country. No doubt there are people of goodwill on both sides who think that working within the official context serves the community well, and others who disagree. The rather haphazard development of Buddhist charities suggests that if certain cadres have tried to support the emergence of a Buddhist alternative to Christian charity or to pre-empt the appeal of new religious movements, the limited efforts they have invested nevertheless suggest that this strategy does not enjoy unanimous support. No doubt one of the reasons is that, despite the CCP’s claims that it will restore China’s ancient tradition, its commitment to historical materialism remains strong, and this disincentivizes cadres who might be tempted to encourage even a partial revival of religion.

4

Conclusion

A look at the regional disparities between philanthropic associations will reveal the important role played by religious leaders. Many local Buddhist associations have not waited for permission from higher authorities before setting up charities. On the other hand, there is no denying that official sanction has been crucial to ensuring continuity and institutional resilience. Moreover, as we have seen in previous chapters, the central government has sought to reassert its authority by encouraging the creation of a nationwide Buddhist charitable association, but in doing so, it has appeared reactive rather than active. One consequence of this path dependency in the institutionalization of Buddhist philanthropy is that, in contrast to the many CPP and government organs at various

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levels, Buddhist associations at lower levels are not mere subordinates to the BAC. Although the members of the different BAC departments and committees include leaders from provincial and lower-level Buddhist associations, these local organizations are not functional branches of the BAC as their hierarchical superior. Rather, they respond directly to local BRA, as well as relevant state and Party officials on the appropriate level. As we have seen above, the BAC took a long time to establish a national philanthropic association. Likewise, few provincial Buddhist associations have done so. Those that have, however, did so before the BAC, which strongly suggests that creating a Buddhist philanthropic association is a bottom-up process. This also means that Buddhist philanthropy does not constitute a general, coherent, unified social force that could grow into a political actor that would rival the CCP. On the contrary, as I illustrate in the next chapter, the leaders of prominent Buddhist charities have succeeded because they have worked closely with the CCP.

References Fojiao zaixian (佛教在线). 2018. Jiangsu sheng fojiao xiehui juban de diliujie cishan gongyi weiyuanhui qude yuanman chenggong 江苏省佛教协会举办的 第六届慈善公益委员会取得圆满成功. Sohu 搜狐. Available at: https://www. sohu.com/a/218128265_100100763. Accessed 6 Aug 2021. Froissart, Chloé. 2018. Negotiating Authoritarianism and Its Limits: WorkerLed Collective Bargaining in Guangdong Province. China Information 32 (1): 23–45. Heggelund, Gørild. 2006. Resettlement Programmes and Environmental Capacity in the Three Gorges Dam Project. Development and Change 37 (1, May): 179–199. Hyde, Sandra Teresa. 2007. Eating Spring Rice: The Cultural Politics of AIDS in Southwest China. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lin Wenbin 林文彬. 2018. Fujian sheng fojiao cishan xiehui chengli dahui ji jiepai yishi zai qishan wanfosi yuanman juxing 福建省佛教慈善协会成立大会 暨揭牌仪式在旗山万佛寺圆满举行. Xinlang wang 新浪网, January 28. Available at: https://k.sina.cn/article_3996575566_ee36e74e001002xnz.html?fro m=cul. Accessed 18 July 2020. McCarthy, Susan K. 2013. Serving Society, Repurposing the State: Religious Charity and Resistance in China. The China Journal 70 (July): 48–72. Skinner, G. William. 1977. Cities and the Hierarchy of Local Systems. In The City in Late Imperial China, ed. G. William Skinner, 275–364. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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Tong, James. 2002. An Organizational Analysis of the Falun Gong: Structure, Communications, Financing. The China Quarterly 171: 632–660. Wank, David. 2009. Institutionalizing Modern ‘Religion’ in China’s Buddhism: Political Phases of a Local Revival. In Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China, ed. Yoshiko Ashiwa and David L. Wank, 116–150. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Wu Jiang, Tong Daoqin, and Karl Ryavec. 2013. Spatial Analysis and GIS Modeling of Regional Religious Systems in China: Conceptualization and Initial Experiment. In Chinese History in Geographical Perspective, ed. Du Yongtao and Jeff Kyong-McClain, 179–196. Lanham: Lexington Books. Yang Fenggang. 2018. Atlas of Religions in China: Social and Geographical Contexts. Leiden: Brill. ZJW (Zhongguo Jingji Wang 中国经济网). 2015. Woguo yiyou 127 zuo guojia lishi wenhua mingcheng (wanzheng mingdan) 我国已有 127 座国家历史 文化名城 (完整名单). Zhongguo Qingnian Wang 中国青年网. Available at: http://news.youth.cn/jsxw/201509/t20150901_7072311_1.htm. Accessed 17 July 2020. ZY WSZ (Zongjiao yichu Wenzhou shi minzongju 宗教一处, 温州市民宗局) and SFX (Shengfoxie 省佛协). 2020. Zhejiang sheng fojiao cishan jijinhui lianxi huiyi zai Wenzhou zhaokai 浙江省佛教慈善基金会联席会议在温州召 开. Zhejiang sheng minzu zongjiao shiwu weiyuanhui 浙江省民族宗教事务委 员会. Available at: http://mzw.zj.gov.cn/Public/NewsInfo.aspx?type=1&id= 90b19b0d-5754-4d28-a939-4d5eb3c9088a. Accessed 18 July 2020.

CHAPTER 10

The Nine Regions of Han Buddhist Philanthropy

The following overview of Buddhist philanthropy looks at it from the angle of the nine macro-regions identified by Skinner and reworked by Jiang Wu in his regional analysis of Buddhism that were discussed in the previous chapter. This approach reveals that these developments have been far from uniform across the country and call for future investigations at lower levels to identify variety within provinces at the level of prefectures (shi 市) and counties (xian 县). I do not attempt here to provide a broader explanation for the variations observed: such an undertaking would require more data and the collaborative work of a research team. I hope that this sketch of the macro-regions of Buddhist philanthropy will spur interest for more in-depth investigations. I offer this as a research note to be amended and augmented in the future.

1

Fujian: The First Epicenter of Buddhist Philanthropy

Fujian province constitutes the smallest of the macro-regions. As one of the major departure points of the Chinese diaspora over centuries due to chronic poverty in the region, it became a priority under the reform and opening policy with the creation of a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Xiamen, a former treaty port. Fujian shares cultural traits with © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 A. Laliberté, Religion and China’s Welfare Regimes, Religion and Society in Asia Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7270-5_10

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Taiwan, based on centuries of migration from the mainland to the island. The cross-strait Mazu pilgrimage, which started in the early nineteenth century, represents one of the most visible aspects of these shared traits; it was relaunched in 1987. Southern Fujian residents speak Minnanhua, the language spoken by three in four Taiwanese and many overseas Chinese as well. Although migrants who settled on the island following the Ming– Qing transition gradually made Fujian and the western coast of Taiwan part of the same macro-region, Japanese colonial rule, and the political division after 1949 have divided it. Fujian has the largest number and by far the highest proportion of Han Buddhists in any province, with surveys indicating that more than one-third of the province identifies as such. Naturally, one would expect a greater incidence of Buddhist philanthropy here than elsewhere. As one of the first regions in which Buddhist philanthropy developed since the beginning of the reform and opening policy, the circumstances that lead to this development owed as much to local politics as to the religious vision of a few enthusiastic monastics.1 Nanputuo temple in Xiamen has received wide recognition both within China and abroad as one of the centers where the doctrinal innovation of Buddhism for the human realm originated, promoted by the reformist monk Taixu. Since 1992, monastics at this temple have supported activities related to poverty alleviation, scholarships for students, and relief provision. In 1994, Nanputuo temple formalized these activities and registered as a charity. Over the course of a few visits there, I observed what Robert Weller and his colleagues have described as “industrial philanthropy”: a highly professionalized and bureaucratized form of charity administered by nuns and monks in a section of the temple complex entirely dedicated to that activity.2 The Nanputuo Charity Foundation, which has received its fair share of coverage in the BAC Charity Committee’s report, did not submit a report itself. This oversight could be attributed to the fact that it registered with the local Ministry of Civil Affairs rather than the BRA or the provincial Buddhist association.3 However, there is ample, detailed documentation of its activities published in a monthly report. The next chapter will elaborate on the

1 For the history of this region, see Ashiwa and Wank (2006), Birnbaum (2003). 2 Weller et al. (2017). 3 ZFX CGW (2013: 98).

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reports published by the temple as well as these activities, which extend far beyond Fujian province. The other important charity in the province, which is run from Da Kaiyuan 大开元 temple in Quanzhou 泉州, also ranks as one of the oldest of its kind. In 1996, it sponsored the registration of a Poverty Alleviation and Disaster Relief Public Association (fupin jiuzai gongyi xiehui 扶贫 救灾公益协会). The record for that year shows a total budget of 27,500 RMB, which pales in comparison to the numbers for Christian charities at the time. Only ten years later, however, Kaiyuan’s fundraising abilities had increased significantly, as it managed to secure more than 1.25 million RMB in donations.4 On some occasions, public authorities mobilized other associations besides Nanputuo and Kaiyuan. Hence in 2012, the Xiamen Municipal Health Department mobilized district-level Buddhist associations (Huli 湖里 and Siming 思明) and temples (Huiyuan 会元, Fantian 梵天, Huxiyan 虎溪岩, and Guanyin 观音) for joint fundraising activities to assist impoverished households. These kinds of activities have continued and even expanded under Xi. In fact, the log of philanthropic activities made available by the Fujian Buddhist Association suggests a dramatic increase, from a dozen activities in 2017 to fifty in just the first six months of 2020. A significant number of the most recent activities are related to offsetting the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and encouraging the adoption of preventive measures. In pre-pandemic times, this philanthropy covered a wide range of activities in locations throughout the province, with the Nanputuo Charity Foundation leading many of them. A few other Buddhist-affiliated charity associations have established their offices in Xiamen, which represents the most important center for such activities in the province, followed by Nantian 南天, Fuzhou 福州, Quanzhou, and Nan’an 南安.5

2 Lower Yangzi: Wealth and a Sustainable Tradition As one of the macro-regions that has spearheaded China’s economic growth due to the commercial and financial importance of Shanghai and its surrounding areas, Lower Yangzi also constitutes a hub for China’s 4 Ibid.: 819–820. 5 See FSFX (2020).

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relations with the outside world as well as the circulation of wealth— which makes philanthropy possible. This macro-region, as defined in this chapter, differs from Skinner and Wu’s designation in that it includes the entirety of Jiangsu and Zhejiang province, while excluding Northeast Jiangxi and Southern Anhui. This macro-region presents a relatively high degree of ethnic homogeneity—most people in this area speak a dialect of the Wu family of languages found in the Yangzi Delta. Although only 15% of its residents identify as Buddhist, they are significant for the future of the religion, since the Lower Yangzi macro-region accounts for the largest number of Buddhist sites relative to the other macro-regions. One of the “four famous Buddhist mountains” (fojiao sida mingshan 佛教四 大名山), where pilgrims and tourists converge en masse, is also located in this macro-region. Moreover, some of the most important leaders of the renjian fojiao movement who emigrated to Taiwan after 1949 came from this region, which ranks as the most dynamic for the development of Buddhist philanthropy in terms of the number of charities and charitable activities. Zhejiang is significant in Buddhism’s sacred geography, with the sacred mountain of Putuoshan located in the Zhoushan 舟山 archipelago in the eastern part of the province.6 As an established site with a long history prior to 1949, I could not ascertain whether it had ever developed an organization to provide relief to the local population and beyond. However, according to the BAC Charity Committee, the Putuoshan Buddhist Association is the oldest instance of a Buddhist association promoting the public interest since the beginning of the reform and opening period, as it began fundraising to finance the construction of a bridge linking the mainland to Zhoushan Island in 1979.7 Between 1979 and 1993, the Putuoshan Buddhist Association raised over 3 million RMB for roads and infrastructure, as well as an additional million for poverty alleviation, close to another million for education, and close to another million for unspecified social welfare activities. From 1993 to 1997, the proportion of funds allocated to infrastructure annually doubled relative to the average annual allocation between 1979 and 1993, while the amount dedicated to poverty alleviation increased by more than ten times. In other words, the redirection of the wealth generated from pilgrimage,

6 For a recent ethnography of this site, see Vidal (2019). 7 ZFX CGW (2013: 768–769).

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tourism, and other forms of fundraising changed dramatically over these two decades.8 Between 2007 and 2012, Putuoshan continued to stand out in the Zhejiang Buddhist philanthropy sector. Taken together, all the Buddhist institutions in the province raised 749 million RMB, of which 484 million came from Putuoshan alone.9 No provincial association submitted a comprehensive report, but five local charity associations did. The first two—the Hufa 护法 Buddhist Charity Association in the coastal city of Taizhou 台州 and the Miaoshan 妙山 Merit Society for Education and Culture, also located in Putuoshan—both registered in 2000. Only the latter falls under the jurisdiction of the local Buddhist prefectural association. A hybrid association, the Ciyuan 慈缘 branch of the Hangzhou Charity Federation, which registered in 2009 under the jurisdiction of the municipal Buddhist association, also submitted a report. The final two charities, both created in 2012, have adopted a different path to institutionalization. The Ningbo Buddhist Association sponsored the registration of a merit society, while Zisheng 资圣 Chan temple at Xue’an 雪安 Mountain sponsored the Xue’an Ciguang 慈光 Charity Foundation. The BAC Charity Committee has also taken note of other associations that have failed to submit a report, such as the Taiping 太平 Charity Merit Society in Wenzhou city,10 as well as the Buddhist municipal associations in Shaoxing 绍兴 and Rui’an 瑞安.11 Taken together, these suggest an even more fragmented landscape of philanthropic associations. These associations’ activities are often ephemeral. Hence the Ningbo Buddhist Charity Merit Society, founded in 2012, received the endorsement of the authorities in Cixi 慈溪 urban district because of its work supporting cataract surgeries. However, after this recognition, the institution left no trace of activity in the subsequent three years.12 The information on the Ningbo Charity Federation available on the Ningbo Buddhist charity website, however, puts Buddhist devotees’ contributions into perspective relative to contributions from state-owned enterprises, municipal governments, and the private sector—even if we include those 8 Ibid.: 769. 9 Ibid.: 772. 10 Ibid.: 764–766. 11 Ibid.: 753, 755, 759, 761. 12 For the association’s last recorded activity in 2015, see NBFX (2017a).

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activities that the BAC Charity Committee has not registered. Hence the Ningbo household grove (Ningbo jushilin 宁波居士林), a lay Buddhist association in the city, was one of the largest institutional contributors to the Ningbo Charity Federation. These donations do not always go to pay for social services; they may fund the arts or environmental protection activities, for example. Nevertheless, the amounts donated serve as a reference point in our attempt to assess the importance of Buddhist philanthropic contributions. In 2017, the federation listed donations from 46 units, including municipal organizations and enterprises, private firms, colleges and universities, and other associations. It received a total of 1.428 million RMB, of which 340,000 RMB was raised by organizations, with the rest coming from 12,600 individual donors, including 700,000 RMB given by private enterprises. In Table 1, the largest donors are ranked in order of their contributions in RMB: The numbers for the household grove donations in the table represent a rare example of commitments made by lay Buddhists which appear spontaneous and not state-directed, in comparison with corporate donations. In the case of Ningbo, a wealthy and well-connected city, lay Buddhists clearly emerge as important actors in the local political economy. Only further investigation could elucidate the extent to which this financial engagement in public life on the part of Buddhist laypeople Table 1

Donors to Charities in Zhejiang Province, 201713

Company name Zhejiang Tobacco, Ningbo branch Municipal Buddhist household grove Ningxing Holdings Ningbo College of Technology Zhejiang Industrial and Commercial College of Technology Ningbo Health Vocational and Technical College Bank of China, Ningbo branch Municipal Bureau of Land and Resources Municipal People’s Congress Standing Committee Municipal People’s Government Municipal Party School

13 See NBFX (2017b).

Donation amount (in RMB) 150,000 109,522 95,977 50,000 45,124 44,600 38,855 30,680 29,600 29,550 26,000

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can have an impact on the design of social policies. Yet these numbers tell an interesting story, particularly in the contrast between the private sector’s investment in public goods and the donations made by municipal Party and government organizations, which lag behind those made by Buddhist devotees. Prior to 1949, Shanghai stood out as a major center of Buddhist philanthropy. In recent years, it has begun to regain that prominence. The city’s status as a global hub, as well as its political importance as the cradle of the CCP in its first decade of existence, provided space early on for an emerging civil society and constituted the ideal backdrop for the emerging lay Buddhist urban elite.14 Well-connected, wealthy patrons such as Wang Yiting 王一亭, Wang Zhen 王震, and Xiong Xiling 熊希龄 established the foundations for Buddhist philanthropy in the 1920s and 1930s, coordinating relief all over the country.15 Between 1926 and 1949, Shanghai saw the establishment of four philanthropic societies, three hospitals, eight clinics, a funeral home, and a crematorium. Some of these hospitals and clinics offered medication and care to city residents free of charge. They all ceased operations in the late 1940s.16 The CCP terminated this form of independent social organization in the city, and it took another ten years after the launch of the reform and opening policy before Buddhist associations once again became socially engaged. This time, however, their engagement was defined on the regime’s terms. Buddhist philanthropy restarted in earnest in 1991, as the country faced natural disasters across ten provinces, for which Buddhist milieus helped raise funds. Zhenchan 真禅, the former abbot of the Jing’an 静安 and Jade Buddha (yufo 玉佛) temples, died in 1995. The funds raised by his disciples to honor his memory went to help the municipal charity foundation, a local orphanage, and a “hope school” in Jiangsu. Over the following years, the Shanghai Buddhist Association cooperated with the private sector, major temples, and the local household grove to raise funds for disaster relief operations and poverty alleviation projects across the country, as well as sponsoring schools and orphanages in the city.17 It also sponsored the Juequn 觉群 Charity Association, which was 14 For a detailed account of Buddhist activism during this period, see Jessup (2016). 15 On Wang, see Katz (2014: 117 ff.). 16 SZZ BW (2001: 171–173). 17 Ibid.: 173–174.

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originally housed at the Jade Buddha temple. The founder of this association, the temple’s abbot Juexing 觉醒, has served as the chair of the Shanghai Buddhist Association since 2003, as one of the BAC vice chairs since 2002, and as a member of the CPPCC in 2003.18 The foundation represents a case study in ambiguity: although faith-based in its origins and name, it has developed as a secularized philanthropic association. When I first visited Juequn in 2009, and again in 2015, its offices were located at the Jade Buddha temple, but it relocated its headquarters to a rented space in a commercial building in 2017. While monastics ran the society at the time of my first two meetings, some of the personnel I met during my third encounter did not even identify as Buddhists. The second most important actor in Shanghai Buddhist philanthropy, the Jing’an 静安 Temple Fuhui 福慧 Foundation, focuses on supporting schools in impoverished locations.19 Jing’an temple is part of a conspicuous project of gentrification in the eponymous area of the city, but in my many visits, I never met anyone who worked for its philanthropic foundation.20 Jiangsu represents another major center of Buddhist activity, according to its religious heritage and the number of those who self-identify as Buddhists in the province. I could not find sources on Buddhist philanthropy in that province prior to 1949. However, this reflects my own limitations, and I do not claim that this represents the situation on the ground at that time. Due to their general wealth and their numbers, Buddhist laypeople in the province had huge potential to develop philanthropic activities. Before the war with Japan broke out, the province counted the largest number of temples and monasteries in the whole country and the second-largest number of devotees, after Sichuan.21 Furthermore, the proximity of a commercial hub such as Shanghai and the location of the Republican capital in Nanjing also ensured that Buddhist philanthropic activity would receive financial support from wealthy donors and benefit from well-placed political patrons. For three decades after 1949, however, whatever Buddhist philanthropy may have existed before stood no chance of surviving. As Jan Kiely tells the story,

18 In addition, he has edited multi-authored books on Buddhism that brought together over forty academics. See Juexing (2004, 2007). 19 ZFX CGW (2013: 638). 20 On Jing’an’s development, see Huang (2019). 21 See Welch (1967: 416–417, 412–413).

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the People’s Liberation Army, upon arriving in Suzhou in 1949, requisitioned temples and monasteries to house troops and later transformed some of them into hospitals.22 Although the number of Buddhist sites in Jiangsu appears low relative to nearby provinces with much smaller proportions of self-declared Buddhists and a greater number of temples, philanthropy identified with Buddhism nevertheless abounds in this province, as the Table 2 demonstrates. The BAC Charity Committee documented a considerable amount of activity by a wide variety of associations between 2000 and 2012. The committee received reports from many associations in Jiangsu, none of which were province-wide in scope. Five of these associations were merit societies, two were foundations, one was an all-purpose charity, and one specifically served elderly lay Buddhists. Except for one association operating near Shandong, all of them had registered in cities in the Jiangnan area of the province, within a perimeter delineated by Suzhou, Nanjing, Yangzhou, and Nantong. Other associations may have registered since then, and some of those mentioned here may have closed. The main point, however, is the striking similarities between this and other provinces where many self-declared Buddhists live. They all indicate the institutional fragmentation of Buddhist philanthropy. Philanthropic activities in Jiangsu also appear to be functionally differentiated according to modes of operation. Only one merit society, the Hongfa Charity Merit Society, is directly administered by a local township Buddhist association. Likewise, only one household grove in the whole province runs a retirement home for lay Buddhists (laonian jushi anyangyuan 老年居士安养院), in Nantong 南通 prefecture. Temples run the other associations, of which there are three kinds. Four manage merit societies: in the provincial capital Nanjing, in Jingjiang 靖江 prefecture, in Yangzhou 扬州 prefecture, and in Zhenjiang 镇江 prefecture.23 Two temples have established foundations which have permission to raise money. The first, at Lingshan temple, is a site established as a tourist attraction and a location for international Buddhist meetings. Hanshan temple, a historically significant site in the city of Suzhou, manages the other foundation, which is dedicated to culture. Uniquely among its

22 Kiely (2016: 228, 231). 23 Yangzhong is an urban district in Zhenjiang.

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Table 2

Philanthropic Associations in Jiangsu, 1998–201224

Location

Association name

Managing unit

Date founded

Xuzhou

Hongfa 弘法 cishan gongdehui Hanshan 寒山 si cishan zhongxin Lingshan 灵山 cishan jijinhui Huiji 惠济 cishan gongdehui Dabei 大悲 cishan gongdehui Laonian jushi anyangyuan Wenfeng 文峰 si cishan gongdehui Taiping 太平 chansi cishan gongdehui Hehe 合和 wenhua jijinhui

Xuzhou fojiao xiehui

1998

Hanshan temple

2004

Yangfu 样符 Zen temple

2004

Old Huiji temple

2005

Gushan 孤山 temple

2007

Nantong household grove

2007

Wenfeng temple

2007

Taiping Zen temple

2009

Hanshan temple

2011

Suzhou Wuxi Nanjing Jingjiang 靖江 Nantong Yangzhou Yangzhong Suzhou

peers, this temple has also established a charity center (cishan zhongxin 慈善中心). This flourishing appears all the more remarkable if one gives credence to the survey I mentioned previously, by China Family Panel Studies, which does not rank Jiangsu high on the list of provinces where many Buddhists live; Ji Zhe’s data, which ranks Jiangsu much higher on this scale, better reflects the reality on the ground. A look at the Hanshan Temple Charity Center charter gives us an idea of the scope of activities permissible in Suzhou.25 Its mission statement emphasizes five specific activities: (1) a charity supermarket to distribute donations to people in need; (2) a student-aid plaza to help those with difficulties; (3) a charity pharmacy to provide free medical assistance and supply affordable medicines to socially disadvantaged groups; (4) a charity center store; and (5) donation drives. A revealing clause in this charter, Article 28, lists acceptable sources of funding. Alongside startup funds provided by the temple and funds obtained from fundraising

24 ZFX CGW (2013: 78–92). 25 The translation of the charter is mine. See Hanshansi (2019).

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events, it accepts funds from party and government organs, social organizations, private enterprises, enterprises with foreign participation (sanzi qiye 三资企业), self-employed households (geti gongshang hu 个体工 商户), overseas Chinese, and investors from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. Amendments to the charter and decisions regarding its termination require the approval of two institutions: the Municipal Bureau of Ethnic and Religious Affairs, and its counterpart in civil affairs. The Hanshan charity numbered 3000 members at the height of its activities in 2010. Suzhou has proven especially welcoming to Buddhist philanthropy. In addition to the associations mentioned above, its municipal government has also leased land to the Taiwan-based Tzu Chi Foundation, which has established its Chinese headquarters and a hospital in the city.26 In addition to the associations mentioned above, the BAC Charity Committee report mentions the activities of Buddhist milieus (fojiaojie 佛教界) in the prefectures of Changzhou 常州, Yancheng 盐城, Zhenjiang 镇江, and Suqian 宿迁, with the earliest records from 2004 and the most recent from 2012.27 This diversity of actors confirms the impression that these activities have developed from the bottom-up rather than being instigated by the provincial Buddhist association and its UFWD counterpart. The absence of an institution established by the provincial Buddhist association does not indicate a lack of interest on the state’s part, however. In the end, the sustainability of local Buddhist philanthropic associations depends on the leniency of authorities in higher levels of government. At the time of writing, unfortunately, repeated requests for access to the Jiangsu Buddhist Association website have returned a blank page. Nevertheless, some indices suggest that the association may have faced serious difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, as a communiqué from the association indicated that many Buddhists across the province were distressed due to isolation from the community and identified up to 18 temples and sites in need of support.28

26 I visited this site before it was established, when it was in the planning stage, and I witnessed its completion over the years. 27 ZFX CGW (2013: 699–712). 28 Li (2020).

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3

Middle Yangzi: Toward a Renaissance?

The four provinces in this macro-region rank in the mid-level across almost all socioeconomic indicators—in terms of income, access to healthcare, and urbanization. In contrast to the other macro-regions above, the four-city cluster of Wuhan–Changsha–Nanchang–Hefei that structures this macro-region does not reproduce older patterns of communication established along the Yangzi. Rather, it reflects the central government’s ambitions to create new city clusters to alleviate the pressures on the three existing clusters: the Pearl River Delta, the Yangzi River Delta, and the Jijingjin cluster.29 With only a few ethnic minorities living in its western margins, this overwhelmingly Han macro-region is nevertheless culturally fragmented, with a majority of the population in each of the four provinces speaking mutually unintelligible dialects in different languages of the Chinese linguistic family: Gan and Hakka in Jiangxi; Xiang in Hunan; Gan, Huizhou, and Wu in Southern Anhui; and variants of Mandarin in Hubei and Anhui. The four Middle Yangzi provinces altogether account for the third-largest concentration of Buddhist temples and monasteries in the country, but the number of people who selfidentify as Buddhist does not reflect this importance, as they represent less than 4% of the population. The same macro-region, however, benefitted early on from relief delivered by Tzu Chi Foundation volunteers. Poorer than the coastal macro-regions, it experiences devastating yearly floods and thus stands out as a recipient of philanthropy rather than a source, although some of the most important Buddhist charity associations hail from this region. In Anhui, one of the poorest provinces in the country, revenues from pilgrimages to Jiuhuashan 九华山, another of the four famous Buddhist mountains, have not impacted philanthropy. I could not uncover evidence of Anhui-based Buddhist philanthropy prior to 1949: if it existed, it did not leave traces that I am aware of, even in Chinese publications. I can make similar remarks about developments in the first three decades of the reform and opening policy: if institutions that existed before 1949 did survive the three decades of the Maoist regime, I found no traces of

29 Jijingjin stands for Hebei (Ji 冀), Beijing, and Tianjin. The Middle Yangzi urban cluster is the first of the emerging clusters announced by the 11th five-year plan for economic development to be promoted by the CCP in 2006–2010. For details of the clusters, see ZZW and GY (2014: 15).

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them and no notable charitable activities prior to the twenty-first century. However, I did find indications of a significant Tzu Chi Foundation presence in the province, with volunteers delivering relief on many occasions between 1991 and 1999, to seven different locations.30 Not only did the Taiwan-based charity offer relief in the province, it also contributed to building a school in the foundation’s architectural style in Quanjiao 全 椒 township, near Nanjing. The personnel at this school, who welcomed me on a visit in 2010, expressed their gratitude for this example of crossstrait cooperation. This attitude stood in stark contrast to that of scholars of philanthropy in Hefei, whom I had met on several occasions four years previously, and who had expressed reservations about what they saw as outsiders’ charity.31 Between 2008 and 2012, a few lay Buddhists and monks raised funds, visited isolated elderly nursing homes, or provided financial assistance to poor students.32 However, they established no foundations, merit societies, or charities at the provincial level.33 Of the 56 entries on philanthropic activities since 2007 compiled online by the provincial Buddhist association, less than half have developed within the province itself, and these have been organized at the prefectural level, primarily in Jiuhuashan.34 Although Jiangxi province counts a relatively large proportion of Buddhists among its residents, they live in an environment quite different from their co-religionists on the prosperous east coast. This province ranked 23rd out of all 31 provinces, regions, and municipalities in terms of wealth in 2017, according to China’s national data.35 With only a fraction of the number of monks, nuns, and devotees relative to Jiangsu during the Republican era, this province had very few resources on the basis of which to establish local Buddhist philanthropy.36 However, Taixu, the reformist monk who promoted Buddhist philanthropy, resided in the

30 Wang (2001). 31 Sadly, he was not able to introduce me to local philanthropic activities, which I was

most eager to see. 32 ZFX CGW (2013). 33 Ibid.: 822–826, 827–831. 34 See ASFX (2020). 35 NBS (2019). 36 Using Republican government data published in 1930, Welch estimated that there were twenty times fewer devotees in Jiangxi relative to Jiangsu. See Welch (1967: 412).

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province, in one of the most ancient Buddhist temples in the country: Donglin 东林 monastery, founded in 386. The first local Buddhist charity to register in the province after Mao, established by Dajinshan 大金 山 temple in 1999, announced plans to establish the largest Buddhist home for the elderly in China on the monastery’s premises, but it left no trace of activity after 2015.37 Donglin monastery—led by Da’an 大安, an abbot with considerable influence on the BAC—proved more successful.38 According to data provided by the Atlas of Religion, the revenue the monastery earns from tourism due to its status as an ancient site made it one of the wealthiest religious institutions in China in 2004.39 This wealth may explain the relative ease with which the temple established two institutions to provide very different services to the population: the Donglin Pure Land Cultural Foundation (jingtu wenhua jijinhui 净土 文化基金会), set up in 2006, and the Donglin Charitable Merit Society, launched two years later. The cultural foundation worked with Tzu Chi volunteers to train its own volunteers.40 According to its webpage, the merit foundation, which adopted Tzu Chi’s motto: “help the poor, teach the rich” (jipin jiaofu 济贫教富), provided elderly care and support for students until 2016, and disaster relief and home care until 2017.41 Although Hubei counted more monastics than Jiangxi prior to 1949, I could find no trace of any large philanthropic association on the basis of which Buddhists could revive charitable activities after the launch of the reform and opening policy. The development of philanthropy in this province has resulted from initiatives at the macro-regional level. Hence when the Hubei government organized fundraising for an elderly home in 1987, it invited Miaole 妙乐, a well-regarded abbess at the historical Lushan Tiefo 庐山铁佛 temple in Yueyang, Jiangxi, to assist. Within ten years, the government expanded the scope of these fundraising initiatives to include orphanages and disaster relief outside Hubei.42 In 2007, the process finally became institutionalized, as the provincial Buddhist

37 CX (2015). 38 ZFX CGW (2013: 99). 39 ACMRC (2010). The year 2004 was the latest date for which this kind of

comparative data was available. 40 ZFX CGW (2013: 101). 41 DCJ (2019). 42 ZFX CGW (2013: 897).

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association sponsored the only Buddhist charitable institution in the province: the Ciyun Student Support Service Center (Ciyun zhuxue fuwu zhongxin 慈云助学服务中心), managed by the Huangshi 黄石 prefecture Buddhist association. The center offers financial assistance to a very specific category of the population: children from households where one or both parents have lost the ability to work, or where one parent has died; who do not benefit from any government support; and who show evidence of good academic performance.43 Concurrently, the BAC Charity Committee recorded a number of philanthropic activities undertaken by Buddhist associations in various prefectures and districts between 2003 and 2012—Wuxue 武穴, Huanggang 黄冈, Jingzhou 荆州, Xishui 浠水, and Luotian 罗田—as well as by a few temples in various parts of the province: in Wuhan, Ezhou 鄂州, and Qianjiang 潜江.44 This range of activities included poverty alleviation as well as help for students, people with disabilities, the elderly, and refugees fleeing natural disasters.45 At the time of writing, the provincial Buddhist association is running a charity foundation, which has advertised between three and seven major philanthropic activities per year since 2016. In 2020, probably due to the extraordinary lockdown the province experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, the website mentions only one activity.46 Buddhism’s situation in Hunan province prior to 1949 has more in common with that of Hubei than with that of Jiangxi. To my knowledge, no Buddhist institution has left a significant legacy which could have provided a springboard for philanthropic activities at the onset of the reform and opening policy. Philanthropy in this province was supported by a prominent native monastic: Shenghui 圣辉. Named president of the Hunan Buddhist Association in 1994 and appointed chair of the Nanputuo Charity Association by Zhao Puchu in 1997, he rose through the ranks of the BAC to become a vice chair from 1992 to 1996. He is also a political figure: since 2002, he has served in the CPPCC and the

43 Ibid.: 108–111. 44 ZFX CGW (2013: 920). The Tzu Chi Foundation delivered relief after the 1992

and 1993 floods in townships in the counties of Huangmei and Jingzhou. I visited these locations in 2004, and local residents showed me the mementos of that relief operation, which they had kept. 45 ZFX CGW (2013: 895). 46 HFX (2020).

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NPC, and been involved with the “anti-cult” movement.47 He led many Buddhist associations throughout the country and served as an abbot at many temples before establishing the Foci 佛慈 Foundation of Hunan in 2006. The foundation’s activities in the province exemplify expensive, hard-to-deliver services to vulnerable populations whose needs the government may not consider urgent. For instance, in 2018 the foundation helped people suffering from leprosy in so-called “lepers’ villages” (mafeng cun 麻风村) in Chenzhou 郴州 prefecture. In the same year, it provided relief in four towns affected by natural disasters in Huaihua 怀 化 prefecture. Lower-level Buddhist associations based in the following three prefectures also offered services between 2009 and 2012: Nanyue 南岳, Hengyang 衡阳, and the capital, Changsha 长沙. Official sources also mention a few isolated cases of temples organizing fundraising to provide relief in remote areas and to vulnerable populations. At the time of writing, Foci remains active. No doubt as a testament to the trust the state places in this association, and in marked contrast to its neighbor to the north, the government has allowed Foci to organize a major program to prevent and control coronavirus and pneumonia infections.48

4

Lingnan: Global Connections

This macro-region—essentially Guangdong and Hainan provinces, the Autonomous Region of Guangxi, and the two Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau—stands out as the “factory of the world.” As the spearhead of the reform and opening policy, Guangdong set up three of the first SEZs and benefitted from its proximity to Hong Kong as a global transportation hub. The culture of this macro-region is composite: the Zhuang minority lives in the eponymous autonomous region of Guangxi, among many other minorities, and the Han population in Guangdong speaks a variety of languages. In addition to the Cantonese, Hakka, and Chaozhou spoken by the local population, migrant workers—who primarily come from Hunan, Jiangxi, and Fujian—speak their own dialects.49 Estimated at over 10 million people,

47 See Nanputuo Administrator (2011). 48 Foci (2020). 49 I follow the usage of linguists who define Cantonese, Hakka, etc., as languages because they are most often unintelligible to each other, and also to monolingual native

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the fourth-largest concentration of Han Buddhists in the country lives in this macro-region. The Pearl River Delta has benefitted from Hong Kong’s proximity and its receptivity to renjian fojiao. It has also witnessed important developments in Buddhist philanthropy, no doubt facilitated by the wealth circulating in the region, and also by the relatively more open religious climate of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region prior to the second half of the 2010s.50 Hong Kong has enjoyed an uninterrupted tradition of Buddhist philanthropy both before and since 1949—an issue I discussed elsewhere.51 For the hinterland of Guangdong province, the number of monks and institutions represented a fraction of the numbers for the Lower and Middle Yangzi macro-regions identified by the historian of early twentiethcentury Buddhism, Holmes Welch.52 Despite this initial comparative disadvantage, however, Buddhist charity associations in Guangdong have grown in importance. In the wake of its development as an industrial hub, the province has generated the wealth that makes the development of charity possible. Another possible source of growth for Buddhist philanthropy is the growing need for psychological counseling, moral support, and spiritual healing, which many may seek in a rapidly changing society, and which may be particularly important for migrant workers away from their families. Finally, the development of Buddhist philanthropy benefitted from the activities of religious leaders with political capital. Hence Mingsheng 明生, chair of the provincial Buddhist association since 2004, has served as vice chair of the BAC since 2002 and as a member of two politically important initiatives: the National “Anti-Cult” Committee (Zhongguo fanxiejiao weiyuanhui 中国反邪教委员会), which he directed in 2001, and a number of delegations sent abroad for inter-religious exchange.53 The provincial Buddhist associations directly administer a charity foundation to pay for two specific services to the population: the Ciyuan Mandarin speakers. My use of the term “dialect” acknowledges the variety within each of these languages, with respect to pronunciation, usage, vocabulary, etc. 50 For many years, Polin monastery, established in Hong Kong, ran a website that preserved data on Buddhist philanthropy throughout China. 51 This refers to the companion book to this one, on Chinese Buddhist philanthropy beyond the PRC. 52 Welch (1967: 416–417, 412–413). 53 The BAC appointed Mingsheng to oversee the development of its charity.

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Center for Social Work (Guangdong ciyuan shehui gongzuo fuwu zhongxin 广东慈缘社会工作服务中心) and a network of Buddhist charity clinics (Guangdong fojiao cishan zhensuo 广东佛教慈善诊所).54 The charity foundation joins in annual government-sponsored “Guangdong poverty alleviation days,” and under its guidance, prefectural Buddhist associations organize fundraising events. The amount brought in by such events can be quite significant: in 2019, the Shunde 顺德 Buddhist Association obtained 1 million RMB.55 In addition to such fundraising activities, these associations also deliver relief directly: in the summer of 2019, the Heyuan 河源 Buddhist Association did so when storms affected the area.56 The Buddhist charity clinics, most of which are located in temples, offer other services on a more permanent basis, such as Chinese traditional medicine (zhongyi 中医).57 The clinic I visited in Yuexiu 越秀, Guangzhou in 2008 had opened in 2004 to provide free medical treatment to vulnerable people in urban and rural areas—including “Five Guarantees” households, disabled people, and workers who had been laid off—thanks to a start-up fund of 5 million RMB established by Guangxiao 光孝temple in Guangzhou. Twelve years later, this clinic had provided free medicine and treatment to over 130,000 people in need.58 Other Buddhist institutions offer social services in Guangdong as well. For instance, the Liuzu Puji Charitable Society (Liuzu cishan puji hui 六 祖慈善普济会) has received permission to register independently of the provincial association. Set up by wealthy philanthropists who identify as Buddhists, it is based in the city of Sihui 四会, a small township west of Guangzhou, which is now the seat of the Zhaoqing 肇庆 High Technology Industrial Development Zone.59 The BAC Charity Committee also noted activities undertaken by local Buddhist associations in Shenzhen 深圳, Foshan 佛山, Meizhou 梅州, and Chaozhou 潮州. Although less than one-fifth of Guangdong’s population identifies as Buddhist, its

54 ZFX CGW (2013: 119–123). 55 GFX (2019a). Shunde is an urban district in Foshan with a population of about 1

million people. 56 GFX (2019b). 57 ZFX CGW (2013: 124–125). 58 GFX (2017). 59 ZFX CGW (2013: 123).

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philanthropic activities are more centralized than in other provinces with larger proportions of Buddhists. Instituted in 1988 as an SEZ, and as the least populated province in China, Hainan presents an intriguing case of a small population of Buddhists raising large amounts of money to help less fortunate people. Hence in 2007, the BAC Charity Committee counted 9 million RMB raised by the Buddhists in this province, with those from Sanya 三亚 the most engaged.60 These funds do not come from pilgrimage, as Hainan does not have Buddhist sites of national significance. A comparison with the Guangxi Autonomous Region, which also counts a small proportion of Buddhists, brings to light the relevance of local support. The data Welch collected disclosed little Buddhist activity in Guangxi at the onset of the Republican era. Since 1949, it has remained one of the most impoverished parts of China, a situation that did not change when it obtained the status of autonomous region in 1958. Although no provincial-level Buddhist philanthropy developed, three local Buddhist associations organized relief in Guilin, Yulin, and the region capital, Nanning, although the sums obtained were comparatively low.61 Because of its exposure to natural calamities, such as torrential rains and floods, aggravated by the general poverty of its residents, Guangxi has often found itself on the receiving end of relief and support provided by Buddhist philanthropic societies from other provinces. The misfortunes of this province and the efforts of other Chinese charities have showcased the benefits of inter-regional cooperation in humanitarian relief. In that sense, Guangxi’s marginalization, and the efforts to redress this situation could bolster claims that both the central government and Buddhists care about the welfare of the most vulnerable.

5

Yungui: A Remote, Culturally Fragmented Environment

This macro-region, isolated from the rest of the country until recently, is the least urbanized of the Han-populated regions of China and constitutes one of the two poorest. In both Yunnan and Guizhou, over one-third

60 Ibid.: 1010–1021. 61 Between 2005 and 2012, fundraising efforts by Buddhists in Nanning collected 4

million RMB. See ZFX CGW (2013: 1046).

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of the population is non-Han, and these groups are further divided into many minorities. These two provinces also present different landscapes for Buddhism, with Yunnan counting far more Buddhists than Guizhou. Prior to 1949, Republican authorities counted the third-largest concentration of monks in the country in Yunnan, as measured proportionally per 1000 habitants.62 In 2012, Yunnan had the fourth-largest concentration of Buddhists of any province. However, in contrast to the ethnically homogenous communities living in Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu, Yunnanese Buddhists relate to different Buddhist communities, as devotees from the Han majority and from thirteen different minority ethnicities identify with one of the three traditions of Mahayana, Tibetan, or Theravada Buddhism. Judging from official reports, philanthropic activities in Yunnan have not developed on the same scale as in the other provinces where Buddhists represent a significant portion of the population. The only organization mentioned by the BAC Charity Committee for the whole province is the Xishuangbanna Prefecture Buddha Light Home 西双版纳州佛光之家), managed by the prefectural Buddhist association, which looks after people infected with HIV/AIDS.63 Guizhou province does not identify a single local Buddhist charitable institution: the only mention of Buddhist philanthropic activity in the province is the Guizhou Buddhist association’s direct delivery of modest services to the poor every year between 2002 and 2012.64 Overall, from the angle of a national political economy of Buddhist philanthropy, these two provinces stand out as benefactors of support from co-religionists outside the region.

6 Upper Yangzi: At Both Ends of the Donor Economy This macro-region—which consists of Sichuan province and the special municipality of Chongqing, which Sichuan ruled until 1997—has developed a relatively more prosperous economy in the generally poorer Chinese hinterland. Well connected with the rest of the country, this densely populated macro-region has sent migrant workers to other 62 Welch (1967: 412–413). 63 ZFX CGW (2013: 149–153). 64 ZFX CGW (2013: 1089–1096).

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regions, generating a host of social problems, such as “left-behind” children and elderly people.65 The Upper Yangzi macro-region counts the fifth-largest concentration of Buddhist sites in the whole country, but also the smallest concentration of devotees. A large proportion of Buddhist sites are connected to the Tibetan tradition: the regions where this tradition is practiced count larger numbers of sites relative to the population. In Chongqing and in the part of Sichuan where most of the population is Han, less than one in fifty people identifies as Buddhist. The region has received more Buddhist philanthropy than it has given, especially in the wake of the disastrous earthquake in 2008. While it was briefly the wartime capital of Republican China, Chongqing and its surroundings do not count a large number of Buddhist residents. Yet even before the central government gave the city the status of a provincial municipality, Chongqing had registered one of the first Buddhist merit societies in the country, in 1993. The creation of a Buddhist charity under these conditions is somewhat unusual—even more so when, thirteen years later, Huayan 华岩temple registered a cultural foundation (wenjiao jijinhui 文教基金会).66 However, the concentration of wealth in the city, which is one of the richest areas in China in 2020, may have contributed to the financial sustainability of Buddhist philanthropy there. The Huayan Cultural Foundation organizes fundraising events to finance programs to help different groups: children from impoverished households, rural residents in remote communities, and victims of natural disasters.67 The 2008 earthquake activated the Chongqing Buddhist charity sector, as the epicenter was near the city. This Buddhist engagement elicited mixed responses, however: although the official BAC Charity Committee mentions fundraising by Chongqing municipality, other sources commenting on civic engagement during the tragedy and its aftermath have overlooked it.68 Prior to 1949, the number of Buddhists in Sichuan ranked first, third, and fourth in the country, as measured by the number of monastics, 65 In 2017, UNICEF counted over 5 million left-behind children in Sichuan, as well as identifying over 40% of rural children in both Sichuan and Chongqing as left-behind. See UNICEF, NWCCW, and NBS (2018: 139). 66 Jing (2013: 16) also mentioned the Jinyunshan Yangsheng 缙云山养生慈爱基金会 Charity Foundation, which was created in 2007, but the ZFX CGW did not register it. 67 See the summary of the charter in ZFX CGW (2013: 148–149). 68 For example, see Xu (2017).

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male, and female devotees, respectively.69 Buddhists in this province have created numerous philanthropic associations despite the fact that their numbers are proportionally smaller relative to the total population than in most other provinces and regions. Moreover, the provincial Buddhist association was one of the few in China to have registered a provincial merit society in 1994, although this may have proven premature. This provincial merit society, established at Manjusri Hall (Wenshuyuan 文殊 院) in the provincial capital Chengdu, has left little trace of its activities. Perhaps indicative of its difficulties in meeting overly ambitious targets, in 2011 it registered as a municipal merit society in the same location, as the Manjusri Hall Blessed Wisdom Merit Society (Wenshuyuan fuhui gongdehui 文殊院福慧功德会), under the aegis of the Hall’s Department of Dharma Propagation (hongfa lishengbu 弘法利生部).70 The BAC’s printed reports on Buddhist charities note no activities for this institution, and its webpage, which kept records until 2017, only mentions a prayer session as the Buddhist collective response to the landslide that struck Chengdu that year.71 The dispersion of Buddhist devotees throughout these provinces, and the organizational differences between Han and Tibetan forms of worship, which are not clear in official documents, may have made it difficult to concentrate such activities in a single provincial association. Buddhist philanthropic societies have registered at the prefectural level and have followed a variety of different paths. Only in Zigong 自贡 prefecture did the local Buddhist association establish a merit society (Zigonshi fojiao xiehui cishan gongdehui 自贡市佛教协会慈善功德会). Elsewhere, temples took the initiative: in Leshan 乐山, located not far from Emeishan, another of the four famous Buddhist mountains, the local Great Buddha Philanthropic Merit Society (dafo si cishan gongdehui 大佛 寺慈善功德会) emerged on the initiative of two local temples, Ling’yun 凌云 and Niaoyou 鸟尤. In Xichang 西昌 prefecture, Guangfu 光福 temple established a charitable relief merit society (Xichang Guangfu si cishan jiuji gongdehui 西昌光福寺慈善救济功德会). One of the factors behind the higher incidence of Buddhist philanthropic societies in the

69 Welch (1967: 412–413, 416–417). 70 ZFX CGW (2013: 140, 146–147). 71 ZFX (2017).

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wealthy coastal provinces cannot explain their abundance here. Historically, Sichuan was not a major site of international immigration; therefore, the possibility of attracting investment from wealthy overseas Chinese is unlikely to matter here the way it does on the east coast. Government intervention to foster Buddhist philanthropy does matter, however: domestic outmigration to the coast for work has created a host of social problems that have put pressure on the provincial government, such as left-behind children and lone elderly people who are not supported by their adult children. Moreover, the province is exposed to natural disasters, as dramatically evidenced by the deadly 2008 earthquake, which has necessitated the rapid mobilization of civil society and resulted in a rise in the demand for support in the wake of such disasters—not only material, but also psychological and emotional.

7 Northwest China: A Macro-Region Relief Recipient This macro-region stands out as the poorest in the country in terms of income per capita. As a frontier area close to central Asia’s more arid, fragile ecosystems, it suffers from the consequences of rapid development, such as air and water pollution. Culturally close to minorities who practice Tibetan forms of Buddhism, the region is dotted with monasteries and sites reflecting that influence. This macro-region counts a small number and proportion of Buddhist devotees and sites, but its sacred geography is nevertheless significant because it includes the fourth of the four famous Buddhist mountains: Wutaishan 五台山. This pilgrimage site, in turn, has encouraged significant philanthropic activity relative to the modest size of the community, which benefits from donations from pilgrims as well as wealthy tourists. Although it has only a small number of Buddhists, Gansu province counts a relatively high number of temples.72 It stands as the poorest province in the country and therefore as an inauspicious location to support the development of Buddhist philanthropy. However, Gansu has received much assistance from Buddhist associations based outside China, some of which have also focused on minority nationalities. Hence between 2004 and 2012, the Taiwan-based Tzu Chi Foundation

72 However, many of these temples are located in the Tibetan autonomous prefectures.

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repeatedly sent volunteers to the province to provide technical assistance—mostly installing water pumps in arid areas.73 The relatively late development of Buddhist philanthropy here demonstrates limited intervention on the part of provincial and local Buddhist associations, and more significant involvement on the part of temples. Hence in 2007, Bao’en 报恩 temple established a merit society in the provincial capital, Lanzhou, and five years later it established a foundation. A look at the temple’s website, however, indicates that after a burst of activity in 2008 and 2012, the last mention of any philanthropic activity was a single fundraising event which took place in 2013, to help pay for the construction of a bridge in a remote area.74 As in Gansu, Buddhist philanthropy developed relatively recently in Shaanxi and focused on supporting public health. In 2007, Daxingshan 大 兴善 temple in Xi’an established a non-profit hospital, the Xi’an Xingshan, to run free clinics serving the poor.75 However, events on the national stage forced the provincial Buddhist milieu to expand its activities. The 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, in neighboring Sichuan, compelled the Baoji 宝鸡 prefectural Buddhist association to organize fundraising for relief.76 Two years later, the provincial association took the lead in organizing another charity drive for Qinghai province. Apart from these two events, however, Buddhist associations have not intervened much: they have not established a merit society, nor a foundation, nor a charity. Temples and monasteries proved more likely to take initiatives, albeit relatively late. In 2010, Ci’en 慈恩 temple in Xi’an helped fund scholarships to support students from poor neighborhoods.77 One year later, Xi’an Guangren 广仁 temple established a charitable merit society. In 2012, Daming 大明 temple, also located in Baoji prefecture, organized a charity drive to support students. Few of these initiatives became perennial, however, and by 2019 the Buddhist provincial association had stopped recording any philanthropic activity.78

73 Wang (2001: 104–109). 74 See Bao’en si (2015). 75 ZFX CGW (2013: 1061–1063). 76 Ibid.: 1051. 77 Ibid.: 1053–1054. 78 SXF (2019).

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Shanxi province stands apart in this macro-region. It does not count an especially large number of monasteries, monks, or nuns relative to other provinces, according to the sources Welch presented, but it did have a very early start in organizing Buddhist philanthropic activities, beginning immediately after the promulgation of the reform and opening policy in 1982.79 At least three associations have provided relief to the population in this province: the Buddhist Merit Charitable Federation of Wutaishan; the Linfen 临汾 Buddhist Association’s Charitable Merit Society; and the Jinsheng 晋城 Municipal Buddhist Association’s foundation.80 The Wutaishan federation has offered help to the poor and the disabled, supported students, and engaged in poverty alleviation.81 In addition, alongside the associations just mentioned, many temples have undertaken philanthropic activities, such as Chongshan 崇善 in Taiyuan, Wanglan 王 兰 in Yangquan, and Jile 极乐 in Datong.82 The Shanxi Charity Federation website provides no information on these associations between 2012 and 2020, which may be indicative of the low esteem in which provincial officials hold Buddhist philanthropy.83 Yet another source has reported that in 2019, the Wutaishan charity raised 15 million RMB in just one hour during a “charity week” event.84

8

Northern China: Cultural and Political Capital

Buddhist philanthropy in this macro-region had the opportunity to harness Buddhism’s important cultural capital in that part of the country. Three major city clusters—in Henan, Shandong, and the Jijinjing project—drive its economy. A magnet for labor migration from other macro-regions, the central political authorities seek to control population movement to this macro-region out of concern for pressure on resources

79 ZFX CGW (2013: 556–563). 80 Only the last of these three, established in 2006, has submitted a report to the BAC

(ZFX CGW 2013: 61), although the same report mentions the activities of the other two as well (ZFX CGW 2013: 534–535, 544). 81 ZFX CGW (2013: 534–535). 82 Ibid.: 544, 549–550. 83 SSCZ (2020). 84 WSQ (2019).

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and the environment. Culturally, this Han-majority area—one of the most homogenous in the country, linguistically speaking—nevertheless presents a diverse religious ecology. It counts the third-largest concentration of Buddhists in the country, as well as numerically important Protestant and Catholic communities. The initiatives of a few outstanding monks and nuns have made Buddhist philanthropy quite visible, even in locations where there are relatively few devotees. The development of Buddhist philanthropy in this macro-region has benefitted from local political patronage and cooperation with fellow lay Buddhists in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Since the adoption of the reform and opening policy, entrenched poverty has made the development of Buddhist philanthropy difficult, despite the legacy of Buddhist heritage in Luoyang and other cities, and their potential for tourism. When volunteers from the Tzu Chi Foundation came from Taiwan to supply relief to victims of natural disasters in the early 1990s, one of their first destinations was Henan. Despite inauspicious beginnings, however, some Henan monastics made good use of the local cultural capital. Hence Shaolin 少林 temple, famous for its martial arts tradition, established a charitable welfare foundation in 1994 with a broad range of objectives: supporting poverty alleviation, providing disaster relief, promoting cultural exchange, and achieving all of this in the context of promoting the national goal of economic development.85 Ten years later, under the patronage of the same abbot, Yongxin 永信, the temple established a center to help young children: the Shaolin Ciyouyuan 慈幼院. Other Buddhist philanthropic associations have also developed in the province. The Puyang 濮阳 municipal Buddhist association ran a charity merit society from 2006 until at least 2012.86 In 2020, however, the list made by the local Charity Federation managed by the Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau made no mention of this association.87 The nearby province of Shandong experienced no development comparable to what took place in Henan. Since the late Qing Dynasty, many sectarian movements have proliferated in this province, and Christian missions have also been active. Although this proliferation of religious movements has raised the authorities’ suspicions since the imperial period,

85 ZFX CGW (2013: 103). 86 Ibid.: 105–108. 87 See PMW (2020).

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it has not led to any special effort to promote the development of strong Buddhist institutions. The limited Buddhist resources in this province may account for this; the statistics I presented previously show that Shandong has one of the smallest proportions of Buddhists relative to the overall population in the country. Buddhist followers have few resources on which they could depend to launch charitable associations. The only exception I could find is the Pujue 普觉 Public Interest Foundation, which is jointly run by the Yantai 烟台 city Buddhist Association Training Center and Fushan Helu 福山合卢 temple.88 Buddhist philanthropy in Hebei province, which emerged just one decade after the reform and opening policy was adopted, under the aegis of the provincial association, presents an interesting contrast with Shandong. The institutionalization of Hebei Buddhist philanthropy has exceeded expectations thanks to the volition of a few remarkable individuals. As in Sichuan, Hebei counts a rather small proportion of Buddhists relative to other provinces, but Hebei Buddhist Association nevertheless ranks as one of only four provincial associations to have sponsored the establishment of a provincial charity association. The BAC Charity Committee has reported three provincial-level Buddhist charitable institutions in Hebei, all headquartered in the provincial capital, Shijiazhuang 石家庄.89 In 1995, at the small Hongyi 弘一shrine in the village of Xiao’anshe 小安舍, the monk Changhui 常辉 established the Great Kindness Homely Garden (hongde jiayuan 弘德家园), which offers support to orphaned children and to children who have left school.90 Meanwhile, in the same year, Jinghui 净慧, the abbot of Bailin Chan 柏林禅 寺 temple, set up a special (zhuanye 专业) committee that supported the founding of a provincial Buddhist Charity Merit Society. One year later, Changhui took charge of the Hebei Buddhist Merit Society Foundation, and in 2004 the garden opened two other locations, in Langfang 廊坊 and Baoding 保定. Changhui and his disciples welcomed children from a variety of religious backgrounds. The Hebei Buddhist Merit Society Foundation’s headquarters, located in a temple not far from Beijing,

88 The provincial department of taxation included the foundation among the 103 public welfare social organizations that qualified for public welfare donation in 2019. See SSCT (2019). 89 ZFX CGW (2013: 55–61). 90 Ibid.: 60–61.

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have attracted the attention of many international observers, including academics, journalists, and politicians.91 Urban Buddhist philanthropy in Beijing thrived prior to 1949, as my discussion of the Republican period elsewhere has shown.92 The city Buddhist lodge obtained recognition from the government in 1929 and was allowed to organize philanthropic activities in the capital, and even to maintain a semblance of legal status from 1949 to 1952, when the CCP ordered it to close. It has reopened its doors since the reform and opening policy was promulgated, but despite its lay identity, it has not undertaken many charitable activities. Buddhist philanthropy in Beijing experienced a relatively late start, despite the fact that the BAC is located in the capital. The main actor, which I will introduce in chapter twelve, is Beijing’s Ren’ai 仁爱 Foundation, which is associated with Longquan 龙泉 temple in the city’s western district. This foundation, like the Juequn Foundation in Shanghai, downplays its religious identity in the eyes of the public. However, those familiar with Buddhist iconography, vocabulary, and practice recognize Ren’ai’s Buddhist identity. Buddhist philanthropy has also developed quite unexpectedly in Tianjin, a city with a small Buddhist community. This case confirms the importance of well-connected leadership. Tianjin’s own merit foundation, in contrast to its counterpart in Beijing, does not conceal its Buddhist affiliation, which is evident in its name and on its website. It is located at Guanyin 观音 temple in the eastern shore area (hedong qu 河东区) of the city.93 Its founder, Miaoxian 妙贤, serves as the abbess of a municipal temple. Her gender reinforces the unusual nature of Tianjin’s Buddhist philanthropy, relative to the rest of the country. In the spring of 2020, the foundation managed to raise 4 million RMB to help mediate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, of which 1 million RMB was sent to Hubei.94

91 Yang and Wei (2005), Fisher (2008). 92 I refer to the other book on Buddhist philanthropy beyond the PRC. 93 ZFX CGW (2013: 50–55). 94 Although the Tianjin charity website lists no events for 2020, the Buddhist information site fjnet provides details on this charity drive. See fojiaonet (2020).

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9 Northeast China: New Religions and the Securitization of Philanthropy? A destination for relatively recent immigration in the late nineteenth century, the ethnic composition of this macro-region, which was originally diverse, has become primarily Han. During the period of Japanese control, it proved fertile ground for the expansion of redemptive societies.95 Since the reform and opening policy was adopted, this macroregion has experienced a series of economic downturns caused by deindustrialization, and the social dislocation that followed economic decline coincided with a rise in religious fervor in the area. In a development that left the small Buddhist religious establishment deeply perplexed, Falungong emerged in Changchun in 1992, and then spread throughout this macro-region and the rest of the country as well. Historically, relative to South China, Northeast China has seen less Buddhist activity. In 2020, among China’s nine macro-regions, it has one of the smallest proportions of devotees and monastics. However, Buddhist philanthropic activity is relatively well developed here—a trend likely encouraged by the authorities in an effort to undermine the appeal of new religious movements. At the time of writing, no provincial Buddhist charity has registered in Liaoning. However, a variety of institutions have been involved in social services delivery, and the provincial Buddhist association played an active role early on, focusing on the issue of poverty in the province in 1980. In 1991, it expanded the scope of its activities outside the province, organizing relief operations more than ten times that year. In 1992, it sponsored the construction of a home for the elderly in Dandong, which was completed in 1996.96 By 2012, the province counted the following philanthropic organizations: a municipal Buddhist foundation in Yingkou 营口 prefecture, a merit society in the city of Dalian 大连, a Federation of Buddhist Charities in Jinzhou 锦州, and a branch of the Taiwanbased Tzu Chi Foundation in Suizhong 绥中 county. In 2012, Liaoning Buddhists organized a religious charity week that showcased the capacity and reach of Buddhist associations’ resources across all the prefectures in the province. Prefectural Buddhist associations sponsored philanthropy

95 For the first use of this term, see Duara (2003). 96 ZFX CGW (2013: 582).

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in Anshan, Wushun, Anzhong, and Dalian between 2003 and 2011, and in 2011 the Tieling association organized fundraising for another elderly care home.97 Despite the COVID-19 pandemic that struck the country in the spring of 2020, some of the local Buddhist merit societies have continued to organize charitable activities.98 Since 2009, the Jilin provincial Buddhist association has cosponsored—together with the provincial BRA and the Jilin government— activities to support students, poverty alleviation, and relief provision.99 The provincial BRA offered some useful information on philanthropic activities between 2016 and 2020, broken down into the five recognized religions. The activities listed by the BRA documented the much greater extent of the local Protestant associations’ charitable activities, with 74 activities compared to 6 for the Buddhist association. The most recent of these activities, recorded by the municipal government in the winter of 2020, documented pandemic control and prevention work entrusted to monastics across the province. Implementing recommendations known as the “Two Suspensions,” they made donations to mitigate COVID19’s effects on the province. Among the measures the authorities have encouraged is education on preventive measures as well as reciting sutras and chanting.100 The relatively low number of Buddhists in Heilongjiang has not prevented the development of philanthropy there, although the institutionalization of such activities has not reached the levels observed in Liaoning or Jilin. The BAC Charity Committee’s report has compiled evidence of philanthropic activities as early as 1994 for Guihua prefecture, 1996 for Ha’erbin, and 1998 for Qiqiha’er and Jixi. The trigger for philanthropic activities in this province differs significantly from that in Liaoning: the provincial Buddhist association did not take the lead. The registration of charity foundations required permission from officials in the Party, the BRA, and the Buddhist associations; however, the record suggests spontaneous initiatives on the part of Buddhist milieu in general, which includes both the official associations and also temples. In 2004 and 2005, Ciyun 慈云 and Jile 极乐 temples, both located in 97 Ibid.: 583–584. 98 This was the case in Dandong, close to the frontier with the DPRK. See LG (2020). 99 ZFX CGW (2013: 592–596). 100 JSZ (2020).

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Ha’erbin, founded their respective charities, but no other association provided a legal framework for the philanthropic activities undertaken by lay Buddhists in the province. As of 2020, Buddhist monasteries had ceased all public activities and donated over 6.5 million RMB to help mitigate the effects of the pandemic.101

10

The Ethnic Minority Periphery

China’s periphery includes many non-Han Buddhists, among the Mongol and Tibetan minorities in their two eponymous autonomous regions as well as in Qinghai province. Conversely, in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, where large proportions of the population are Han, I could not determine what proportion of the population would identify as Buddhist. The extent to which the renjian fojiao trend has influenced local clergy and devotees is also unclear. The official report on Buddhist philanthropy has often mentioned this non-Han periphery as a recipient of charity rather than a source. Although Qinghai is considered a province, most of its inhabitants are Tibetans, and their Buddhist practice largely follows that of their coreligionists in the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Although it ranks as one of the poor provinces, Buddhist philanthropy developed here early, with evidence of fundraising and relief provision since 1994, coordinated by the management committee and the local branch of the China Red Cross at the Ta’er 塔尔 temple. One of the most significant achievements of Buddhist philanthropy in this region is Xiangri Deban Chan 香日德班禅 temple’s management of the Xingyuan 行辕 Charity Hospital.102 The BAC Charity Committee’s report on Buddhist charity has provided information on institutionalized philanthropy for only one autonomous region: Inner Mongolia, where the regional Buddhist association runs a charitable public welfare office (cishan gongyi shiye bangongshi 慈善公益事业办公室) from Dazhao 大召 temple in the capital.103 In the cases of Xinjiang and Ningxia, one can attribute the absence of reports to the very low numbers of Buddhists, and consequently to the limited resources available to nurture philanthropic associations. However, the

101 This information, issued by the Heilongjiang Buddhist Association and approved by the BAC, appeared in Buddhist media. See ZFX (2020). 102 ZFX CGW (2013: 1097–1099). 103 Ibid.: 63.

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absence of a report from Tibet remains unexplained, as an overwhelming proportion of the population in this region identifies as Buddhist. In fact, Tibetans have often found themselves on the receiving end of philanthropy from other parts of China. Despite the absence of submissions from three of the four autonomous regions’ Buddhist associations, the BAC Charity Committee’s report on Buddhist charitable activities offers brief descriptions and photos of activities undertaken by individual temples in Tibet, directed at providing relief in India;104 a vague mention of police and military mobilization of monastics for poverty alleviation activities following the riots in the spring of 2008;105 and fundraising for the victims of the 2008 and 2010 earthquakes in Sichuan and Qinghai.106

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104 Ibid.: 2015–2016. 105 Ibid.: 1217–1219. 106 Ibid.: 1220–1224.

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CHAPTER 11

Buddhist Philanthropy from the Bottom-Up

In the previous two chapters, I sought to offer a more nuanced reckoning of the scope of Buddhist philanthropy by using multi-scalar and crossregional perspectives. The resulting comparative analyses have allowed for a more fine-grained appreciation of Buddhists’ social involvement, revealing a diversity of path-dependent institutionalization trajectories across the country. These observations call for more in-depth investigations of Buddhist philanthropy below the macro-regional and provincial levels. The sheer size of the population in the provinces, special municipalities, and autonomous regions alone warrants such an approach, and the previous chapter has made clear that each province’s distinctive demographic evolution, economic conditions, and political history in turn contain hierarchies of power: between urban centers and the rural periphery; between Han-majority areas and regions where more minorities live; between areas with wealth and productive land versus poorer regions which are deprived of resources and difficult to access. Historians of Buddhism have emphasized the importance of lineages and networks in shaping the evolution of temples, monasteries, and areas of influence that transcend administrative boundaries. I did not take this approach, instead limiting myself to the political structure imposed on Buddhist milieus, as embodied in the Buddhist associations at the provincial, prefectural, and county levels. These associations in turn reflect © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 A. Laliberté, Religion and China’s Welfare Regimes, Religion and Society in Asia Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7270-5_11

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the fact that Party committees, governments, and judicial apparatuses— in that order—constrain Buddhist activities within their jurisdictional borders. Due to the differences in local governments’ capacities, one could not expect these constraints to have uniform effects. Moreover, as the previous chapter has highlighted, the outsized influence of a few temples and monasteries—which have sponsored Buddhist merit societies, foundations, and philanthropic associations—has revealed the importance of individual monks’ agency and their followers’ enthusiasm. In the present chapter, I focus on the basic level of Buddhist philanthropy: temples. As the data previously has suggested, the number of state-approved Buddhist charities, relative to the much larger number of officially registered Buddhist temples and monasteries, shows that only a tiny fraction of them have taken that road. Some of them collect donations for temple repairs, and a very few have chosen to serve society in ways that complement state social policies. In this chapter, I present examples of a few temples that have taken the latter path and sponsored charitable associations to serve the public good. To this end, I share some observations from fieldwork I undertook between 2005 and 2017, complemented by the work of colleagues who have done more indepth investigations at specific sites. I contextualize those temples that have launched philanthropic associations and make some remarks about the scope of their activities.

1

Temple-Based Buddhist Charities

The previous chapters have emphasized the initiatives of provincial Buddhist associations that sponsored Buddhist merit societies, charities, or foundations. Here, I look at the basic elements of the philanthropic activities undertaken by Buddhist communities: the county-level municipalities and the temples. Among the latter, some have a reputation as centers of scholarship, sources of spiritual authority within the sangha, or pilgrimage destinations. Others are recently restored monasteries and temples. I have visited most of the temple sites I discuss in this chapter, although the depth of my involvement with each of them has varied. Table 1 lists all the temples that have established a Buddhist charity, according to the BAC Charity Committee.1 1 The list stops in 2012 and may therefore leave out newer Buddhist charities. Moreover, the committee’s list may have omitted some charities. With these reservations in

11

Table 1

BUDDHIST PHILANTHROPY FROM THE BOTTOM-UP

Buddhist philanthropic societies established by temples

Year established

Province

Association

Temple sponsor

1994

Fujian

Xiamen Nanputuo si cishanshui Shaolin si shaolin cishan fuli jijinhui Sichang guangfu si cishan jiuji gongdehui Dajinshan si cishan xiehui Shaolin cidongyuan Hanshan si cishan zhongxin Wuxi Lingshan cishan jijinhui Yilan ciyuan si cishanhui Nanjingshi huiji cishan gongdehui Liuzu cishan jinjihui

Nanputuo

Henan 1997

Sichuan

1999 2004

Jiangxi Henan Jiangsu Jiangsu

2005

Heilongjiang Jiangsu Guangdong

2006

Heilongjiang Shanghai Shanghai Liaoning Jiangxi

2007

Chongqing Jiangsu Jiangsu Shaanxi Gansu

2008

Fujian

2009

Jiangxi Qinghai Jiangsu

2011

261

Jiangsu

Ha’erbin jile si cishanhui Juequn ci’ai gongdehui Jing’an si cishan jijin Dalian guanhai si xingyuan gongdehui Donglin Jingtu wenhua jijinhui Hua’yan wenjiao jijinhui Dabei cishan gongdehui Yangzhou Wenshan si cishan gongdehui Xi’an xingshan yiyuan Lanzhou bao’en si cishan gongdehui Quanzhou dakaiyuan si fupin jiuzai gongyi xiehui Donglin cishan gongdehui Xiangri debanchan xingyuan cishan yiyuan Yangzhong Taiping chansi cishan gongdehui Suzhou hehe wenhua jijinhui

Shaolin Guangfu Dajinshan Shaolin Hanshan Lingshan Yilan ciyuan Guhuiji (unspecified sponsors)2 Jile Yufo Ven. Huiming3 Guanhuai Donglin Hua’yan Guashan 孤山 Wenshan Da xingshan Bao’en Dakaiyuan Donglin Debanchan Taiping chansi Hanshan

(continued) 2 No specific temple is mentioned. 3 The abbot of Jing’an temple.

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A. LALIBERTÉ

Table 1

(continued)

Year established

2012

Province

Association

Temple sponsor

Shaanxi

Xi’an guangren cishan gongdehui Lei’an ciguang cishan jijinhui Leshan dafo lingyuan si cishan gongdehui Leshan dafo Jiyou si cishan gongdehui Changchun wusheng gongdehui Lanzhou bao’en cishan jijinhui

Guangren

Zhejiang Sichuan Sichuan Jilin Gansu

Cisheng chan Lingyuan Liyou Banruo Bao’en

A few noteworthy observations emerge from this list. None of these temples registered philanthropic associations during the first 15 years of the reform and opening period. Only four did so during the whole duration of Jiang’s role as CCP general secretary. The acceptance of temples and their abbots as promoters of Buddhist philanthropy clearly emerged in full under Hu’s administration. Their activities appear to be organically linked to places where Buddhist life is concentrated, most notably in Jiangsu. Some of the temples that lead philanthropic activities are also top pilgrimage destinations for Buddhist devotees and even non-Buddhist and foreign tourists interested in this aspect of China’s heritage. Nanputuo temple in Xiamen, famous as one of the sites at which Taixu developed his concept of renjian fojiao, seems to have been an especially auspicious location from which to develop philanthropy. This is also the case for Shaolin temple, famous worldwide for its martial arts tradition, and Donglin monastery, a major historical site that has survived intact for more than a millennium and served as a departure point for missions to Japan.4

mind, judging from the evidence collected by my Chinese colleagues, those charities that appear on this list are quite important. 4 Although I did not visit this monastery, I think the value of its charitable endowment—the largest of all Buddhist temples in the entire country, according to the Bureau of Statistics on religion for 2004—justifies its inclusion. See ACMRC (2010).

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Another important point when it comes to Buddhist charities set up by these temples is the variety of their purposes, as suggested by their names. A few have registered under general names and broadly defined remits, as charitable societies (cishanhui 慈善会) or charitable associations (cishan xiehui 慈善协会) which can undertake a variety of activities. A large proportion of them explicitly indicate their Buddhist affiliation as merit societies (gongdehui 功德会). The first such society I encountered, the Taiwanese Tzu Chi Merit Society, was also separately registered as the Tzu Chi Foundation and offered services in healthcare, education, and social assistance. If the merit societies listed here offer a comparable range of activities to those Tzu Chi undertakes, I could find no evidence for this online. The foundations (jijinhui 基金会) collect funds which are earmarked to set up different projects. It is not clear whether these foundations are simply collecting funds and channeling the money to others, or whether they manage both the money and the projects it is meant to sponsor. Temples have established charities, merit societies, and foundations in all parts of the country. Two examples of institutions sponsored by temples stand out: the charity hospitals (yiyuan 医院) set up in Shaanxi and Qinghai. While the latter may not be surprising, as most of the inhabitants of that province are ethnic Tibetans, a majority of whom practice Buddhism, this is not the case for Shaanxi. Two other outliers are Shaolin temple, which has registered two charitable institutions, a foundation, and a training center (cidongyuan 慈动院); and Hanshan temple, which has set up a charity center (cishan zhongxin 慈善中心). Finally, some of the names suggest that, in some cases, the decision to set up a charity owes more to the personality and connections of a temple’s abbot than its reputation; in such cases—as with the Jing’an temple charity in Shanghai, for example— the sponsor is identified as an individual, in this case Ven. Huiming, rather than the temple the abbot heads. It is also worth noting the names that are absent from this list: Longquan temple and its associated Ren’ai Foundation (discussed in the next chapter) are not part of the BAC Charity Committee’s official list. Neither is Bailin temple and its associated Hongde Foundation (discussed below). At the very least, this suggests that there may be more Buddhist charities than the official BAC committee has recorded. These discrepancies call for further research. The idea of charity and philanthropy meant different things to the various people I have met at temples across China. Although official publications make it clear that charity for the public interest usually means

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disaster relief, poverty alleviation, social services, care for the elderly and orphans, healthcare, and support for poor children’s education, such activities take place within certain limitations. In the reports published by temples, I have very often seen that charity is also directed at temple activities such as the “release of living” (fangsheng 放生), an elaborate religious ceremony that can be quite expensive, or repairing the monastery. In a conversation I had with a monk at Fajing 法净 Zen temple in Hangzhou, I learned that the money the monastery has saved can be used to help renovate other temples, for example. “However,” he told me, “most of the charity activities were of a spiritual nature, such as praying for people who suffer difficulties.”5 I often heard similar views at smaller and more remote temples which tourists visit less often: they do not have enough money from donations to be able to afford philanthropic activities. Fajing, however, is a temple with a long history, one of the santianzhu 三天竺, a famous trio of temples west of Hangzhou.6 As suggested by the numbers I have discussed in previous chapters, most temples do not run charities aimed at the public interest, a coded word for activities directed by the CCP.

2

Local Buddhist Charities

Below I present a few of the most noteworthy examples of Buddhist charities, which I have compiled based on the aforementioned BAC Charity Committee report, but also from other sources, including the Atlas of Religion7 as well as websites such as fojiaonet and others, which vary in their reliability and comprehensiveness.8 I do not claim that this selection of cases constitutes a representative sample of Buddhist charities. Such a portrait will elude us as long as unfettered access to archives and candid conversations with religious and political actors remain the exception rather than the rule. Some of these sites had already established 5 Interview in Hangzhou, June 18, 2009. 6 Tianzhu stood for India under the Tang Dynasty. See Soothill and Hodous (1994:

146). 7 As a source, the atlas is admittedly dated, but it has provided key information on assets, number of members, founding dates of temples and associations, etc. See ACMRC (2010). 8 I have written about these sites, but many have ceased their activities since then. See Laliberté (2016).

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a name for themselves as major religious sites, and therefore their visibility may obscure equally or even more active charity associations. The review below serves to highlight one key source of success in establishing Buddhist charities: personal relations between religious leaders and political authorities in the CCP and the government. However, as the case of Longquan temple and the Ren’ai Foundation which I discuss in the next chapter will illustrate, these kinds of relationships do not ensure immunity for religious leaders who fall from grace. 2.1

Donglin Temple Charity in Jiujiang, Jiangxi

Donglin Charity has established a visible presence online, and data available from the Bureau of Statistics indicates that it was the largest Buddhist charity in 2004.9 At earlier stages of this research, I found out that Donglin Charity had been planning to set up nursing home for the elderly since at least 2008. Some monastics from Donglin went to Taiwan to exchange views with Tzu Chi Foundation volunteers, clearly signaling that they wanted to follow that path of social engagement. In the summer of that year, Donglin hosted volunteers from Shandong, Henan, Guangdong, Gansu, and other provinces, training them in charity work.10 It is interesting that while these activities could not have taken place without permission from the authorities, I could find no indication that the local people’s government in Jiujiang supported such activities, much less that it tried to use its toleration of such activities to demonstrate that the local government endorsed the 2012 legal opinion, which encouraged religious institutions to work for the public interest. There are no mentions of Donglin Charity at all in successive Jiujiang city almanacs (nianjian 年鉴), which compile all the political, economic, and social activities in the area under the city’s jurisdiction—like their counterparts in other cities—as well as at higher administrative levels.11 The Jiujiang almanac does not even provide statistics on the religious composition of the population, as is often the case with this type of

9 These data constitute the basis for ACMRC (2010). 10 Donglin si (2008). 11 JJSB (2004, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014).

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source. There is also no mention of Donglin in the section that emphasizes constructing a spiritual civilization (jingshen wenming jianshe 精神文 明建设), which normally stresses other social organizations’ cooperation with the CCP. Finally, the section on social life (shehui shenghuo 社会生 活) devoted to elderly care (laoling gongzuo 老龄工作) says nothing about Donglin’s activities in this respect, even though such activities constitute one of the charity’s priorities.12 These omissions are consistent across all the years for which almanacs are available, which suggests that Jiujiang’s Party Committee’s United Front Work does not include religion. This oversight does not mean that the almanac totally ignores religious affairs. In 2012, the references to the local Party’s United Front Work mention Ven. Xingyun from Taiwan visiting Zhenru 真如temple in Lushan, a visit which was organized in conjunction with the Party provincial committee’s vice director for United Front Work, the director of the provincial Bureau of Ethnic and Religious Affairs, the chair of the provincial Buddhist association, and other municipal elites.13 In 2014, the almanac reported that the municipal Small Leading Group for Religious Work organized a meeting to “research and resolve existing problems in the field of religion” (yanjiu jiejue zongjiao lingyu cunzai de wenti 研究解决宗教领域存在的问题), but it provided no explanation of the nature of these issues.14 The Jiujiang authorities’ silence on Donglin’s charity work preceded Xi’s ascension to power. This case suggests that the municipal-level state administration did not feel compelled to support Buddhist charity in accordance with what the 2012 legal opinion seemed to encourage, but rather preferred to note those dimensions of religious affairs that seemed to hew more closely to its immediate political objectives—in this case, cordial relations with Taiwan. Yet Donglin Charity has persevered despite the apparent lack of official support, and after 2013 it managed to consolidate its activities openly. Since that year, it has published Mercy (cihu 慈护), a quarterly journal exclusively dedicated to charitable activities undertaken by its volunteers. The journal’s early issues raised some important social concerns, such as the fate of abandoned children, and made a case for helping them.15 In

12 JJSB (2004: 368) and JJSB (2012: 376–377). 13 JJSB (2012: 85). 14 JJSB (2014: 70). 15 Ren (2013: 24–29).

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2020, the most recent issues give accounts of relief provision to people in need during the pandemic, with bank details for making donations, a summary audit of Donglin’s philanthropic activities, and a journalistic account of providing relief to the poor.16 In more recent years, Donglin appears to have focused on elderly care. In 2017, its website advertised the creation of a vast complex for retirees and end-of-life care, over two kilometers away from the temple, which would include nursing homes, chanting halls, a library, and a clinic, with residential facilities to accommodate 300–400 people, including patients, visitors, and volunteers.17 At the time of writing, Donglin Charity has announced that work on the complex has begun, but uncertainties surrounding the pandemic raise questions about when the work will be completed.18 2.2

The Hongde Foundation and Baolin Temple, Shijiazhuang, Hebei

During a visit to Shijiazhuang prefecture in Pingshan and Jingxing counties in 2004, I was looking for evidence of Tzu Chi’s presence in Hebei province.19 It was an interesting experience that revealed Party cadres’ ambivalence regarding China’s relations with foreigners, Taiwan, and religion. The visit took place at a time when tensions with Taiwan were running high and admitting that a Taiwanese charity was helping the governments of some of the province’s impoverished counties may have constituted an embarrassing loss of face, but I was accompanied by a Chinese research assistant from the region, which helped to break down barriers. Our interview with the director of a local school sponsored by the Tzu Chi Foundation included a hasty visit to its sports facilities, classrooms with what looked to be very advanced technology at the time, and dormitories that appeared quite comfortable and welcoming. Our talk was very brief, as we were then ushered on to other schools around the county. The fact that these schools were sponsored by Tzu Chi, a foundation with a clear Buddhist identity, no doubt presented officials with a difficult quandary. On the one hand, religious influence is not permitted

16 Cihu bianweihui (2020). 17 Donglin Zuting (2017). 18 Donglin Zuting (2019). 19 It sponsored schools in the province in 1996. See Wang (2001: 49–53).

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in the school system. On the other, the Party had adopted a Janusfaced policy toward “Taiwanese compatriots”: officials used threatening language against the island at election time, but also relied on the United Front Work approach to win over Taiwanese Buddhists. The authorities calculated that Taiwanese Buddhists might speak in favor of reunification, as this would presumably facilitate their activities in China—a sentiment shared by many of the Buddhists I met in Taiwan over the years, although the feeling was far from unanimous. The passing of the years has shown CCP officials that their calculus regarding United Front Work directed at Taiwanese Buddhists has not provided the desired outcome, as most Taiwanese have continuously rejected the idea of unification with China, regardless of the significant number of people who profess to be Buddhists. The Tzu Chi volunteers I met in Taiwan, while they encouraged relief delivery on the other side of the Taiwan Strait, have consistently proven critical of the CCP because of its heavy-handed approach to religion.20 Moreover, most of those who promoted assistance to China were aware of the obvious obstacles to Tzu Chi’s expansion in China: it could not compete with the local Buddhist associations. They circumvented that problem by following the same strategy their predecessors in Taiwan used so successfully during the martial law period: they registered Tzu Chi as a charity, not a religious association. Volunteers accepted this approach because, as they often told me, the most important thing was to establish a presence and to lead by example. If my encounters with school principals in Hebei seemed to point to the futility of that effort, the opinions offered by Hebei Buddhists suggested otherwise. I found indirect evidence of the success of this strategy in Zhao 赵 county, where Bailin 柏林 monastery is located. The monastery has a long history, and its abbot played an important role in founding one of the first provincial Buddhist charities. As I discussed in the previous chapter, Buddhist philanthropy in Hebei emerged more than a decade after the reform and opening policy was promulgated, under the aegis

20 The volunteers agreed that providing relief in China was the right thing to do. In

that sense, they agreed with their supervisors. This opinion has not changed from the first time I met Tzu Chi volunteers in 1994, when they began discussing providing relief in China, until my most recent meetings with some of them in Taiwan and China in 2018. This despite the fact that Tzu Chi’s work in China generated controversy in Taiwan, as Julia Huang (2009: 198–199) has found in her research on the charity.

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of the provincial association. The institutionalization of Buddhist philanthropy in Hebei exceeded expectations thanks to the volition of a few remarkable individuals. As in Sichuan, the province counts a rather small proportion of Buddhists relative to other provinces, but it is nevertheless one of four provincial associations that have sponsored the establishment of a provincial charity. The BAC Charity Committee counted three province-wide Buddhist charitable institutions in Hebei, headquartered in the prefecture where the provincial capital, Shijiazhuang, is located and in the county of Zhao.21 In 1995, the monk Changhui 常辉 established the Great Kindness Homely Garden (hongde jiayuan 弘德家园) at the small Hongyi 弘一 shrine, offering services to orphaned children and children who had left school in Anshe 安舍 village.22 The extent of the problem in the province provides context for this aspect of charity. In 1997, the province counted 14,225 orphans, of whom 12,957 lived in the countryside. The disparity between these two groups was considerable: while more than two-thirds of the urban orphans received assistance, less than one-third of the rural orphans did.23 Meanwhile, in the same year that Changhui established the Garden, Jinghui 净慧, the abbot of Bailin Chan temple 柏林禅寺, set up a special (zhuanye 专业) committee to fund a provincial Buddhist charity merit society. One year later, Changhui took charge of the provincial Buddhist association’s charity foundation, and in 2004, the Garden opened two other locations in Langfang 廊坊 and Baoding 保定. Changhui and his disciples welcomed children with a variety of religious backgrounds. The association’s location—not too far from Beijing—probably contributed to its appeal as a showcase for Buddhist philanthropy, and it has attracted the attention of quite a few scholars.24 After my first meeting with Changhui during my visit to Bailin temple in 2004, he introduced me to the school he personally sponsors.25 He mentioned that Tzu Chi’s delivery of relief to the poor had inspired him

21 ZFX CGW (2013: 55–61). 22 ZFX CGW (2013: 60–61). 23 Yang (2012: 355–356). 24 Yang and Wei (2005) and Fisher (2008). 25 I went to Bailin temple again in 2006, and this time I visited the Hebei Charity

Foundation and the Hongde-sponsored orphanage.

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and his peers at Bailin.26 This influence was limited, however. When I met Changhui and the laypeople who worked with him, including the teachers at the orphanage his charity sponsored, no one was wearing a uniform, as do Tzu Chi or Buddha Light International Association volunteers and the volunteers at the other charities I discuss below. The Hebei provincial philanthropic association did not run clinics or hospitals, although it did deliver relief to natural disaster victims. Moreover, the charity had plans to expand and had been seeking support from outside the province. When I visited its headquarters in Shijiazhuang, I went to a Dharma lecture attended by hundreds of people, given by a well-known, wealthy lay devotee and donor from Hong Kong. The invitation I received to speak about charity in Canada near the end of my visit to Bailin temple was another expression of their interest in expanding their philanthropic activities. The audience included many laypeople and what seemed to be all the monastics at the temple. 2.3

The Juequn Foundation and Jade Buddha Temple, Shanghai

One of the most important Buddhist charities established by a temple, the Juequn Charity Merit Society (ci’ai gongdehui 慈爱功德会), is the initiative of a well-known monk, Juexing 觉醒, abbot of Jade Buddha (yufo 玉 佛) temple in the city, which is famous as a tourist site and a historically important monastery.27 Founded in 2005, ten years later it split into two associations, also headed by Juexing: the Shanghai Juequn 觉群 Cultural and Educational (wenjiao 文教) Foundation, which focused on culture, and the Juequn Charity Home (ci’ai jiayuan 慈爱家园), which concentrated its efforts on public welfare projects.28 On two occasions, in 2009 and in 2015, I met lay volunteers and monastics working for the foundation at Juequn’s offices, on the grounds of Jade Buddha temple. By the time of my most recent visit in 2017, the foundation’s offices had relocated far from the temple, in an office tower in the central business 26 It was not clear to me whether this referred to relief in China or in Taiwan. 27 He became president of the Shanghai Buddhist Association in 2003; vice chairman

of the Shanghai Charity Foundation; vice president of the Shanghai Public Relations (gonggong guanxi 公共关系) Association; vice chairman of the Shanghai Youth Federation; and a member of the Standing Committee of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Congress. As vice chair of the BAC, he is director of its Culture and Art Committee. 28 See Juequn (2019) for details on this institutionalization.

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district.29 The foundation organizes fundraising to finance the activities of the Charity Home. The foundation’s personnel presented themselves as laypeople, and one of them even as a non-religious person. Although Juequn maintains a high profile online, its physical space has become invisible. In my earlier meeting with Juequn volunteers, they explained that they do not solicit money from believers in their fundraising, but they accept donations from visitors, some of whom give to help build temples, others to support other people. In its earlier stages, the foundation did not have lay or clerical personnel to investigate the situation of the poor. Volunteers explained that they relied on monastics, lay devotees, and tourists to obtain information for them, and that they relied on their contacts with the media to promote their public welfare activities. The Shanghai Buddhist Association supported the foundation from the start, along with the temple.30 The year 2008 constituted a turning point for the foundation: in response to the Sichuan earthquake, the municipal government asked Juequn to lead the relief effort among religious actors. Fundraising enabled Juequn to donate 5.35 million RMB for rehabilitation in Sichuan.31 This donation drive added to the foundation’s already polyvalent nature: it began with educational services directed at poor students, care for the elderly, and support for orphans. After the merit association was established, providing social services—such as companionship and psychological counseling—as well as medical assistance helped the charity extend its reach. However, these activities do not emanate from the initiatives of volunteers or spiritual leaders: originally, they were responses to the government’s invitation to fill a gap in the education system for certain populations. Additionally, Juequn does not have plans to build a hospital due to certain “difficulties”: as my informants told me, the application process is exceedingly long. Instead, Juequn welcomes volunteer doctors who help run a clinic. It would like to develop as Tzu Chi did, but as one volunteer explained, “we need to wait for the right conditions to

29 The China Foundation Center database on foundations ranked Juequn 352nd out of over 7000 in 2018. See CFC (2020). 30 The abbot, Juexing, occupied important positions in the national and municipal Buddhist hierarchy as well as in Shanghai philanthropic milieus. 31 Interview in Shanghai, June 20, 2009.

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mature.”32 If the authorities granted permission, the temple and its affiliate charity could tap into a pool of tens of thousands of believers and more than 200 monastics. Jade Buddha temple relies on around 200 laypeople who are engaged in charitable activities with the merit society and 100 who look after the temple. The society chooses these volunteers based on their availability, skills, and expertise. Some areas of intervention prove more taxing in terms of resources. At the time of the interview, Juequn was looking after 300 elderly people: “this requires patience,” as the volunteer I met admitted. The timing of my stay did not provide me with the opportunity to assess Juequn’s elderly care activities fully and properly, so I cannot comment on the quality of the services offered. However, I can comment on the scope of the need for such services, based on observations I made in Shanghai in 2015, when I visited a long-term care facility run by a Christian charity and joined a team of volunteers affiliated with a Daoist temple who regularly visited lone elderly residents. The Christian charity ran a nursing home with about twenty residents, attended by professional staff, and it was a hive of activity. The Daoist teams, comprising between three and five people each, visited a vastly different clientele, attending to people who lived at home and did not want or could not afford to stay in a nursing home. These visitations could last up to one hour for each household, and they included a variety of services, depending on the case. Sometimes volunteers had to do some basic cleaning; at other times the visit was just an opportunity to chat. The young team members were mostly students or young entrepreneurs, and most of them were not involved in this activity full-time. I saw no trace of proselytizing in either case, and there was little evidence of any connection with a religious institution. In the absence of eyewitness accounts of the work done by Juequn volunteers, it is difficult to comment on the nature of the social services they offer. The quarterly magazine the foundation produces does not help either: it contains Buddhist teachings on a wide range of issues, but only rarely publishes general comments on philanthropy. The association is unlikely to emulate the Tzu Chi foundation anytime soon. Besides print media, there is no intention to make use of electronic media;

32 Ibid.

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Table 2

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Juequn foundation’s 2018 projects and expenditures

Project funded Library “Fraternity home” (bo’ai jiayuan 博爱家园) Support for the poor Juequn Chinese studies for children “Respect for the elderly” (jiuyi jinglao 九一敬老) “Life care” (shengming guanhuai 生命关怀) Fund for student entrepreneurship Hongyi drama school (lingting hongyi huaju 聆听弘一话剧) Public welfare

Expenditure 29,000 400,000 1,459,601 298,968 3271 8508 664,520 570,020 30,300

although Jade Buddha temple cooperates with Juequn College, established in 2001–2002, it does not wish to establish educational services either. However, Juequn does have an online presence. Moreover, it has released details of its activities for the Shanghai municipal foundation’s annual report, including the costs incurred and the funds raised. In 2018, it raised 13 million RMB.33 Of these funds, it spent 3.4 million, with slightly more than 10 percent of that sum going to salaries and the rest allocated to nine major activities that could be broadly categorized as support for vulnerable populations or poverty alleviation (Table 2). Many of these activities serve populations outside Shanghai. The first of these programs, for instance, supports libraries in the mountainous border region of Yunnan and Guizhou. The “fraternity home” in Guizhou province reports a series of expenditures on the medical equipment necessary for a health station.34 The largest program, “support for the poor,” includes relief paid to 2000 low-income families during Chinese New Year and allowances to support 100 students from poor families.35 “Juequn Chinese studies” introduces traditional culture to schools for children with mental disabilities. The “respect for the elderly” program supports volunteers who make regular visits to nursing homes to provide services. The “life care” program, which only began in 2018, offers counseling. The fund for student entrepreneurship was set up in response to the

33 See SSJ (2018: 9). 34 Ibid.: 10. 35 Ibid.: 10–11.

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2008 financial crisis, when Jade Buddha temple donated 1 million RMB to a charity to encourage college students, which is jointly managed by the Municipal Education Commission and the Municipal Youth League Committee.36 The third-largest expenditure, Hongyi theater, promotes traditional culture via drama.37 The last of the nine programs, with a name that is something of a misnomer, promotes traditional culture as well as public welfare projects through public service advertisements on subway platforms. Put into perspective, these numbers represent a tiny fraction of the Shanghai government’s annual education expenditure, which amounted to 917 billion RMB in 2018.38 Likewise, it represents a small contribution to the total number of schools in the city, which counted a total of 1747 schools on all levels in 2017. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to place the foundation in the context of the thirty schools for special education, which help pupils with disabilities.39 Viewed in this light, Juequn is a key actor when it comes to looking after a category of the population that is often overlooked in Shanghai’s competitive environment. Thanks to its founder, Juexing, who is a cleric as well as a public servant, Juequn stands out for people within the Buddhist sangha, for foreigners interested by Buddhism and culture in general, and for the broader public. Moreover, relief delivery in poor provinces magnifies the perception of Juequn as an important charity at the national level and its educational activities certainly conform to the official discourse on the greatness of Chinese traditional culture, as promoted by Xi. 2.4

Nanputuo Charity in Xiamen, Fujian

Nanputuo Charity represents one of the best-known Buddhist philanthropic associations in China. It is associated with the temple of the same name, and when I visited in 2010 and again in 2011, it was located within the temple complex. On my visits, it was a hive of activity, as the temple stands next to Xiamen University and attracts many tourists. As I have 36 Ibid.: 12. 37 Ibid.: 12–13. 38 SMPG (2020a). 39 SMPG (2020b). In 2012, there were 29 special education schools in Shanghai,

including 1 for visually disabled children, 4 for pupils with hearing disabilities, 22 for children with intellectual disabilities, and 2 others for children with unspecified disabilities.

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already mentioned, the historical importance of Nanputuo is considerable thanks to Taixu’s abbotship; he was one of the leading figures of the “Buddhism for the human realm” approach endorsed by Zhao Puchu, which heavily emphasized Buddhist social engagement and charity. As David Wank has written, the charity offered the temple an opportunity to expand Buddhism’s reach in a context in which the temple and the Xiamen Buddhist Association were engaged in a power struggle with the municipal Bureau of Religious Affairs (BRA) over the control and use of resources. The Buddhist association wanted to expand the temple for religious cultivation, while the BRA sought to promote economic development.40 The charity’s successive directors have also served as Nanputuo temple abbots, some of whom have been very well connected with the BAC and with China’s political structure. The first director, Zhanlao 湛老, was abbot from 1989 to 1996, but he turned out to be a transitory leader. His successor, Shenghui 圣辉, acted concurrently as vice president of the BAC from 1992 until his resignation in 2006 and chairman of the Minnan Buddhist College after 1997. Shenghui was also elected to the CPPCC in 1998, and two years later he represented Chinese Buddhism at the United Nations’ World Peace Millennium Conference of Religious and Spiritual Leaders. In the same year, the anti-cult association the government set up to campaign against Falungong elected him as vice chair. Finally, after 2008 he became a representative in the NPC. In 2005, Zewu 则悟succeeded Shenghui as abbot of Nanputuo, but the latter remained director of the charity for at least another six years.41 In 2010 and 2011, I met with Zhengxing 正兴, deputy secretary general of the charity, and one of its founding members. Zhengxing stood out among his peers as the first monk in China to record Buddhist songs on a CD and the first in the country to present Buddhist musical topics on a national radio station. When I first met him, he was concluding a meeting with a singer about a new release. When I mentioned the omission of Nanputuo Charity from the China Charity Federation’s (CCF) yearbook, he provided an explanation that was remarkably similar to that of his colleague at Juequn: Nanputuo is a civil organization, while those included in the CCF yearbook are government charity organizations. I

40 Wank (2009: 138). 41 The 2011 issue of Cishan, Nanputuo Charity’s journal, still mentions him as director.

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found this admission revealing, as it pointed to the CCF’s shortcomings and suggested that the scope of charity in China is underestimated. Zhengxing did not make an issue of this oversight; for him it simply proved that Nanputuo Charity differs from others because of its Buddhist identity. He stressed unconditional donations to those who cannot afford to attend school or be treated in a hospital as his charity’s approach. “We are sharing our love, not doing business.”42 The charity organization over which Zhengxing presided belonged to the temple. However, the Xiamen Buddhist Association, which is nominally in charge of all the temples in the city, did not manage the temple’s affairs.43 Since its founding, Nanputuo Charity has published an annual report, Cishan.44 Originally printed because some donors lived abroad and could not stay up-to-date on its activities, the charity now produces this report to show how its donations have been used. Later Nanputuo also set up a website so people could find a variety of information on the charity, including a detailed list of all of its expenses. Apart from this openness about spending funds, Zhengxing explained that Nanputuo rarely grants interviews to the media. In his view, “charity is not for fame. We do not need publicity and interviews. If we spent time on interviews, we would not have time for charity.” He was also clear about the limits of the services Nanputuo can provide: “we can only help people who have benign illnesses, but not serious diseases.” Likewise, while people experiencing distress can talk with monks for counseling, the doctors at the Nanputuo clinic, who are subsidized by the state, do not help patients with mental problems. “People who have psychological problems should go to big hospitals.”45 Clearly Nanputuo’s clinic did not attempt to position itself as a substitute for state-approved private or public healthcare institutions. Nanputuo’s annual report states the charity’s missions: soothe the elderly and comfort orphans, help the disabled and relieve the poor (anlao weigu, zhucan jikun 安老尉孤, 助残济困), donate to schools and cultivate hope (juanci zhuxue jinyun xiwang 捐资助学, 耕

42 Interview in Xiamen, June 26, 2010. 43 Interview with Zhengxing at Nanputuo, Xiamen, June 26, 2010. 44 Zhengxing was the managing editor of the issues he offered me, for 2010 and 2011. 45 Interview with Zhengxing at Nanputuo, Xiamen, June 29, 2010.

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耘希望), provide relief in disaster and emergency, provide heating when it is cold (zhenzai jiujin, xuezhong songtan 赈灾救急, 雪中送炭), provide free medical treatment, help the one who is suffering (yizhen shiyao, jiuzhu jiku 义诊施药, 救助疾苦), release and protect the living, eliminate disaster and pray for blessings (fangsheng husheng, xiaozai qifu 放生护生, 消灾祈 福).46

Couched in religious language, these activities are also described as meeting the government’s objectives. The report includes abundant photos with monks personally handing out cash in red envelopes, sacks of rice, and cooking oil. Most of these gifts were delivered to those who have not benefited from the prosperity that befell the Xiamen Special Economic Zone. On rare occasions, some of these gifts were delivered to remote locations as far away as Xinjiang.47 The annual reports provide some information on the number of people who receive these deliveries, and even give their names and signatures. At the end of the 2011 financial report, the authors disclosed that in that year, Nanputuo registered 9 million RMB in revenue and just under 8 million in expenditure, of which 4 million went to relief and 3 million went to help “project hope” schools.48 The charity relies on the support of a fixed number of temporary lay volunteers, alongside resident nuns, and monks. These volunteers do not depend on donations for their subsistence. Nanputuo met some of its operating costs by relying on a membership system. In 2010, membership cost 10 RMB per month. Zhengxing estimated that Nanputuo may have had more than 50,000 members that year. The charity depended solely on these members and did not accept donations from enterprises. Zhengxing wanted to stress that not only do Buddhist charities differ from other charities supported by the state, but also that each merit society has its own distinctive character, depending on the nature of the help it offers. As an association working for the public good, Nanputuo provides medical care to people with or without insurance. The main difference between Nanputuo and the charities registered by the CCF is its foundations in 46 XNCSJ (2011: 5–11). 47 Ibid.: 34–35. 48 Ibid.: 197.

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Buddhist teachings, summarized as psychological care, with three main characteristics: “first, love is to give, not to take; second, the person who is cared for must grow so that they can help others; third, the person who is helped must let the love continue.”49

3

Conclusion

Evidence of activities for these organizations at the time of writing exist online: the current conditions have made independent verification almost impossible, and they represent only the evidence I could access. The pandemic that started at the end of 2019 can explain why these charities have slowed down activities, but they have not stopped entirely, even if there are signs of close monitoring by the state. Hence, one charity mentions continuing financial support offered to schools for “left-behind” children (liushou ertong 留守儿童), or children whose parents are sick or impoverished, in the county of Duchang 都昌 as late as in the Summer of 2020.50 On the other hand, the Hebei province charity ran from Bailin had stopped displaying activities for the last three years. The last mention from BAC about charity by this association refers to the “education about release of living in a scientific and rational manner” by representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture and SARA in 2016.51 I could not find traces of the Great Kindness Homely Garden either. This last finding suggests that earlier enthusiasm by a few monastics and their followers for assisting the state in providing social services proved unsustainable in that case. As of 2020, Juequn published a report for activities in the previous year: I could find no indication of much charity happening for the year COVID-19 struck China and the world. Likewise, Nanputuo is limiting its activities, with monastics from Vice Director Zhengxing to monks, nuns, and lay devotees attending a special training course on social organization science and charity at the Chinese Medicine School. The goal of these sessions is ostensibly “to train charity associations and help them deal with deep-seated social problems in a more professional and scientific manner.” As part of this training, the attendees have received

49 Interview with Zhengxing at Nanputuo, Xiamen, June 29, 2010. 50 See Donglin si (2020). 51 See ZZS (2016).

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instructions—borrowing the language used by the authorities—on how to “properly carry out public welfare services on the road to scientific charity development.” Judging by the report provided, the language itself appears devoid of any reference to Buddhist concepts, and from a distance it is hard to tell how temple personnel have received this form of “education.”52 On the one hand, the idea of learning how to select service recipients based on home interviews and how to proceed in the case of people with special needs suggests professionalization. On the other hand, this framing of charity work as a scientific discourse reminds everyone that CCP control is ubiquitous. The detailed ethnography I present in the next chapter illustrates how this works in practice, in a specific location much closer to the center of power.

References ACMRC (All China Marketing Research Co.). 2010. The Atlas of Religions in China. Beijing: National Bureau of Statistics of China. CFC. 2020. Shuju bangdan [search] juequn 数据榜单/search/觉群. Jijinhui zhongxin wang 基金会中新网. Available at: http://fti.foundationcenter.org. cn/Search/Index?kws=仁爱&fg=9. Accessed 15 Aug 15 2020. Cihu bianweihui 慈护编委会. 2020. “‘Cihu’ zhenggao jishi ‘慈护’征稿启事.” Cihu 慈护 8 (2): 86–87. Donglin si. 2008. Donglin cishan gongdehui juxing zhiyuanzhe peixun jishou zheng yishi 东林慈善功德会举行志愿者培训暨授证仪式. Cishan hushenghui 慈善护生会. Available at: http://www.donglin.org/dlcihu/dlcs//csxinwenb aodao/20080715/1993.html. Accessed 17 Nov 2020. Donglin si. 2020. Donglin zhuxue: Lushan donglin si Duchang duobao huimin xiaoxue zhuxueji 东林助学|庐山东林寺都昌多宝回民小学助学记. Cishan hushenghui 慈善护生会. Available at: http://www.donglin.org/dlc ihu/dlcs//csxinwenbaodao/20200603/20157.html. Accessed 7 Aug 2021. Donglin Zuting 东林祖庭. 2017. Donglin cishan anyangyuan gongcheng jianjie 东林慈善安养院工程简介. Zuting xinwen 祖庭新闻. Available at: http:// www.donglin.org/news/gonggao/2016/1127/10800.html. Accessed 17 Nov 2020. Donglin Zuting. 2019. ‘Gongde futian’ Donglin si gongcheng dongtai 2010.11.04 【功德福田】东林寺工程动态 2020.11.04. Zuting xinwen 祖 庭新闻. Available at: http://www.donglin.org/news/gonggao/2014/0524/ 8665.html. Accessed 17 Nov 2020.

52 XFX (2020).

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Fisher, Gareth. 2008. The Spiritual Land Rush: Merit and Morality in New Chinese Buddhist Temple Construction. The Journal of Asian Studies 67 (1): 143–170. Huang, Julia. 2009. Charisma and Compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi Movement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. JJSB (Jiujiang shi shizhi bangongshi 九江市史志办公室). 2004. Jiujiang nianjian 2004 九江年鉴. Wuhan: Wuhan Chubanshe 武汉: 武汉出版社. JJSB. 2010. Jiujiang nianjian 2010 九江年鉴. Wuhan: Wuhan Chubanshe 武汉: 武汉出版社. JJSB. 2012. Jiujiang nianjian 2012 九江年鉴. Wuhan: Wuhan Chubanshe 武汉: 武汉出版社. JJSB. 2013. Jiujiang nianjian 2013 九江年鉴. Wuhan: Wuhan Chubanshe 武汉: 武汉出版社. JJSB. 2014. Jiujiang nianjian 2014 九江年鉴. Wuhan: Wuhan Chubanshe 武汉: 武汉出版社. Laliberté, André. 2016. Engaging with a Post-Totalitarian State: Buddhism Online in China. In Religion and the Media in China, ed. Stephania Travagnin, 129–150. London: Routledge. Ren Sibei 任思蓓. 2013. Chengshi liulang ertong 城市流浪儿童. Cihu 慈护 1 (Fall): 24–29. SARA (State Administration for Religious Affairs). Shanghai Juequn, wenjiao jijinhui 上海觉群文教基金会. 2019. Jigou jieshao 机 构介绍. Guanyu women 关于我们. Available at: http://juequn.com/guanyu women/jigoujieshao/. Accessed 17 Dec 2020. SMPG (Shanghai Municipal People’s Government). 2020a. General Budgetary Expenditure in Main Years. 2019 Shanghai Statistical Yearbook. Available at: http://tjj.sh.gov.cn/tjnj/nj19.htm?d1=2019tjnje/E0504.htm. Accessed 4 Aug 2020. SMPG. 2020b. Basic Statistics in Education. 2019 Shanghai Statistical Yearbook. Accessed 4 Aug 2020. Available at: http://tjj.sh.gov.cn/tjnj/nje18.htm?d1= 2018tjnje/E2001.htm. Soothill, William Edward, and Lewis Hodous. 1994. A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms. Gaoxiong: Foguangshan Press. SSJ (Shanghai shi jijinhui 上海市基金会). 2018. Shanghai juequn wenjiao jijinhui 上海觉群文教基金会. Shanghai shi jijinhui niandu gongzuo baogaoshu 年度工 作报告书. Shanghai: Shanghai shi mingzhengju 民政局. Wang Duanzheng 王端正. 2001. Buhui da’ai liang’anqing 不悔大愛倆岸情. Taibei: Ciji wenhua zhiye zhongxin 慈濟文化志業中心. Wank, David L. 2009. Institutionalizing Modern ‘Religion’ in China’s Buddhism: Political Phases of a Local Revival. In Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China, ed. Yoshiko Ashiwa and David L. Wank, 126–150. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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XFX (Xiamen shi fojiao xiehui 厦门市佛教协会). 2020. Nanputuo si cishanhui kaizhan di’erqi shehui zuzhi kexue cishan zhuanti peishun 南普陀寺慈善会开 展第二期社会组织科学慈善专题培顺. Cishan xinwen 慈善新闻. Available at: http://xmfj.org/html/p/202007/15646.html. Accessed 6 Aug 2020. XNCSJ (Xiamen Nanputuo si cishan shiye jijinhui). 2011. Cishan 2011. Xiamen: Xiamen jida yinji guan. Yang Fenggang, and Wei Dedong. 2005. The Bailin Buddhist Temple: Thriving Under Communism. In State, Market, and Religions in Chinese Societies, ed. Fenggang Yang and Joseph B. Tamney, 63–86. Leiden: Brill. Yang Jun 阳珺. 2012 (2009). Yi ‘Hongde jiayuan’ wei lilue tan xin shiqi de fojiao cishan 以弘德家園為例略談新詩期的佛教慈善. In Renjian fojiao yu dangdai lunli 人間佛教與當代倫理, ed. Xue Yu 學愚, 352–363. Xianggang: Zhonghua shouju 中華書局. ZFX CGW (Zhongguo fojiao xiehui cishan gongyi weiyuanhui 中国佛教协 会慈善公益委员会). 2013. Zhongguo fojiao cishan 中国佛教慈善. Beijing: Zongjiao wenhua chubanshe 宗教文化出版社. ZZS (Zhongguo Zongjiao shiwuju). 2016. Hebei sheng fojiao xiehui yingdao xinjiao qunzhong kexue heli fangsheng 河北省佛教协会引导信教群众科学合 理放生. Zhongguo fojiao xiehui: cishan. Available at: http://www.chinabudd hism.com.cn/xw/cs/2017-03-31/12712.html. Accessed 7 Aug 2021.

CHAPTER 12

The Ren’ai Charity Foundation

In the autumn of 2013, an undergraduate Chinese student enrolled in the faculty of science at the university where I teach contacted me and asked whether I would like to meet two visiting monks from China. Aware of my research interests in Buddhist charity, he offered to introduce them to me on campus. The two young monks came to my office, dressed in their long-sleeved brown robes. They barely spoke English, and we conducted our exchanges in Mandarin. They faced quite a challenge, I imagined, if they wanted to introduce their monastery in Canada but could not speak English—let alone French—to audiences in which very few people speak Mandarin. I assumed they wanted to meet with Sino-Canadians, even though many of them do not speak Mandarin, but Cantonese. It turned out the goal of their visit was to present their monastery to my faculty— an extremely odd request since most of my colleagues are rather secular and are more interested in political and social issues on both sides of the Atlantic. Another oddity was my monastic visitors’ training: I expected them to be well-versed in religious studies or Buddhist history, but they had diplomas in chemistry and physics. They overcame the language barrier by means of a CD they had brought with them to introduce the temple to an audience of non-Mandarin speakers. The short documentary was presented by Harvey Dzodin, an American expatriate then living in China, who spoke of the temple’s one-thousand-year history in glowing © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 A. Laliberté, Religion and China’s Welfare Regimes, Religion and Society in Asia Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7270-5_12

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terms.1 The whole episode struck me as a little contrived, but then it became clear that this was part of a far more ambitious project.2 During our conversation, it emerged that their monastery, Dragon Springs temple (hereafter Longquan 龙泉寺), is an interesting case for my research because it sponsors a charity organization, the Benevolent Love Charity Foundation (ren’ai cishan jijinhui 仁爱慈善基金会). So, I met these visitors a second time. To my disappointment, they had far less information on the charity than on the monastery. An invitation to visit them and to meet with volunteers at the foundation in Beijing followed, which I gladly accepted. In the summer of 2014, I visited Longquan with my colleague Huang Weishan. My two visitors from the previous year were not there, but I met with the Ren’ai Foundation staff, other monastics living at the monastery, and overseas volunteers who spoke English to facilitate meetings with outsiders. Most importantly, we had the opportunity to meet with the abbot of the monastery, Xuecheng, who was also the founder of the Ren’ai Foundation and a high-ranking member of the BAC before he became president of that association. Before leaving Longquan, I was invited to give a talk about faith-based charity in Canada to an audience comprising Longquan monastics and Ren’ai volunteers. My earlier visits to different parts of China under the Hu administration and Xi’s first five years had left me with the impression of a timid opening to Buddhist charity on the government’s part, the reluctance of many monastics to be distracted by social activities, and the small scale of operations where authorities did allow them. In Beijing, I got a glimpse of the full extent of the limits the government imposed even after the issuance of the 2012 legal opinion encouraging religious associations to provide philanthropy. Like the temples discussed above, Longquan temple in the suburbs of Beijing has already received a fair amount of attention from the outside. As suggested both by the circumstances leading up to my visit there, described at the beginning of this chapter and by trips abroad made by monks from Longquan, this temple had ambitions to 1 As the director and vice president of ABC Television in New York from 1982 to 2004, Dzodin became a commentator on China Global Television Network (CGTN) and a columnist for the China Daily in 2010. He is also president of Cinergy International Culture Consulting Company and was a counsellor to President Jimmy Carter. 2 Three years later, my colleagues Ji Zhe in Paris and Stefania Travagnin in Groningen told me they had received similar delegations, and the purpose of these visits was even more ambitious, as the visiting monastics were looking for land on which to establish their first European branches.

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expand overseas. Susan McCarthy saw Ren’ai as a good example of a charity with a religious background using its social services activities to push beyond the state-imposed limits on religious activities—what she called a “repurposing” of state objectives to serve religious ends.3 I have chosen to look at this relationship between religion and the state from the other end, and to ask to what extent the Party sees benefits in religion serving the state—a difficult task in a context in which state officials are reluctant to discuss such issues with foreigners.

1

A Note on Sources

Information about the Ren’ai Foundation’s activities comes from various sources. These include: my own ethnography from the summer of 2014; that of my colleague Susan McCarthy from 2008 and 20134 ; a printed report translated into seven languages, given to me by volunteers, documenting Ren’ai’s daily activities in 20125 ; online updates provided by Ren’ai and related NGOs; and an annual report produced for the Beijing tax administration. My fieldwork included a visit to Longquan temple, meetings with volunteers, and participating in a few of their activities, as described below. McCarthy’s ethnography adds a description of volunteer work as part of a political campaign to promote Lei Feng. The 2012 report, which covers activities for every day of the year, remains rare evidence of Ren’ai’s activities during that period, as a printed version of the microblog Xuecheng wrote. The information on the website proved to be the least dependable, as some of the links to material on activities prior to 2014 have ceased to return information. The links I provide below, all of which I accessed in 2019 and 2020, may eventually be shut down or become inactive, as often happens with sources of this kind. Thankfully, in accordance with PRC regulations on NGOs, Ren’ai submits annual reports on its activities, for which print records exist.6

3 McCarthy (2013). 4 McCarthy (2013, 2019). 5 The languages are Japanese, Korean, English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish.

This selection of languages speaks volumes: the report does not target the Thai-, Burmese-, or Vietnamese-speaking Buddhist communities, which are arguably much larger in number than European-language communities interested in Buddhism. 6 BRCJ (2020a).

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However, these reports publish few descriptions and no testimonies of the kind found online. When I visited the Beijing Ren’ai Foundation in 2014, it owned an office located on a plot facing Longquan temple, and its address at the temple suggested a remarkably close relationship between the two.7 On its webpage, Ren’ai provides two links to associations that are relevant to its function: the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (zhongguo fupin jijinhui 中国扶贫基金会, CFPA), and the China Foundation Center (jijinhui zhongxin 基金会中心, CFC). The former counted 4795 organizations in the country and around 97,000 volunteers, who have altogether spent 830 million RMB on charitable activities in China and 11 other countries.8 The absence of any Ren’ai activities in the CFPA report reveals the peculiar position of Buddhist associations in general.9 Anyone who would like to donate to a Buddhist foundation would find it difficult to do so through this channel. The CFC, on the other hand, includes the Ren’ai Foundation and the Amity Foundation among its 35 founding organizations, alongside corporate donors and United Front organizations, such as the Red Cross and the CFPA.10 Going through the annual reports compiled by the CFC, however, reveals that Ren’ai’s inclusion as an original sponsor does not mean much: the 2019 CFC Foundation Transparency Index, for example, does not include the Ren’ai Foundation at all—nor any of the Buddhist foundations I have discussed

7 McCarthy (2013: 65) reported a main office in a high-rise apartment building in an apartment complex in downtown Beijing in Ren’ai’s early years, in contrast to Juequn’s office in Shanghai, which appears to be a late development. Her information and that which the Ren’ai website offers suggest that the foundation has a legal address extremely far from the temple, in the Fengtai district south of Tian’anmen Square, not far from the Beijing Audit Bureau. See Ren’ai cishan (2016). 8 ZFJ (2020). 9 The CFPA has not returned the favor to Ren’ai: none of the Buddhist associations

mentioned in this book so far appear on the long list of donors, which includes sums ranging from 10,000 to 214 million RMB across the country. However, many firms—both Chinese and transnational—as well as individual donors are included. This is demonstrably a case of invisibility imposed on religious actors by the CFPA. For the list of donors, see ZFJ (2020: 72–83). 10 CFC (2020a). CFC vice president Wang Lu was deputy director of the Ren’ai Foundation when the Capital Philanthropy Federation, a quasi-governmental organization, granted it the status of an exemplary charity. McCarthy (2019: 81).

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in the previous chapter so far, for that matter.11 In addition, the CFC database lists 19 other Ren’ai foundations throughout the country, whose websites—when available—show no connection with the foundation in Beijing. Moreover, the CFC reports two other Ren’ai foundations in Beijing, which could generate some confusion for prospective donors.12 The links between Ren’ai and Buddhism may be difficult for outsiders to establish unless they have been to the foundation’s offices near Longquan monastery, where the close relationship between the volunteers is clear. Although the foundation mentions Xuecheng’s sponsorship, McCarthy reports on the basis of her interviews that an anonymous, wealthy entrepreneur provided the capital to establish the foundation in 2006.13 For Ren’ai volunteers, the connection with Buddhism is obvious, even if they are cautious and tend to downplay it. Until 2018, the Ren’ai Foundation worked in accordance with the philosophy Xuecheng developed, which consisted in a number of statements published on his blog,14 in books he co-wrote,15 and in Longquan temple’s own journal.16 Xuecheng wrote very often and expressed his views in short lectures covering a wide range of topics. He traveled across China regularly and, as I mentioned in previous chapters, he became the most important figure in official Buddhism in the country when he was selected by his peers as the BAC president. In addition to his position within Buddhism, he became politically involved, joining United Front institutions such as the Political Consultative Conferences (PCC) at the provincial and central levels, until he was ousted.17

11 CFC (2019). The CFC online report for 2020, however, includes the Lingshan charity based in Wuxi as 73rd among the top 100. See CFC (2020b). The same report also includes Tzu chi as 91st. 12 Ren’ai, or “benevolence,” is a widely used term, regardless of whether an organiza-

tion is religious or non-religious. This is why other Beijing foundations with Ren’ai in their names tend to use a qualifier, such as the Beijing Mazu Ren’ai Charity Foundation 北京妈祖仁爱慈善基金会. For a complete list, see CFC (2020c). 13 McCarthy (2013: 65). 14 Chengxi (2013a). 15 Huikong (2012). 16 Chengxi (2013b). 17 He joined the Fujian CPPC in 1998 and the CCPPC in 2001. In 2005, he joined the Council for United Front Theory Research Center (tongyi zhanxian lilun yanjiuhui lishi 统一战线理论研究会理事) and was appointed vice chairman of the China Youth

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The Ren’ai Foundation’s priorities have changed over the years. It was established in 2006 and started a program to rescue orphans the next year before expanding into other activities. In 2007, Ren’ai also launched a clothing donation program that would later be reshaped as part of a broader, more ambitious poverty alleviation undertaking. In the same year, Ren’ai coordinated with the government to deliver the first of many disaster relief operations outside Beijing. In 2008, it started the “loving heart congee” (aixin zhou 爱心粥) project, which provides free porridge.18 Over the years, it would add other services to this list, such as hotline counselling, community work, care for children with disabilities, and accompanying dying patients. All of these activities existed when I met Ren’ai volunteers in 2014, and I witnessed them personally. I was also privileged to witness the early stages of development for another activity, one that would later extend to the whole country and give Ren’ai greater visibility: environmental awareness. Ren’ai abandoned only one program after 2014: the “civic virtue award” (xiaode jiang 孝德奖), instituted in 2009, was designed to reward adolescents who have expressed strong commitments to filial piety—a virtue the foundation found lacking in contemporary society.19 By 2020, the priority accorded to these activities had changed slightly: the free distribution of congee has become the most important program, followed by five social assistance programs that recombine those identified above, and finally environmental awareness. I will describe these programs below.

2

“Loving Heart Congee”

The primary activity Ren’ai advertised in 2020 has been prioritized in comparison to previous years, when it counted as the fourth most important program. When I took part in this activity in 2014, teams of volunteers ranging from 10 to 25 individuals gathered every morning on

Federation. As of 2020, the Ren’ai Foundation website has erased all traces of Xuecheng from its archives, and little is known of his whereabouts since 2019. 18 McCarthy (2019: 83). She previously used the phrase “compassion congee” (McCarthy 2013: 65). The translation proposed by the Ren’ai Foundation is either “love porridge” (Huikong 2012: 228) or “(delivery of) free congee” (Chengxi 2013b: 82). 19 The “civic virtue award” was an example of the marriage between Buddhism and Confucian values that Dutournier and Ji (2009) have noted in their case study of Ven. Jinkong’s program of moral education.

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workdays, before workers reached their offices, at seven “charity stands” (xinzhan 心栈)20 located in Beijing and five located in other cities: Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Ya’an 雅安, Sichuan. When I asked why there were stations so far outside Beijing, my informants from the Ren’ai Foundation mentioned that these stations were set up by relatives of volunteers who had received support from the headquarters in the capital. The activity begins with a modest vegetarian breakfast of steamed buns and, naturally, congee, followed by a training session. This includes a pep talk reminding volunteers that they are not “giving,” but rather “respectfully offering” congee: as it was explained to me, “giving” suggests that the giver is looking down on the recipient of the gift, while “offering” elevates the recipient, regardless of their condition.21 The activity, which lasts one hour at most, stops when there is no more congee to offer and ends with everyone chanting to express their gratitude to those who received the congee. I have been present at five such stations in Beijing.22 Most of them are purposely located in very wealthy or active business districts where hi-tech firms have their headquarters or where international finance is concentrated—one is near the west train station.23 For this activity, the foundation received support from restaurant or hotel owners who lent them space and facilities to prepare congee. When I expressed puzzlement at the fact that volunteers were offering congee to middle-class, wealthy, busy young office workers24 instead of migrant workers or poor retirees,25 they explained that this was not the point. The purpose of the congee offering, as the main organizer told me, was to teach the joy of giving. This could make sense from a religious perspective, as most of my colleagues in religious studies have argued when pressed to explain this behavior. In my view, it makes sense politically as well, but the volunteers had better leave this 20 This is a very imperfect translation, but I chose it because the Ren’ai Foundation has translated it this way. Chengxi (2013b: 82). 21 This reminded me of the attitude taught to Tzu Chi volunteers, but no Ren’ai volunteer I talked to said they had derived this approach from the Taiwanese foundation. 22 By 2017, Ren’ai had added the cities of Qinhuangdao, Zhengzhou, Shijiazhuang, and Datong. See RXB (2017). 23 The other locations are in the Qinghua 清华 hi-tech park, the commercial hub of Chaowai 朝外, and the industrial districts of Yizhuang 亦庄 and Tongzhou 通州. 24 Most of the passersby looked away or politely declined the volunteers’ offerings. 25 I did see a few of them who gratefully accepted the offer.

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unsaid: government officials may see volunteers helping the poor as an act of defiance and a questioning of the government’s competence in poverty alleviation. In other words, they could read this as a very public rebuttal and an unbearable loss of face. In its most recent online entry, the foundation advertised its congee offering activity to people who had skipped breakfast for all sorts of reasons, mostly because they were too busy and had no time: such a statement hardly represents a critical social commentary. The two other offerings that come along with the congee are “warmth between people and social trust.”26 As for the first of these two gifts, certainly within the community of volunteers, I found genuine care and camaraderie, as well as openness to perfect strangers. Likewise, the repeated congee offering activities, which necessitated cooperation among a wide variety of people, did indeed generate social trust between participants in these activities. However, Ren’ai volunteers had more difficulties generating social trust among outsiders, as the indifference of most passersby suggested. I had no reason to think this had changed as Xi’s regime continued to consolidate. And yet, since my visit in 2014, Ren’ai has expanded even more. As of August 2019, it counted 57 stations across the country, with about 6000 volunteers every week distributing over 50,000 cups of congee.27 The website invited those who would like to join the ranks of volunteers to download an app and register to participate. The latest evidence I could find for this activity was dated autumn 2019. At the time of writing, the information that appears on Ren’ai’s website amounts to testimonies and storytelling written by volunteers who recorded past activities prior to 2020. The lockdown China experienced in the first half of 2020 was no doubt a major hindrance to this kind of activity. Only time will tell whether the reopening of the economy in the summer of 2020 changed this.

26 BRCJ (2019a). 27 These includes 18 stations in Beijing, 11 of which registered after I left: ten in

Guangdong, seven in Fujian, five in Hebei, four in Henan, and the rest from Sichuan to Shanghai. See BRCJ (2019b).

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3 Social Assistance Programs and Environmental Awareness As of 2020, the second most important program for the Ren’ai Foundation provides scholarships (zhuxue 助学) to orphans in impoverished parts of the country.28 This constituted the first program Xuecheng launched when he set up the foundation in 2007.29 At the time of writing, this program sponsors and accompanies orphaned minors to complete their studies. The foundation reports that in 11 years, it has spent more than 12 million RMB, and over 7000 volunteers have provided funding to more than 6000 children in 40 cities and counties across the country.30 The activities advertised in the printed 2012 report, however, mentioned only one activity for the whole year: a donation of 17,000 pieces of clothing from teachers and students at a Beijing school to orphans in Sichuan.31 In 2014, I attended a meeting at which teachers and donors involved in the program exchanged views about it. A very festive event, it included many participants sharing their experiences with friends, students, and their own children through stories and songs, as well as a short video describing visits to the localities which received support. The Ren’ai Foundation report noted that in 2019, it received 4.3 million and spent 4.6 million RMB for this program—the largest expenditure for that year, out of a total budget of over 11 million. However, the report did not provide details about the recipients, their locations, and whether the donations served to buy any supplies.32 Scholarship provision, coordinated with officials in Beijing and in the recipients’ localities, leaves out the opportunity to deliver religious literature.33 The third most important program advertised in 2020, labeled “poverty alleviation” (jingzhun fupin 精准扶贫), represents another activity in which Ren’ai cooperates with the government. Not yet instituted as such during my visit, it seems to have developed out of another

28 BRCJ (2019c). 29 Huikong (2012: 228–229). 30 BRCJ (2019c). 31 Chengxi (2013b: 108). 32 BRCJ (2020a: 3). 33 Moreover, the regulations on religious affairs forbid people under 18 to enter any religious venue.

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clothing donation program (yi 衣 + 衣), which began in 2007. This activity had generated some tension, as McCarthy mentions in her ethnography, because state-sponsored charities took umbrage at the fact that Ren’ai volunteers organized donation drives all year long, while officials did so at a designated time of year.34 Despite this strain, the program became so successful that it attracted the attention of international schools in Beijing.35 Besides the obvious service offered to the poor, the foundation’s website underlines that this activity also serves an educational purpose for the donor, teaching people the joy of giving, donating their time, caring, and working with others to help.36 Xuecheng promoted this activity, seeing it as a teaching moment for the donors, as they learned from the people to whom they offered clothes and saw firsthand the hardships they and their communities had to endure.37 As of 2018, the foundation claimed that its volunteers had donated and personally delivered 1.2 million articles of clothing to more than 800,000 people throughout the country.38 The fourth most important program, known as social services (shehui fuwu 社会服务), brings three older programs Ren’ai advertised in 2007 under a single umbrella: a listening hotline, community services, and disaster relief. Although these activities may appear disparate, the common thread running through all three involves addressing moral distress and anxiety by offering counseling. In the first of these three social services, the Longquan Listening Hotline (qingting rexian 倾听热线), volunteers take calls from individuals experiencing emotional or psychological distress and direct them to professional resources. The foundation mentions that by 2012, it had helped close to 2000 persons, providing

34 McCarthy (2013: 70). 35 BSBS (2016). 36 Monks and lay devotees collect used clothes in schools and communities. I could

not find out how the donations were solicited in the first place. None of the sources or documents produced by Ren’ai discloses this information. However, McCarthy (2019: 79) mentions that Communist Party branch members working for SARA donated some of their clothes, as they were on a mission to study and practice charity. 37 Huikong (2012: 228). 38 BRCJ (2019d).

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them with relief from various pressures.39 The hotline is a modest operation: I was invited to attend one such counseling session, located in a volunteer’s home study. Due to the absence of Buddhist images and iconography as well as of Buddhist rhetoric, one would never have guessed that this activity was run by an association affiliated with a Buddhist temple.40 The activity is ongoing at the time of writing, with volunteers listening and doing their best to help and support individuals experiencing stress and difficulties. The foundation claimed that in 2019, close to 1000 volunteers participated in this activity.41 The lockdown imposed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic will no doubt have exacerbated the need to offer this kind of service. The second social service, known as “Four Harmonies Community Services” (sihe ren’ai shequ fuwu 四和仁爱社区服务), offers emotional and moral support to elderly people, their caregivers, and the communities in which they live.42 Volunteers invited me to accompany them on their visits to lonely elderly people, who were not living in nursing homes, but in their own modest apartments. Our small group’s visit no doubt brought some comfort and some human warmth to the persons we met. However, such episodic visits represent a drop in the ocean when one considers the immensity of the elderly population’s needs, especially as this population is expected to increase dramatically in the coming years. In 2019, Ren’ai was still managing these kinds of activities, which had diversified somewhat. They included: children’s theater, care for the elderly at home, flea markets, and other community organizing activities with the aim of achieving “physical, mental, familial, neighborhood, and community harmony” on both individual and communal levels.43 The wording of the descriptions of these activities, which is reminiscent of Hu’s slogan,

39 Huikong (2012: 236–237). The earlier version of Ren’ai’s website, which has now been deleted, provided more precision: the volunteers answered questions related to spiritual suffering, emotional entanglements, work pressure, family conflicts, children’s education, property disputes, and difficulties with the social environment. 40 It used to be called “The Sound of Longquan Listening Hotline”. 41 BRCJ (2019e). 42 This service, which was mentioned on the 2014 edition of Ren’ai’s website, was in the making when I was in Beijing that year; it had yet to be mentioned in Chengxi (2013b) and Huikong (2012). 43 BRCJ (2019e). The foundation claims that over 7000 volunteers have assisted close to 20,000 people.

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demonstrates a distant connection with Buddhist teachings. The lack of any mention of visits to elderly homes in 2020 suggests that the foundation has slowed down this activity in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The third social service component is a full-fledged disaster mitigation (jiuzai 救灾) program, operating since 2007 in cooperation with the government. Early on, this included intervention in areas far from Beijing, as designated by the government: in flood-ravaged Chongqing in 2007, in the aftermath of a snowstorm in Anhui the same year, and in the zones affected by earthquakes and mudslides in Wenchuan and Beichuan 北川, Sichuan the following year. In 2010 these activities extended as far west as Yushu 玉树, Qinghai and Zhouqu 舟曲, Gansu.44 One important feature of this program suggested that the foundation was moving toward increased institutionalization: by 2013, it had brought together a new group of volunteers, the Ren’ai Rescue Team (jiuyuandui 救援队), to provide disaster relief. This work included on-site delivery of congee, as well as oil, comforters, and clothes. The earliest reports on this group suggest that members of the rescue team lived all over the country.45 The team’s success has been difficult to assess: the existing documentation mentions small numbers of volunteers, but the fact that people in places far from Beijing got involved suggests that wealthy and arguably influential people have supported Ren’ai in its relief effort. In 2020, the Ren’ai website added updates on these activities. The list, which is not exhaustive, shows that Ren’ai has intervened all over the country, but also that it has developed long-term projects. It provided relief following the 2011 earthquake in Yingjiang 盈江, Yunnan; the 2012 mudslides in Minxian 岷县, Gansu; the 2013 earthquake in Ya’an, Sichuan and the floods in Guangdong; the 2014 typhoon in Hainan and Ludian 鲁甸, and the earthquake in Yunnan; the 2015 earthquake in Shigatse, Tibet and a factory explosion in Tianjin; the 2016 storm in Yancheng 盐城, Jiangsu; the 2018 flood in Shouguang 寿光, Shandong and in Chaoshan 潮汕, Guangdong; and the 2019 snowstorm in Yushu, Qinghai. It has done more than deliver relief, also supporting the establishment of three local charity organizations: the Yushu Life

44 Introductory information on each of these projects, accompanied with many photos, is available in a digitalized document. See Ren’ai Cishan (2016). 45 BRCJ (2013).

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Care Association (Yushu guan’ai shengming xiehui 玉树关爱生命协会) in Qinghai, the Zhouqu Psychological Counseling Center in Gansu, and the Dayingjiang 大盈江 Charity Association in Yunnan. These activities have brought Ren’ai recognition in mainstream social media: rescue teams’ practice of disseminating information on health safety to ordinary citizens has been praised by the authorities.46 The fifth most important program Ren’ai advertised in 2020, providing relief for young children (ertong jiuzhu 儿童救助), did not exist in 2014. This new activity reveals something about the emerging social assistance needs of specific categories of the population, the long-term nature of this charitable activity, and Ren’ai’s nationwide reach. The program offers medical assistance for orphans and disabled children, collects materials for students, provides daily escort care, and delivers breast milk to infants. The foundation’s website advertises these relief activities as a standardized, institutionalized operation, presumably to emphasize the support it receives from the government. Ren’ai’s “caring teams” offer support in the four special municipalities as well as in major cities located in nine provinces.47 At the end of September 2018, Ren’ai disclosed that it had provided more than 302 orphans and disabled children across the country with medical assistance, thanks to donations totaling more than 4.5 million RMB.48 The extent of the foundation’s reach suggests cooperation with local governments in service delivery, as well as cooperation with central authorities to obtain permission. The existence of a similarly named association in Henan, however, may suggest encouragement for many associations to compete.49 The sixth program, known as “life care” (shengming guanhuai 生命关 怀), appears on Ren’ai’s website, but there is no evident connection to the elderly care (laonian guanhuai 老年关怀) program I saw in 2014 when I accompanied Ren’ai volunteers on their visitations to elderly people in their own homes. At the time, Ren’ai was sponsoring other activities encouraging seniors to help and care for each other—a stated objective 46 BRCJ (2019e). 47 The foundation does not operate contact sites (zhandian lianluo fangshi 站点联络

方式) in any of the autonomous regions.

48 BRCJ (2019f). 49 The Xixia County Ren’ai Association for Relief to Young Children (Xixiaxian

Ren’ai ertong jiuzhuhui 西峡县仁爱儿童救助会) appears to be unrelated to the Ren’ai Foundation. See Guo (2019).

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that seemed to be confirmed by my observation of some retirees who had joined the congee offering activities in which I took part. Recently, however, Ren’ai seems to have changed its approach to addressing the issue of aging: the “life care” program announces that it helps people in dire situations, although it seems to concentrate on end-of-life care. The website announces a focus on serving the elderly, orphans, and dying patients, offering psychological and spiritual counseling and comfort so that the elderly find relief from worry and pain in the last stage of their lives. The philosophy behind the program is to provide support to those who are unable to take care of themselves. As of September 2018, the foundation claimed to have helped close to 80,000 people and relied on more than 3400 volunteers.50 This program, which helps people in extremely vulnerable situations, represents one of the few activities the government allowed Ren’ai to continue when its other activities stopped, for reasons that remain unclear. Finally, the seventh activity, environmental awareness (ren’ai huanbao 仁爱环保)—which was not initially advertised on the Ren’ai Foundation’s site—has attracted a fair amount of interest from all the volunteers over the years and represents the last activity announced in 2020. Promoted with great enthusiasm while I was there, it brought in many young volunteers, along with their children. The event I joined, which was a monthly occurrence, was set in a public space—an open commercial mall—and was approved by the site’s property manager. Private security ensured that the participants did not disturb regular activities—that is, shoppers strolling by and customers relaxing at the coffee shops and restaurants. The Ren’ai Foundation volunteers were grouped into small teams, taking care of small pieces of paper and various refuse and waste that individuals had not properly disposed of in garbage bins, putting these items in plastic buckets to be disposed of later. After about an hour of these waste collection activities, all the volunteers met for a short gathering at which the young kids and their parents talked about their experience, listened to short stories, and sang the praises of a clean environment—all in a joyous, orderly, friendly, familial gathering which was anything but a public protest. By 2020, this activity had expanded in terms of visibility, and a public pedagogy dimension had also been added. At the time of writing, the

50 BRCJ (2019g).

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program seeks to mobilize volunteers to cooperate with other societal actors and to carry out activities such as promoting the concept of a low-carbon economy, garbage classification, and reasonable usage and recycling. Through these activities, the foundation aims to awaken people’s awareness of environmental protection issues and hopes to influence ever greater numbers of people to join their efforts. After two years of development, the program boasts some impressive achievements: the number of environmental protection stations has grown from seven in 2016 to 85 in 2018, covering 50 cities in 22 administrative regions across the country.51 In 2020, there are 88 liaison contacts for such activities throughout the country. In every case, the information provided for these contacts indicates the location—in a city—the name of a volunteer, and a phone number. I found no connection with a Buddhist temple or association. These contact persons may be Buddhist lay devotees or non-Buddhist individuals who care about the environment. Among all the persons identified as contacts for this program, I could not find a single individual with a Dharmic name (faming 法名), which would make it difficult for outsiders to infer any connection between environmental protection and the Buddhist connections of the Ren’ai Foundation.

4 The View from Below: Volunteers and Donors None of the events mentioned above ever mobilized more than 50 people. As one participant told me candidly during an event in which we both participated: “We will get into trouble if we are too successful.” Congee distribution involved even smaller numbers of participants, from 10 to 20.52 But such small numbers do not represent the organization’s true scale. After all, most volunteers have other occupations—as students, workers, or entrepreneurs—and they cannot be involved full-time. Still, even taking these conditions into consideration, the total number of volunteers did not exceed a few hundred when I met with Ren’ai volunteers in Beijing. This may have changed, as the foundation has become better known and attracted public attention. Obviously, such growth

51 BRCJ (2019h). 52 Volunteers alternate during the week, so in the end, for every stand there could be

up to 100 participants.

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supposes that the authorities in Beijing have continued to permit these activities. The Ren’ai Foundation’s timeline tells the story of a young organization: it has been in existence for less than two decades. It has been relatively stable in organizational terms, with its current director appointed for five years. The people who participate in the activities organized by the Ren’ai Foundation come from all levels of society. Elderly people and pensioners are both recipients of care and caregivers themselves, which makes the foundation a mutual-help support group. A significant proportion of members are also young people: workers in the service industry (restaurants, hotels); students in disciplines such as commerce and marketing; and some self-employed entrepreneurs in design, fine arts, and the performing arts. There are many young mothers with their children, and occasionally their husbands/fathers join them. At all the events I attended, there were more women than men, of all generations. There were also more women in positions of authority at the foundation. However, this proportion did not at all reflect the prevailing situation at Longquan temple, which is a male monastery. An additional important aspect at the time of my visit, which seems to have abated since, was interactions with non-Chinese. Overseas Chinese and non-Chinese indirectly contributed to disseminating global awareness of Ren’ai and Longquan. Overseas Chinese who volunteer with Ren’ai also played an important role as liaisons with the foreigners who occasionally participated, offering a unique insider perspective. The Ren’ai Foundation’s website provides information on its funding and its internal governance, which demonstrates its substantial degree of institutionalization. Ren’ai has registered as a private foundation (feigongmu jijinhui 非公募基金会), which means it cannot engage in public fundraising (gongkai mukuan xingwei 公开募款行为). It is supported by Longquan temple but is legally independent of it. The private sector also supports Ren’ai’s charitable activities. Some small-scale businesses are involved, and not only by making anonymous donations. For instance, the equipment used for congee distribution is stored in establishments owned by wealthy patrons, such as a restaurant and a hotel. The foundation’s annual reports, submitted to the Municipal Accounting Office (Beijing Jingcheng Kuaijishi Shiwusuo 北京京城会计师事务所), provide details on spending per program and are available to the public for consultation. However, recent reports have ceased to disclose any

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information on donor identity.53 This stands in contrast with earlier reports, which listed donors, the amounts they gave, and the activities they supported. For 2012, reported individual donations ranged from 100 to 20,000 RMB.54 Ren’ai has ensured that it complies with all the relevant regulations and has streamlined its governance in 2020. Its website provides detailed information on its charter as well as the relevant certificates the foundation needs to obtain to meet the regulations of different government agencies.55 Its organizational chart displays a high degree of functional differentiation between different departments in terms of internal governance: under the supervision of its council (lishihui 理事会) and its secretariat, it runs a department for special affairs (yewu bumen 业务部门) that covers each of the five social assistance programs and the program for environmental awareness discussed above, as well as an administrative department (zhineng bumen 职能部门) for taking care of volunteers (zhiyuanzhe guan’huai 志愿者关怀), program services (xiangmu fuwu 项目服务), publicity and archives (wenxian dang’an 文宣档案), outreach (wailian 外联), and finance.56 The awards the government has bestowed on Ren’ai suggest official approval and highlight the organization’s value in the eyes of the CCP United Front Work Department. Whether the public outside Buddhist circles shares this appreciation remains an open question. As mentioned above, I was made aware of public indifference toward the Ren’ai Foundation during my participation in the congee distribution activities on 53 The last report with information about donors which I could access disclosed data

for 2012; since 2014, my online requests have returned a blank page. The same is true for other reports dated 2010. 54 Some of the individual donors I had identified in the 2012 report were part of the foundation’s supervisory staff, while many others were anonymous. 55 The foundation displays 16 of them. See BRCJ (2019i). 56 BRCJ (2019j). The 2019 organizational chart differs considerably from the one I

saw in 2012, which, alongside the council, included a supervisory board (jianshihui 坚 事会) assisted by consultant (guwen 顾问) and advisory (zixun 咨询) committees, as well as different departments for the management of charity programs (xiangmu guanli 项 目管理), property (zichan 资产), volunteers’ affairs (zhiyuanzhe guan’huai 志愿者关怀), relations with the media (meiti gongguan 媒体公关), and program development (xiangmu tazhan 项目拓展).

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the busy streets of Beijing. Most pedestrians expressed indifference to the Ren’ai Foundation volunteers wearing their orange aprons and baseball caps, who were forthcoming with their offerings, although they never harassed or disturbed passersby. Bystanders displayed similar indifference during the environmental awareness activities I witnessed. Public gatherings in Beijing, from mahjong games on tables set up in the streets to calligraphy on the sidewalks with huge brushes soaked in water, never fail to attract onlookers’ attention, but in the case of the Ren’ai Foundation’s awareness activities, people watch with a mix of indifference and puzzlement over what volunteers are trying to achieve. In all fairness, the idea of perfect strangers offering free food on street corners would appear a little odd in any society. One notable group that has been absent from all the events I have attended is CCP cadres. While officials were most often present during many of my interactions with volunteers or the interviews I had previously conducted at temples, Buddhist studies centers, and charities, they were remarkably absent from my interactions with Ren’ai Foundation volunteers and the monastics at Longquan temple—or if they were there, they were very discrete and low-profile. The fact that Ven. Xuecheng, the patron of the Ren’ai Foundation, was a high-ranking and trusted member of the BAC, a reliable religious association, certainly helped explain this situation in 2014. The relations between government officials and monastics can only be assumed to be cordial due to their mutual interest, but matters are more complex for laypeople. They are aware that the authorities have only recently supported the development of Longquan temple and the Ren’ai Foundation, with the publication of the 2012 legal opinion encouraging religious associations to get involved in activities serving the public interest.57 A few individual volunteers, without being prompted on this topic, expressed their sense that the official opening toward their activities is tenuous. They are aware that they can perform their activities as long as they are not too visible or too numerous. As one volunteer explained, “It is better for us to remain small and not to attract too much attention.”

57 Legal opinions are not laws, and therefore the political signals they seem to send can change rapidly.

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Ren’ai’s Future Since Xuecheng’s Fall

Several dramatic turns of events followed my 2014 visit to Beijing: not only Xuecheng’s fall from grace, but also Ren’ai’s turn toward a more institutionalized organization whose religious identity is increasingly remote, as well as the outbreak of COVID-19, which put enormous pressure on the kinds of human interaction that Ren’ai volunteers have promoted. The Ren’ai Rescue Team, which began to develop in 2013, appeared to herald greater visibility for the foundation in the public sphere, albeit in a way that concealed its Buddhist affiliation. These volunteers, dressed in quasi-military garb, stood guard like so many soldiers, and one would never guess that they had any connection with a temple. The Salvation Army appeared to be the model for this.58 As quickly as it appeared, however, the reference to the Rescue Team vanished from Ren’ai’s website after 2018. Is this the result of pressure from the CCP, upset by the organization’s visibility, despite its efforts to tone down its religious identity? This absence may also arise from more anodyne factors, from lack of personnel to limited resources. The fact remains that Ren’ai cannot develop in the way Tzu Chi did in Taiwan. The most recent activity listed on the foundation’s website described volunteers in Beijing assisting people accessing outpatient services at Haidian hospital in the third week of January 2020.59 This activity happened just a few days before the central government put many parts of the country under lockdown.60 These changes clearly signal one aspect of Ren’ai’s role: the new forms of help it offers to people in dire circumstances amount to palliative if not marginal social assistance, rather than welfare provision. In many societies, providing such services has offered or continues to offer religious actors many opportunities to promote their teachings publicly.61 Moreover, in societies where the state struggles to provide social services or favors some parts of the population at the expense of others, welfare provision can represent a source of legitimacy for religious actors who attempt to fill

58 BRCJ (2020a). 59 BRCJ (2020b). 60 For a map of the counties and prefectures put under lockdown, see Leung (2020). 61 Pavolini et al. (2017: 254–255).

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the gaps.62 The CCP has remained acutely aware of these dynamics and has actively sought to prevent religious actors from gaining legitimacy at its expense in this way by ensuring that they conceal all reference to religion in the performance of their activities. This approach on the part of Party cadres pre-empts the possibility that Ren’ai and other religious organizations could intervene in social policy development. Although they are active in many areas of social policy, from poverty alleviation to elderly care and assisting people with disabilities, their level of activity remains limited to the level the CCP deems acceptable. Could such considerations explain the fall of Xuecheng, who became popular in Buddhist circles in part due to his charity work? At the time of writing, no information on this issue is available. Longquan temple and its charity foundation have cautiously studied the best practices of Buddhist philanthropic organizations in other contexts and sought to reproduce institutional behavior of which the state approves. But they can never be certain whether the Xi administration’s present leniency will last, or whether nostalgia for Mao—evidenced in the brief rise of Bo Xilai and evoked by Xi himself—could translate into a return to a more militant anti-religious policy. The unequal power relations between a vulnerable organization such as the Ren’ai Foundation and an omnipotent state authority preclude any development comparable to Tzu Chi’s in Taiwan, and no other Buddhist association will be able to develop in Beijing municipality. The support Longquan temple received for its revival until the beginning of Xi’s second mandate in 2017 suggested that the state was deliberately encouraging the growth of Buddhist philanthropy closer to the center of political power, like what Hu had encouraged elsewhere in the country, and what Jiang had tolerated with Nanputuo. This encouragement, despite its limitations, had seemed to reveal a preferential treatment for Buddhism over other religions—such as Christianity, which has recently suffered harassment by provincial and municipal governments across the country.63 While the CCP saw Christian and Muslim charities as good examples of the compatibility of religion and socialism, it also kept close watch over their development, considering them a security threat and a political challenge at least as much as a potential resource to

62 Ibid.: 256. 63 Cook (2017) and Wenzel et al. (2020: 8–10).

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tap. Buddhists, with the glaring exception of the minority that embraces Tibetan Buddhism, did not appear to suffer the same level of suspicion that adherents of the other authorized religions have experienced. While the PRC has always nervously observed the growth and/or resilience of Christianity and Islam, which their involvement in social services provision buttresses, the state seemed to support the growth of Buddhist charities unreservedly and until recently did not take umbrage at their visibility. As McCarthy has noted, charity has become a popular modality through which people in China encounter and practice Buddhism.64 Moreover, as the example of Tzu Chi in Taiwan has shown, the religious ideal of devotees who identify with “Buddhism for the human realm” appeared to be compatible with Hu’s ambition to make China a “harmonious society.” And yet, regardless of the amount of goodwill Buddhist devotees have tried to inject into their volunteer work and the effort they have put into cooperating with the government, the CCP under Xi has preferred to ignore their commitment in its promotion of his “national rejuvenation” ambitions. In a comment he made on an earlier draft of this chapter, Gareth Fisher noted the contrast between Ren’ai’s lay Buddhists in Beijing and those he has studied at Guanji temple. Concerning the latter, he wrote that they “have no connections to institutional bodies and are completely suspicious of them. Unlike the Ren’ai practitioners, they are unable to create any kind of social change, even in a small way, but they can achieve the pyrrhic victory of speaking their minds.”65 The CCP still fears the empowerment of such lay Buddhists, should they choose to organize.

6

Conclusion

This case study of Ren’ai in the first years of the Xi administration closes the survey of Buddhist philanthropy in the PRC and treatment of the context that shaped its emergence since 1949. The involvement of lay Buddhists and clerics in charity and the delivery of services for the public interest had developed with official support under the Hu administration and appeared poised to play a more important role. With the benefit of hindsight, no doubt aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic,

64 McCarthy (2019: 77). 65 Private correspondence, 2015.

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it has become clearer since I concluded fieldwork in China that Buddhist involvement in social assistance as well as the initiatives of other religions face an uncertain future under Xi. This is not the end of the story for Chinese Buddhist philanthropy, however, as I will elaborate in a second volume. I will argue that attempts by the CCP to harness the resources of Buddhist monasteries to assist the state have precedents in Chinese history before 1949 and extends far in that country’s past. Moreover, other communities of Chinese heritage have perpetuated this tradition to the present day in Taiwan, Singapore, and in the global Chinese diaspora. The second volume will complement this present study and contextualize it in terms of two larger theoretical issues: the choices governments make in the design of their social policies and the extent to which the inclusion of religious actors, such as Buddhist institutions, leads to a questioning of our assumptions about secularity and the intertwinement between religion and state in Chinese societies. It will also suggest that the PRC state can learn from these other societies some alternative possibilities for the mutual accommodation between the state and religions that could contribute to the welfare of the larger population.

References BRCJ (Beijing shi Ren’ai cishan jijinhui 北京市仁爱慈善基金会). 2013. Ya’an Ren’ai xindong: dongji yuan xinxing 雅安仁爱行动: 冬季暖心行. Available at: http://www.chrenai.com/portal.php?mod=view&aid=62. Accessed 20 Aug 2020. BRCJ. 2019a. Ren’ai xinzhan 仁爱心战. Ren’ai xiangmu 仁爱项目. Available at: http://www.chrenai.com/portal.php?mod=view&aid=6166. Accessed 13 Aug 2020. BRCJ. 2019b. Quanguo xinzhan lianxi fangshi (2019 nian 8 yue geng xin) 全 国心栈联系方式 (2019 年 8 月更新). Ren’ai xinzhan 仁爱心战. Available at: http://www.chrenai.org/portal.php?mod=view&aid=6193. Accessed 13 Aug 2020. BRCJ. 2019c. Ren’ai zhuxue 仁爱助学. Ren’ai jianjie 仁爱简介. Available at: http://www.chrenai.org/portal.php?mod=view&aid=6257. Accessed 12 Aug 2020. BRCJ. 2019d. Ren’ai jingzhun fupin 仁爱精准扶贫. Ren’ai jianjie 仁爱简 介. Available at: http://www.chrenai.org/portal.php?mod=view&aid=6258. Accessed 16 Aug 2020.

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Appendices

Appendix A: Bac Charity Activities 1981–20141 Year 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

v

js fj zj sa cq hb sh xj gs qh sc gd hu nm ah sx jl he hl bj jx

1 3 1 2

1 1 1

ln

ha yn

1 1

1 1 1 1 1

2 1

1

1

1 2 1 1 1 1

2 1 3 1

1 1 1

1 4

1 1 1

1

1

1 1 1 (continued)

1 Source Fayin, 1981 to 2014. With assistance from Lucie Lu Lu.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 A. Laliberté, Religion and China’s Welfare Regimes, Religion and Society in Asia Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7270-5

309

310

APPENDICES

(continued) Year

v

js fj zj sa cq hb sh xj gs qh sc gd hu nm ah sx jl he hl bj jx

2000 1 1 2001 1 1 2002 2 2003 1 2004 2005 1 2006 1 1 2007 2008 5 2009 4 2 2010 5 1 2011 8 2012 7 1 2013 4 2014 5 1 Total 56 4 14

ln

ha yn

1 1 1 1 2

1

1 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

1 1 1

1 2

1

1

1 1 1 1 1 1 9 5 10 6

Key to the acronyms: v: varia js: Jiangsu fj: Fujian zj: Zhejiang sa: Shaanxi cq: Chongqing hb: Hubei sh: Shanghai xj: Xinjiang gs: Gansu qh: Qinghai sc: Sichuan gd: Guangdong hu: Hunan nm: Neimenggu ah: Anhui sx: Shanxi jl: Jilin he: Hebei hl: Heilongjiang bj: Beijing jx: Jiangxi ln: Liaoning ha: Hainan yn: Yunnan

1

1 1

1 1

11 1 3

2 2 8 10 3

2 2 2 2

2 1 1

2 1

1

1

2

1

1 1 2 1 1 2 4 1 3 1 7 3 3 111 1 1

1 1

APPENDICES

311

There were no activities reported by Fayin for the following provinces, special municipalities, and autonomous regions: Shandong, Henan, Guizhou, Tianjin, Guangxi, Ningxia, and Tibet. The activities recorded in the section included in the column “varia,” which did not specify locations, but only refer to categories of people receiving support, may have included activities in these places. Appendix B: Gazeeters Consulted Anhui Chuzhou shi renmin zhengfu 安徽滁州市人民政府. 2010. Chuzhou nianjian 2010 滁州年鉴. Chuzhou: Chuzhou shi difangzhi biansuan weiyuanhui 滁州市地方志编纂委员会. Anhui nianjian bianji weiyuanhui 安徽年鉴编辑委员会. 2010. Anhui nianjian 2010 安徽年鉴. Hefei: Anhui bianji she 安徽编辑社. Anhui nianjian bianji weiyuanhui 安徽年鉴编辑委员会. 2017. Anhui nianjian 2017 安徽年鉴. Hefei: Anhui bianji she 安徽编辑社. Beijing Haidian nianjian biansuan weiyuanhui 北京海淀年鉴编纂委员 会. 2009. Beijing Haidian nianjian 2009 北京海淀年鉴. Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe 中央文献出版社. Beijing Haidian nianjian biansuan weiyuanhui 北京海淀年鉴编纂委员 会. 2010. Beijing Haidian nianjian 2010 北京海淀年鉴. Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe 中央文献出版社. Beijing Haidian nianjian biansuan weiyuanhui 北京海淀年鉴编纂委员 会. 2011. Beijing Haidian nianjian 2011 北京海淀年鉴. Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe 中央文献出版社. Beijing Haidian nianjian biansuan weiyuanhui 北京海淀年鉴编纂委员会. 2017. Beijing Haidian nianjian 2017 北京海淀年鉴. Beijing: Fangzhi chubanshe 方志出版社. Beijing nianjian she 北京年鉴社. 2015. Beijing nianjian 2015 北京年鉴. Beijing: Beijing nianjian she 北京年鉴社. Beijing nianjian she 北京年鉴社. 2018. Beijing nianjian 2018 北京年鉴. Beijing: Beijing nianjian she 北京年鉴社. Chongqing shi renmin zhengfu 重庆市人民政府. 2010. Chongqing Nianjian 2010 重庆年鉴. Chongqing shi renmin zhengfu bangongting 重 庆市人民政府办公厅. Chongqing shi renmin zhengfu 重庆市人民政府. 2015. Chongqing Nianjian 2015 重庆年鉴. Chongqing shi renmin zhengfu bangongting 重 庆市人民政府办公厅.

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Huangshi shi difangzhi biansuan weiyuanhui 黄石市地方志编纂委员会. 2013. Huangshi nianjian 2013 黄石年鉴. Huansgshi shi difangzhi biansuan weiyuanhui 黄石市地方志 编纂委员会. Huangshi shi difangzhibiansuan weiyuanhui 黄石市地方志编纂委员 会. 2018. Huangshi nianjian 2018 黄石年鉴. Wuhan: Changjiang chubanshe 长江出版社. Hubei sheng difangzhi bangongshi 湖北省地方志办公室. 2009. Hubei Nianjian 2009 湖北年鉴. Wuhan: Hubei nianjian she 湖北年鉴社. Hubei sheng difangzhi biansuan weiyuanhui 湖北省地方志编纂委员会. 2010. Hubei Nianjian 2010 湖北年鉴. Wuhan: Hubei nianjian she 湖 北年鉴社. Jiangsu nianjian zazhi she 江苏年鉴杂志社. 2010. Jiangsu Nianjian 2010 江苏年鉴. Nanjing: Jiangsu nianjian zazhi she 江苏年鉴杂志社. Jiangsu nianjian zazhi she 江苏年鉴杂志社. 2018. Jiangsu Nianjian 2018 江苏年鉴. Nanjing: Jiangsu nianjian zazhi she 江苏年鉴杂志社. Jiangxi sheng renmin zhengfu 江西省人民政府. 2010. Jiangxi Nianjian 2010 江西年鉴. Jiangxi renmin chubanshe 江西人民出版社. Jiangxi sheng renmin zhengfu 江西省人民政府. 2015. Jiangxi Nianjian 2015 江西年鉴. Jiangxi renmin chubanshe 江西人民出版社. Jingzhou shi shizhi bangongshi 荆州市史志办公室. 2010. Jingzhou Nianjian 2010 荆州年鉴. Wuhan: Changjiang chubanshe 长江出版社. Jingzhou shi shizhi bangongshi 荆州市史志办公室. 2012. Jingzhou Nianjian 2012 荆州年鉴. Wuhan: Changjiang chubanshe 长江出版社. Jingzhou shi shizhi bangongshi 荆州市史志办公室. 2017. Jingzhou Nianjian 2017 荆州年鉴. Wuhan: Changjiang chubanshe 长江出版社. Jiujiang bianji weiyuanhui 九江年鉴编辑委员会. 2004. Jiujiang Nianjian 2004 九江年鉴. Beijing: Fangzhi chubanshe 方志出版社. Jiujiang bianji weiyuanhui 九江年鉴编辑委员会. 2012. Jiujiang Nianjian 2012 九江年鉴. Wuhan: Wuhan chubanshe 武汉出版社. Jiujiang bianji weiyuanhui 九江年鉴编辑委员会. 2013. Jiujiang Nianjian 2013 九江年鉴. Wuhan: Wuhan chubanshe 武汉出版社. Jiujiang bianji weiyuanhui 九江年鉴编辑委员会. 2014. Jiujiang Nianjian 2014 九江年鉴. Wuhan: Wuhan chubanshe 武汉出版社. Jiujiang bianji weiyuanhui 九江年鉴编辑委员会. 2015. Jiujiang Nianjian 2015 九江年鉴. Wuhan: Wuhan chubanshe 武汉出版社. Jiujiang shi shizhi bangongshi 九江市史志办公室. 2004. Jiujiang nianjian 2004 九江年鉴. Wuhan: Wuhan Chubanshe 武汉: 武汉出版社. Jiujiang shi shizhi bangongshi 九江市史志办公室. 2010. Jiujiang nianjian 2010 九江年鉴. Wuhan: Wuhan Chubanshe 武汉: 武汉出版社.

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316

APPENDICES

Xiamen difangzhi bianzuan weiyuanhui 厦门市地方志编纂委员会. 2008. Xiamen Nianjian 2008 厦门年鉴. Xiamen: Lujiang chubanshe 鹭江出 版社. Xiamen difangzhi bianzuan weiyuanhui 厦门市地方志编纂委员会. 2010. Xiamen Nianjian 2010 厦门年鉴. Xiamen: Lujiang chubanshe 鹭江出 版社. Xiamen difangzhi bianzuan weiyuanhui 厦门市地方志编纂委员会. 2014. Xiamen Nianjian 2014 厦门年鉴. Xiamen: Lujiang chubanshe 鹭江出 版社. Zhejiang sheng renmin zhengfu 浙江省人民政府. 2010. Zhejiang Nianjian 2010 浙江年鉴. Hangzhou 杭州: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe 浙 江人民出版社. Appendix C: Bac External Relations2 Year Japan Taiwan Hong Thailand ROK Sri Nepal Burma Singapore US India Kong Lanka 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

8 7 11 12 6 5 5 4 2 1 3 3 4 4 4 3 2 3 8 17 10

1 2 4 2 2 2

1 3 3

2

2 3 2 2 1 1 2

1 1 1 1 3 1 2

2 3 1 3 2 1 2

3 4 1 2

2

1 1 1 2

1

1 1 2 2

2 1 1

1 1

1 1 1 3

1

1 1 1

1

2 1

1 1 1 1

1

1 2 4 5

1 1

1 2

1 1 2 2 3 3 1

3 1 1 1 2

2 1 1

1 1 3 3 2

3

1

1 1 1 4

3 (continued)

2 Source Fayin, 1981 to 2014. With assistance from Lucie Lu Lu.

APPENDICES

317

(continued) Year Japan Taiwan Hong Thailand ROK Sri Nepal Burma Singapore US India Kong Lanka 2002 3 2003 1 2004 8 2005 9 2006 5 2007 6 2008 3 2009 10 2010 14 2011 5 2012 9 2013 4 2014 6 Total 205

3 2 3 5 1 1 7 5 7 4 5 4 3 69

2 8 3 1 2 2 2 6 1 1 2 67

1 2 4 2 5 2 1 3 4 3 3 51

1 1 2 1 2 6 1 1 4 2 2 3 42

2 2 1 1

1 1 2

2 1 1 1

1

2 1 1 2 4 2 1 32

1 2 1

2 1 1

2 2 3 1 2 3

1 3

3

3 1

2 35

1 5 4 3 33

31

2 4 1 26

2 1 1 3 1 1 2 18

Index

A Atheism and Science, 31 Atlas of Religion in China, 129

B BAC (Buddhist Association of China) Charity Committee delegates to, 107 Charity Foundation, 178 Committee for Charity and the Public Interest (zhongguo fojiao xiehui cishan gongyi weiyuanhui 中国佛教慈善公益委员会) (CCPI), 178, 182 Fayin (法音) (Voice of Dharma), 87, 108, 158 governance structure council (lishihui 理事会), 105 National Congress, 143 History “Combine Chan with agricultural work” (nong

chan bingzhong 农禅並重), 137 “cultivating the good earth” ( 种福田 zhong futian), 138 “culture builds the stage for the economy to sing the opera” (wenhua datai, jingji changxi 文化搭台, 经济唱戏), 137 “Three Excellent Traditions of Buddhism.”, 137 Mingsheng 明生, 106, 182, 239 World Buddhist Forum (shijie fojiao luntan 世界佛教论坛), 77 Zhao Puchu, 109, 133, 136–138, 145, 275 Beijing Municipal Accounting Office (Beijing Jingcheng Kuaijishi Shiwusuo 北京京城会计师事务 所), 298 “believers” (xinzong 信众), 117 “big five” religions

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 A. Laliberté, Religion and China’s Welfare Regimes, Religion and Society in Asia Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7270-5

319

320

INDEX

Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA) Catholic Cram School, 153 Chinese Catholic Commission for Economic Development and Social Services, 162 Jinde Association (Jinde gongyi xieban 进德公益协办), 82 Jinde Foundation, 180, 181, 188 Patriotic Catholic Church of China, 153 Xinde Cultural Research Institute (xinde wenhua yanjiusuo 河北信德文化研 究所), 82 Zhongguo Tianzhujiao (中国天 主教), 87 Daoist Association of China (DAC) Zhongguo Dajiao (中国道教), 87 Islamic Association of China (IAC), 54 Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) Tianfeng (天凤), 87 Aide Foundation (Aide jijinhui 爱德基金会), 82 Amity Foundation, 92, 161, 162 Protestant associations, 91, 120 United Bible Societies, 153 Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), 91, 153, 161, 162 Young Women’s Christian Association (YMCA), 91, 153 See Buddhist associations “Buddha Law” See Falungong

“Buddhism in this world” (renjian fojiao 人间佛教) “help the poor, teach the rich” (jipin jiaofu 济贫教富), 236 Buddhist associations Benevolent Love Charity Foundation (ren’ai cishan jijinhui 仁爱慈善基金会), 284 Buddhist Association of the Republic of China (zhongguo fojiaohui 中国佛教会, BAROC), 132 Buddhist associations (fojiao xiehui 佛教协会), 103 Ciyuan Center for Social Work (Guangdong ciyuan shehui gongzuo fuwu zhongxin 广东慈 缘社会工作服务中心), 240 “merit clubs” (gongdelin 功德林), 115 merit societies (gongdehui 功德会), 168, 263 See BAC (Buddhist Association of China) Buddhist practices Dharma talks, 134 karmic retribution, 128 “making merit” (做功德 zuo gongde), 138 “release of living” (fangsheng 放生), 264 Buddhist religious personnel (zongjiao renyuan 宗教人员), 132 Buddhist studies (foxueyuan 佛学院), 103 C CCP (Chinese Communist Party) 18th Party Congress Fifth Plenum, 27, 31 “610 Office”, 77 Bo Xilai, 302

INDEX

Deng Xiaoping “Four Modernizations”, 61, 64 “(post-)disorder rectification” (boluan fanzheng 拨乱反 正), 62 Document 19, 63, 64, 116 “Gang of Four”, 11, 19, 61, 62 Hu Jintao “harmonious society”, 44, 75, 76, 174, 303 “spiritual civilization” (jingshen wenming 精神文明), 32, 44, 266 “Three Rural” (sannong 三农) problems, 21 Hu Yaobang, 63, 160 Jiang Zemin “Three Represents”, 70, 75 Lin Biao, 11 Li Peng, 15 Li Weihan, 60, 61, 63 Long March, 7 Mao Zedong Cultural Revolution, 4 Great Leap Forward, 11, 53, 61, 157 Jiangxi Soviet, 7 Little Red Book, 61 Red Army, 6 Red Guards, 53, 61, 136, 198 “withdraw from the sects” movement (tuidao yundong 退道运动), 57 Yan’an, 6, 7 Politburo, 136 United Front Work, 145, 153, 162, 174, 268 Wen Jiabao, 18 Xi Jinping “China Dream”, 45

321

“civilization construction” (wenming jianshe 文明建 设), 44 “sinicization” of religion, 183 “Xi Jinping’s thought”, 31, 143 Zhao Ziyang, 63, 160 Zhou Enlai, 60, 134, 135 Zhu Rongji, 15 See religious work Central People’s Government Organic Law thereof, 54 charities (cishanhui 慈善会or cishan xiehui 慈善协会) China Charity Federation (zhongua cishan zonghui 中华慈善总会), 68 China Disabled Persons’ Federation, 154 China Moral Philanthropic Association (Zhonghua daode cishanhui 中华道德慈善会), 58 Shanghai Municipal Foundation for Charity, 78 China Family Panel Studies (Zhongguo jiating zhui zong diaocha 中国家 庭追踪调查, CFPS), 126, 232 China Foundation Center (jijinhui zhongxin 基金会中心网, CFC), 286 China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (zhongguo fupin jijinhui 中国扶贫基金会, CFPA), 286 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) Institute of Marxist Studies, 193 Institute of Minorities and Anthropology, CASS, 82 Institute of World Religions (IWR), CASS, 144, 184

322

INDEX

Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, 141 Consultative People’s Political Conferences (CPPC), 287 Chinese Spiritual Life Survey (CSLS), 125, 126 Civil War, 53, 57, 127, 156, 166 Confucianism filial piety (zhongxiao 忠孝), 44 “national religion” (guojiao 国教 ), 76

E “engaged Buddhism”, 145 epistemic communities, 84

F “factory of the world”, 238 Falungong “evil cults” (xiejiao 邪教), 65 Li Hongzhi, 66, 210 See “Buddha Law” “feudal superstitions” (fengjian mixin 封建迷信), 56 “Fifth Modernization”, 160 “Five Introductions and Five Transformations” (wujin wuhua 五进五化), 187 “foreign” religion, 132, 186 “four famous Buddhist mountains” (fojiao sida mingshan 佛教四大名 山) Emeishan, 157, 167 Juhuashan, 157 Putuoshan Putuoshan Buddhist Association, 166, 167, 226 Wutaishan, 157

G GMD (Guomindang), 5, 6, 56–58, 94, 115, 133 H Historical and Cultural Cities (lishi wenhua mincheng 历史文化名城), 217 “householder groves” (jushilin 居士 林) See lay devotee lodges Household Responsibility System, 16 housemaid (baomu 保姆), 43 Hubei fojiao zaixian 湖北佛教在线, 109 I International Labor Organization (ILO), 34, 40 J Jingkong 净空, 77 K Korean War, 58 L Laws and regulations Accreditation of Charity Organizations, 187 Administrative Measures on the Arrest and Eviction of Urban Vagrants and Beggars, 14 Charity Law, 93, 184 Further Enhancing Health Services in Rural Areas, decision on, 22 Guidelines to Promote the Healthy Development of Charitable Causes, 91

INDEX

“homeless or wandering minors” (liulang weicheng 流浪未成), 39 Implementation of Rural Medical Assistance, opinion on, 22 Interim Measure for Social Assistance, 38 Law on Donations for Public Welfare Undertakings (gongyi shiye juanzheng fa 公益事业捐 赠法), 70 Law on Religion (zongjiaofa 宗教 法), 65 Opinion on the Reform of the Social Organization Management System, 186 Promotion of the Healthy and Orderly Development of Social Organizations, 187 Reform of the State Employee Pension System, 33 Regulations on Labor Security, 10 Regulations on Minimum Subsistence for Urban Residents, 17 Social Insurance Law, 22 Trust Law, 70 lay devotee lodges, 103 local gazetteers (nianjian 年鉴), 125 M Mazu pilgrimage, 152, 224 Mercy (cihu 慈护), 266 N National “Anti-Cult” Committee (Zhongguo fanxiejiao weiyuanhui 中国反邪教委员会), 239 National People’s Congress (NPC), 9, 70, 91, 93, 187, 216, 217, 238, 275

323

“new religious movements”, 128 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), 69, 78–80, 82, 84, 87, 93, 94, 142, 178, 285 Non-Profit Organization (NPO), 94 O Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 5 P people’s Communes dismantling of, 12, 161, 215 People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 11, 12, 16, 19, 29, 53, 231 Prefectural and local Buddhist Associations Liuzu Puji Charitable Society (Liuzu cishan puji hui 六祖慈 善普济会), 240 Ningbo Buddhist Charity Merit Society, 227 Ningbo Charity Federation, 227, 228 private foundation (feigongmu jijinhui 非公募基金会), 298 Provincial Buddhist Associations Guangdong Buddhist charity clinics (Guangdong fojiao cishan zhensuo广东佛教慈善诊所), 240 Hebei Buddhist Charity Foundation, 167, 183, 196 Hebei Buddhist Merit Society Foundation, 249 public fundraising (gongkai mukuan xingwei 公开募款行为), 298 Q qigong , 30, 65, 66, 77, 161

324

INDEX

R Red Cross Society of China, 81 redemptive societies Yiguandao 一贯道, 57 “religious craze” (zongjiao kuangre 宗 教狂热), 63 Religious NGO (RNGO), 68, 69, 90, 93 Religious work BRA (Bureau of Religious Affairs), 54–56, 60, 132, 160, 206, 218, 220, 224, 252, 275 Bureau of Ethnic and Religious Affairs (BERA), 266 “Five Characteristics” (wuxing 五 性), 54 “opposing the infiltration of religion”, 54 “tortuous development” (quzhe fazhan 曲折发展), 59 See SARA (State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) Ren’ai Foundation “charity stands” (xinzhan心栈), 289 “civic virtue award”(xiaode jiang 孝 德奖), 288 clothing donation program (yi 衣 + 衣), 292 elderly care (laonian guanhuai老年 关怀), 295 environmental awareness (ren’ai huanbao 仁爱环保), 296 “Four Harmonies Community Services” (sihe ren’ai shequ fuwu 四和仁爱社区服务), 293 “life care” (shengming guanhuai 生 命关怀), 295 Listening Hotline (qingting rexian 倾听热线), 292 Longquan 龙泉monastery, 142 “loving heart congee” (aixin zhou 爱心粥), 288

Ren’ai Rescue Team (jiuyuandui 救 援队), 294, 301 Xuecheng 学诚, 142, 183 See Benevolent Love Charity Foundation (ren’ai cishan jijinhui 仁爱慈善基金会) Renmin University, 82, 84, 85, 180, 181 Research Center for the Study of Science and Atheism (kexue yu wushenlun yanjiu zhongxin 科学 与无神论研究中心), 193 S SARA (State Administration for Religious Affairs) Wang Zuo’an, 87 Ye Xiaowen, 55 See Religious work Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, 181 Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau (Shanghai shi minzhengju 上海市 民政局, SCAB), 79 Silk Road Initiative, 143, 154 social issues COVID-19, 186, 191, 197, 225, 233, 237, 250, 252, 278, 293, 294, 301, 303 HIV/AIDS infections, 218, 242 “left-behind” (liushou 留守) elderly and children, 28, 36 “lepers’ villages” (mafeng cun 麻风 村), 238 orphans, 10, 38, 166, 168, 215, 264, 269, 271, 288, 291, 295, 296 population ageing, 20 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), 19 skewed sex ratio, 4, 18, 30 social policies

INDEX

Basic Medical Insurance System for Urban Staff and Workers, 17 compensation for workplace injury, 32 disaster mitigation (jiuzai 救灾), 294 disaster relief, 3, 16, 28, 29, 46, 51, 159, 177, 229, 236, 248, 264, 288, 292, 294 employment insurance, 32 “Five Guarantees” (wubao 五保), 37 Five Insurances, 32 Housing Fund, 17, 32, 35 maternity leave allowance, 32 New Rural Co-operative Medical Care System, 22 New Rural Co-operative Medical Scheme (NRCMS), 34 one-child policy, 14, 20, 41, 43, 176 pensions/old-age insurance, 32 poverty alleviation (fupin 扶贫) dibao, 17, 22, 37, 38 Poverty Alleviation and Disaster Relief Public Association (fupin zainan gongyi xiehui 扶贫救灾公 益协会), 225 social relief for the poor, 12 social assistance relief for young children (ertong jiuzhu 儿童救助), 295 support to “martyrs of the revolution”, 36 social insurance, 12, 13, 15, 21, 28, 36, 37, 41 social security, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 19, 21, 27, 28, 36, 46, 88, 210

325

social services (shehui fuwu 社会服 务), 292 social welfare (shehui fuli 社会福 利), 158 Unified Basic Pension System for Enterprise Workers, 17 Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance (UEBMI), 17 Urban Minimum Living Guarantee System, 17 urban resident permit (hukou 户 口), 14 Urban Residents Basic Medical Insurance (URBMI), 34 Southern Buddhists Theravada Buddhists, 105 Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau Fu Hui 福慧 (Fu Hui Education Foundation), 142 Tzu Hui 慈辉佛教基金会 (Gracious Glory Buddhism Foundation), 142 Special Economic Zone (SEZ), 109, 152, 223 Special municipal Buddhist Associations Tianjin Charity Merit Foundation, 183 State Council Bureau of Statistics, 124, 265 Commission for Population and Family Planning, 12 Health and Family Planning Commission, 30 Health Commission, 30 Minister of Labor, 11 Ministry for Civil Affairs (MCA), 12 Ministry of Education, 9 Ministry of Emergency Management, 29 Ministry of Finance, 86

326

INDEX

Ministry of Health, 30 Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MHURD), 17 Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS), 19 Ministry of Internal Affairs, 9 Ministry of Labor, 12 Ministry of Labor and Social Security, 15, 19 Ministry of Personnel, 12, 19 National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA), 32 National Tax Administration, 86 Occupational Safety and Health Council, 29 State Council Commission for Development and Reform, 86 “study societies” (xuehui 学会), 115 T Taiwanese Buddhists Dharma Drum Foundation, 178 Foguangshan Buddha Light International Association (BLIA), 270 Tzu Chi Foundation, 68, 165 Taixu, 133, 134, 137, 156, 224, 235, 262, 275 Tangshan earthquake, 11, 15, 19, 68 Temples Bailin Chan柏林禅寺 temple Changhui 常辉, 183, 269 Great Kindness Homely Garden (hongde jiayuan 弘德家园), 249, 269 Jinghui 净慧, 249, 269 Da Kaiyuan 大开元temple, 225 Daxingshan大兴善 temple, 246 Donglin 东林temple Charitable Merit Society, 236 monastery, 236

Pure Land Cultural Foundation (jingtu wenhua jijinhui 净 土文化基金会), 236 Great Buddha Philanthropic Merit Society (dafo cishan gongdehui 大佛寺慈善功德会), 244 Guangfu 光福 temple charitable relief merit society (Guangfu si cishan jiuji gongdehui西昌光福 寺慈善救济功德会), 244 Guangji 广济temple, 108, 133 Hanshan Temple Charity Center, 232 Hongfa Charity Merit Society, 231 Huayan 华岩temple cultural foundation (wenjiao jijinhui 文 教基金会), 243 Manjusri Hall Blessed Wisdom Merit Society (Wenshuyuan fuhui gongdehui 文殊院福慧功 德会), 244 Master Zhenchan Children’s Welfare Foundation, 68 Nanputuo temple Nanputuo Charity Foundation, 167 Shenghui 圣辉, 275 Zhengxing 正兴, 83, 275 Shanghai Jade Buddha temple (yufo si 玉佛寺) Juequn 觉群, 229 Juequn Charity Merit Society (ci’ai gongdehui 慈爱功德 会), 270 Juequn Cultural and Educational (wenjiao文教) Foundation, 192 Juexing 觉醒, 183, 230, 270 Shanghai Jing’an (静安) temple, 169, 229, 230 Shaolin temple

INDEX

Charity and Welfare Foundation (cishan fuli jijinhui 少林慈善福利基金 会), 69 Ciyouyuan 慈幼院, 248 Xiangri Deban Chan香日德班禅 temple Xingyuan 行辕Charity Hospital, 253 Xishuangbanna Prefecture Buddha Light Home 西双版纳州佛光 之家), 242 See Ren’ai Foundation Theravada Buddhists See Southern Buddhists “Three Nos” (sanwu 三无), 37 Tibetan Buddhists Dalai Lama, 133, 135 Living Buddha, 129, 135 Panchen Lama, 135, 136 Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), 139 training center (cidongyuan 慈动院), 263

327

U United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women, 69 United Nations Funds for Population Activities, 43 United Nations’ World Peace Millennium Conference of Religious and Spiritual Leaders, 275 V “vagrants and beggars” (liulang qitao 流浪乞讨), 38 W Wang Yiting 王一亭, 229 Wenchuan earthquake, 19, 177, 178, 182 World Trade Organization, 17, 162 Z Zheng Xiaoyuan 郑筱筠, 90