China
A major persecution is looming over China. Though it will be different – less bloody, more hi-tech – it will be just as insidious as that of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.
During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) Chairman Mao Zedong identified “five black categories”: landlords, rich farmers, counter-revolutionaries, evil influences (bad elements) and Rightists.
Deemed “enemies” of the communist revolution, members of these “five black categories” had to be neutralised – i.e., persecuted, re-educated and, if necessary, eliminated – for the revolution to succeed.
After the Tiananmen Square massacre (June 1989), the fall of the Berlin Wall (November 1989), the collapse of Communism across Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union (1990-1991), the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) knew it needed a new narrative to legitimise its rule and unite the people.
Since the early 1990s – courtesy of the CCP’s Patriotic Education Campaign – a new narrative has been taught in schools and universities across the nation. In what is essentially a radical reinterpretation of China’s history, the Marxist narrative of class struggle has been replaced with an ultra-nationalist narrative of national struggle.
The new narrative is two-fold, covering:
(1) National Humiliation. Beginning with the Opium Wars (from 1839), China suffered 100 years of humiliation at the hands of hostile, imperialistic, foreign [i.e. Western] forces;
(2) National Rejuvenation. Since the founding of the People's Republic (1949) the Communist Party has been leading China on a 100-year marathon to restore the nation to global supremacy. Hostile foreign forces – i.e., the West – are the problem/enemy, for which the CCP is the solution/saviour. To be patriotic, to love China, is to love the CCP.
On 31 July 2012 an overseas edition of the People’s Daily (the official mouthpiece of the Central Committee of the CCP) identified “five new black categories”: human rights lawyers, underground religious practitioners, dissidents, commentators who influence opinions via the internet and disadvantaged social groups.
According to the CCP, members of these “five new black categories” are in “collusion” with “hostile, foreign [i.e. Western] forces” with the aim of ending Communist Party rule.
Consequently, members of these “five new black categories” will need to be neutralised – i.e., persecuted, re-educated and, if necessary, eliminated – if the China Dream is to be realised.
To that end, the CCP has established a “labyrinthine, all-weather, 24-hour quasi-police-state apparatus to keep even ordinary citizens under control” [Lam, page 7].
Recommended book:
The Fight for China’s Future
by Willy Wo-Lap Lam, (Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon UK; New York, NY, USA. 2020).
THE “NEW ERA” OF XI JINPING
July 2012: heir-apparent Xi Jinping is a leading figure in the CCP’s nine-man Politburo Standing Committee and vice-president of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
15 Nov 2012: Xi is elected to the post of General Secretary of the CCP.
14 March 2013: Xi is elected as President of the PRC. Persecution of the “five new black categories” starts almost immediately.
As president, Xi Jinping has departed from the more pragmatic religious policies of Jang Zemin (1989-2002) and Hu Jintao (2002-2012). Acutely aware of Christianity’s contribution to economic development and modernisation, Jang and Hu insisted that “materialists and non-materialists can co-operate and co-exist politically”, provided the churches cut ties with “imperialists” (i.e. Westerners), flush out “Judases” (anyone who might betray the CCP), and stay out of politics [Lam, p135].
President Xi has also departed from the collective leadership practices of his post-Mao predecessors and centralised power in himself. In March 2018, the Party-controlled National People’s Congress passed constitutional amendments which included the removal of presidential term limits, enabling Xi – the “Chairman of Everything” – to be “Emperor for Life”.
Under Xi, the days of co-operating and co-existing with “non-materialist” – i.e. people of faith – are over; the choice is submission or elimination.
The “problem” Xi and the CCP face today is that Church growth is essentially out of control. Senior Chinese officials admit (privately) that there are at least 70 million Christian converts in China, 80 percent of whom live in rural areas. One academic believes that number could reach 160 million by 2025.
Research undertaken over 2013-2014 revealed that in rural provinces north of the Yangtze River, 10 to 15 percent of the population is Christian and that in some villages 95 percent are Christian. Furthermore, at least 70 percent of China’s Christians worship in unregistered (and therefore illegal), “underground” house-churches [Lam, p140].
Lam writes: “Among Chinese officials who are nervously watching the proliferation of Christians – and actively preparing to quell the influence of Western religion – are senior cadres in charge of state security and propaganda.” According to Lam, the CCP is paranoid about Christianity’s “three excesses”: (1) the excessive speed of its growth, (2) its excessive numbers and (3) the excessive enthusiasm of its members [Lam, p153].
Recommended book:
Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power,
by TIME magazine senior correspondent and Beijing bureau chief, Dr David Aikman (first published 2003).
Lecture by David Aikman to USC School of Policy Planning and Development, Nov 2010, on the history and growth of Christianity in China.
Also: God Is Red, by Liao Yiwu (HarperCollins Publishers Inc. Nov 2012).
President Xi insists that Chinese Christianity be “sinicizised”. As analyst Willy Lam writes: “According to Christian scholar Guo Baoshen, ‘the purpose of “Sinicization of Christianity” is to render Christianity into a Communist and socialist [vehicle] so that it will become an obedient tool of the Communist Party’.” [Lam, p146.]
Lam concludes his chapter “Awakening for China’s Oppressed Christians” with these words: “The brutal clampdown on religion is part of President Xi Jinping’s Cultural Revolution-era control over the ideology and thought of every citizen. The ‘leadership core’…will not tolerate any ideas or activities that will challenge the supremacy of the party – or of himself… For a good number of Christians, however, Xi’s scorched-earth policy toward the Church marks a point of no return. The battle of the century has begun” [Lam, p166].
“The possibility that faith can eventually prevail over a political party that seems to have lost all moral and spiritual bearings cannot be discounted” [p169].
THE BATTLE BEGINS
In October 2012, South China Morning Post ran a series of articles on China’s looming leadership transition. One line has proved prophetic, although not in the way it was intended: “For clues about how China’s leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping might manage the world’s second-largest economy, Zhejiang province is a good place to start looking.”
After explaining that the years that Xi Jinping spent in Zhejiang (2002 to 2007) – as party secretary and as governor – “are regarded as a transformative period, during which Zhejiang expanded its private sector and moved toward cleaner, more innovative industries,” the author posits that as President of the People’s Republic, Xi Jinping would doubtless work the same magic on a national level.
Similarly, for clues about how President Xi Jinping would manage religion in what is possibly the world’s second-largest evangelical Christian population (after the USA), Zhejiang province is definitely a good place to start looking.
China analyst Willy Lam opines that it is no accident that President Xi’s campaign to “Sinicize Christianity”, so as to put Christianity into the service of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was launched in Zhejiang. For Zhejiang – and particularly Wenzhou city – is more than its Western connections; Zhejiang is nothing other than China’s Christian heartland.
See: Xi’s Obsession with “Cultural Renaissance” Raises Fears of Another Cultural Revolution
By Willy Lam, China Brief, 8 Feb 2016
Not only is Zhejiang Province China’s Christian heartland, but its business hub, Wenzhou – a city of some 10 million – is believed to have the largest Christian population of any city in China. The proliferation of churches, Christian-run businesses and sizable, influential Christian minority had earned Wenzhou the title, “China’s Jerusalem”. If Xi’s experiment to Sinicize Christianity could succeeded in Zhejiang, it would likely succeed anywhere in China.
Since February 2014: CCP officials in Zhejiang have forcibly removed more than 1800 crosses from their churches, much to the distress of faithful believers for whom the cross is the ultimate symbol of grace, salvation, transformation and hope.
See: The Chinese Communist Party and the Cross over Zhejiang
By Elizabeth Kendal, Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin, 9 April 2014
1 July 2015: the CCP enacts a National Security Law which paves the way for increased nation-wide repression and persecution, purportedly in defence of “national security”.
Then, on the weekend of 11-12 July 2015, the CCP arrested some 300 prominent human rights activists and lawyers, including several who were defending religious cases, in particular cases from Zhejiang.
27 January 2016: the CCP moves against China’s largest CCP-approved/registered Three Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) church – the 10,000-strong Chongyi Church in the Zhejiang capital, Hangzhou. For resisting CCP pressure to tear down the church’s cross and fly the Chinese flag, and for criticising the CPP’s campaign of persecution (which involved church “rectifications” and demolitions), Pastor Joseph Gu was arrested, disappeared and eventually criminally charged with fraud and embezzlement. Another seven influential TSPM and China Christian Council (CCC) leaders were arrested in the following days. Though released in December 2017, Pastor Gu was removed from his posts as a TSPM pastor and as the head of the Zhejiang Christian Council.
[Note: The “three self” principle mandates that churches be self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagating. Ironically, there are no churches more completely “three self” and thoroughly indigenous than those in China’s banned house church movement.]
1 November 2016: the Ministry of Justice’s amended “Administrative Measures for Law Firms” come into effect. China’s lawyers are now officially banned from speaking out about human rights abuses. Even silent protests, such as walking out of a courtroom, are prohibited.
See: Persecution of Church to escalate as Zhejiang experiment goes national.
By Elizabeth Kendal, Religious Liberty Monitoring, October 2016
25 October 2017: Also known as the “Core leader” and “Supreme Commander”, President Xi Jinping emerged from the 19th five-yearly Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress (18-25 October 2017) as the most powerful Chinese ruler since Mao Zedong. Though China’s Constitution limits the presidency to two terms, Xi – who was supposed to step down at the next Congress (i.e. at the end of his second term) – broke with tradition and did not designate a potential successor.
The CCP Congress agreed to enshrine “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”, into the CCP’s Constitution.
In a 21 September 2017 analysis for The Jamestown Foundation entitled “What is Xi Jinping Thought?” China expert Willy Wo-Lap Lam explains that, unlike Mao Zedong Thought or Deng Xiaoping Theory, Xi Jinping Thought does not offer China anything new. The core idea is said to be Xi’s “Chinese dream”, which, as Lam explains, “is a super-nationalistic narrative about China becoming a superpower”. This is to be achieved through “comprehensively deepening reform and upholding the mass line”. As Lam notes, there is nothing new here; Xi is simply reviving Maoist ideology.
According to Lam, “the biggest difference between Mao Zedong Thought and Xi Jinping Thought is that the former is oriented toward the future [i.e. the pursuit of a Marxist utopia in which China dominates the world], and the latter is consumed with self-preservation”.
STABILITY MAINTENANCE;
-- Upholding the Mass Line / United Front
Integral to all this is wei-wen, “stability maintenance”; for “upholding the mass line” – i.e. maintaining a united front – necessitates the rooting out of “destabilising elements”.
In a 21 July 2017 analysis for The Jamestown Foundation entitled Beijing Harnesses Big Data & AI to Perfect the Police State, Willy Lam exposes this most disturbing aspect of China’s emerging “New Era” reality. “Specialized weiwen cadres have the full cooperation of the country’s social-media and e-commerce platforms, as well as cloud-computing and related high-tech firms in establishing a seamless and all-encompassing intelligence network that would do George Orwell’s Big Brother proud.”
In the name of “stability maintenance”, the CCP is cracking down on the Church’s influence, networks and international connections. Not only has the CCP enlisted well over a million vigilante and volunteer informants – spies who penetrate deep into “black category” groups – it has installed more than 200 million surveillance cameras across the country. These cameras, which are fitted with the world’s most advanced facial recognition software, collect data on every individual for a “social credit” system to be used by the regime to reward loyalty and punish dissent.
See: China: The Return of “Mao-style Terror and Control”
By Elizabeth Kendal, Religious Liberty Monitoring, 25 January 2018
1 February 2018: new Religious Affairs Regulations (Order 686) come into effect.
While Article 2 asserts, “Citizens have freedom of religious belief”, it quickly becomes clear that religion – or at least that which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) deems “normal religious activity” – may only be exercised in accordance with strict CCP parameters and under the oversight of the CCP’s religious affairs departments.
Article 3 clarifies that, “The management of religious affairs upholds the principles of protecting what is lawful, prohibiting what is unlawful, suppressing extremism, resisting infiltration, and fighting crime.”
Article 4 states that, “The State, in accordance with the law, protects normal religious activities [and] actively guides religion to fit in with socialist society . . .” so as to “preserve the unification of the country, ethnic unity, religious harmony and social stability”.
Article 5 mandates that religious groups must be independent and not controlled by “foreign forces”.
Article 8 lists “assisting the people’s government in the implementation of laws, regulations, rules and policies . . .” as a function of religious groups.
Article 63 proscribes, “Advocating, supporting, or funding religious extremism, or using religion to harm national security or public safety, undermine ethnic unity, divide the nation . . .” and allows for extra-judicial “administrative punishments” (for which no charge or trial is necessary) to be delivered where no crime has been committed. Terms such as “extremism” and “harm” remain undefined and thus open to abuse and exploitation.
In summary: religious activities may only take place in approved, registered Religious Activity Sites and only with the approval of the relevant CCP authorities. Approval must be obtained for any “large outdoor religious statue”, and this, evidently, includes a cross. In fact, approval must be sought for just about everything. The requirement for churches to “submit an application” would probably be the most repeated phrase in the text, along with the assurance that the authorities will “make a decision”.
The clear intent is that all non-registered religious activity will be eliminated. Registered religious groups meanwhile, will find half their time will be taken up with administration, much of which is little more than a means of occupying the Church’s time and keeping it from “causing trouble”. Apart from being squeezed to the point of suffocation, churches find they now have dozens of ways to fall foul of the law.
Article 65 notes that at various times the authorities may order religious groups, religious schools or religious activity sites to undergo “rectification”. If rectification is refused, then registration certificates or establishment permits will be revoked, rendering the group or school illegal. Illegal buildings and structures will be “disposed of” (article 71), and large outdoor statues (e.g. crosses) will be “demolished” (article 72).
Finally, Article 75 reads: “Where anyone is dissatisfied with administrative acts taken by the religious affairs departments, they may lawfully apply for an administrative reconsideration; where dissatisfied with the decision of the administrative reconsideration, they may lawfully raise an administrative lawsuit.” However, this article needs to be understood in the light of the amended “Administrative Measures for Law Firms” which came into effect on 1 November 2016 and ban lawyers from speaking against human rights abuses.
TEXT: Religious Affairs Regulations
30 August 2018: A group of Chinese Christian Pastors and leaders published A Joint Statement: A Declaration for The Sake of Christian Faith. The petition was published on-line with 198 signatures; top of the list was Pastor Wang Yi (45, a former legal scholar) of Early Rain Covenant Church (ERCC) in Chengdu, the capital city of China’s south-western Sichuan Province. By 5 September 2018, the list had grown to 439 signatures, leading observers to question if this might mark “a significant moment in the country’s Church and State relations”.
Sunday 9 December 2018: police fan out across Chengdu, arresting more than 100 members of ERCC, including Pastor Wang Yi.
On 30 December 2019, a court sentenced 46-year-old Pastor Wang Yi to nine years in prison on charges of “inciting to subvert state power” and “illegal business operations”. It is the longest prison sentence given to a house church pastor in a decade.
1 February 2019: new Administrative Measures for Religious Groups come into force.
TEXT: Measures for the Administration of Religious Groups
The new Administrative Measures provide in-depth instructions on how the revised Religious Affairs Regulations (enacted 1 Feb 2018) will be implemented. The Administrative Measures mandate that all religious activities must be registered with, as well as guided, supervised and managed by, the Religious Affairs Department, which is now under the control of the CCP’s United Front Work Department.
The Administrative Measures for Religious Groups are designed to eliminate all unregistered house churches, which will be forced to choose between becoming part of the CCP system, in service to the CCP, or going underground, risking legal prosecution and severe penalties.
1 May 2021: new Administrative Measures for Clergy come into effect.
TEXT: Measures for the Administration of Religious Staff, State Administration of Religious Affairs Order No. 15
To operate legally, religious clergy – i.e., those who “engage in religious teaching activities” (Article 2) – now require a “clergy card” showing they are registered in the national database of authorised, CCP-approved clergy.
Registration is difficult to achieve and easy to lose. To achieve registration, clergy must be identified by an authorised CCP approved/registered religious group [i.e. the Protestant TSPM, the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), or the CCP-controlled China Christian Council – all of which are overseen by the CCP’s United Front Work Department], and willing “to support the leadership of the Communist Party of China [and] the socialist system ...” (Article 3). In short: registration necessitates a pledge of allegiance to the CCP.
Registered clergy are obliged to operate under the “supervision and management” of the CCP’s Religious Affairs Department which will “guide”, monitor and “file records” on all registered clergy (Articles 32-45).
Furthermore, registered clergy and registered organisations are obliged to monitor and report on each other (Articles 44 and 45).
As occurs with “social credit”, a system of rewards and punishments will apply.
As Bitter Winter notes (11 Feb 2021): “Compliant clergy [are] thus transformed into apparatchiks of the CCP, lured by rewards and terrorised by punishments. They will be called to ‘Sinicize’ their religions and preach love for the CPP to their devotees. Not much will be left of genuine religion – which is precisely the aim of these and other previous measures.”
The new Administrative Measures for Clergy raise the stakes considerably. For clergy (religious workers), as with churches, the choice is now between: (1) compliance (serving the CCP); (2) open, overt resistance (resulting in prison); or (3) secret, covert resistance (moving ministry underground).
It is highly likely that, within a few years, all China’s resisting clergy will be either suffering in prison or operating “underground”. Just as the cross is being eliminated from China’s skyline, so too is open Christian witness being eliminated from the land.
See:
China: CCP moves to fully subjugate the Church
By Elizabeth Kendal, Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin, 17 February 2021.
On 1 April 2021, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported: “Authorities in China are detaining Christians in secretive, mobile ‘transformation’ facilities to make them renounce their faith.”
The facilities are described as “mobile” because they can be set up anywhere – such as in basements and other “black”/secret sites – and relocated at any time.
RFA interviewed several believers who claimed to have been “disappeared” for months, even years. They testified of having been beaten, abused and threatened, while kept in isolation, often in darkness, until they “broke” and agreed to sign a confession and/or make a public apology. Many were so deeply traumatised by their treatment they resorted to self-harm and even attempted suicide.
What RFA is describing is undoubtedly, “Residential Surveillance at a Designation Location” (RSDL) – the CCP’s euphemism for enforced disappearance, complete with punishment, coercion and interrogation, outside the judicial system.
See: Intense Suffering Descends on Church
By Elizabeth Kendal, Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin, 14 April 2021
Recommended book:
The People’s Republic of the Disappeared: Stories from inside China’s system for enforced disappearance.
Edited by Michael Caster (Safeguard Defenders, 2017).
As Caster explains, RSDL has been the CCP’s preferred method of dealing with dissidents since the “Jasmine Revolution” of 2011. Revised in 2012, China’s Criminal Procedure Law grants China’s secret police the legal right to “disappear” whomever they wish and treat them however they wish, for as long as they wish, without oversight and with total impunity. According to RFA, this method is increasingly being used, not merely against anti-CCP political activists, but against peaceful, non-compliant Christian believers.
1 March 2022: The Measures on the Administration of Internet Religious Information Services come into force. [Full text (in English)]
From 1 March 2022 only organisations and individuals with an Internet Religious Information Services Licence may engage in ‘religious information services’ (i.e., may provide or disseminate religious information via the internet). To receive a Licence, the applicant must be ‘a mainland resident with Chinese nationality’ (thus, no foreign organisations or individuals allowed). Furthermore, they must be ‘a legal person organisation or an unincorporated organisation legally established within the territory of the People's Republic of China’. In other words, only CCP-approved registered churches and CCP-approved licensed clerics may apply for an Internet Religious Information Services Licence.
The Measures will prevent ‘illegal religious organisations and individuals’ [e.g., unregistered house churches and their 100 million members] from engaging in ‘illegal activities on the internet’.
Without a Licence, it will be illegal to 'do virtual missionary work and religious education and training, post the content of sermons, or forward related content'. It will be illegal also to 'organise, broadcast live, or record religious activities'. Meanwhile, it remains illegal to publish content that induces minors (aged under 18) to believe in religion. Any organisation or individual who uploads religious information to the internet without a Licence, will have their internet service shut down. Furthermore, they will be categorised as having no social credit score. Chinese citizens need social credit to participate in the economy. Lack of social credit leads to denial of access to goods and services - everything from healthcare and education to jobs and transport. It is a serious penalty.
See:
China: New Draconian Measures Come into Force 1 March [2022].
By Elizabeth Kendal, 16 Feb 2022.
1 June 2022: Measures for the Financial Management of Religious Sites come into force.
The 'Measures for the Financial Management of Religious Sites' will place church finances into the hands of the Communist Party's United Front Work Department and Ministry of Finance. From 1 June, registered churches will no longer be able to make decisions on how their buildings or finances are used. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will make the decisions and issue instructions.
The escalating repression is all part of President Xi Jinping's plan to drag the country back into a Maoist hell where the CCP - or more specifically, Chairman Xi - controls absolutely everything.
At the CCP's 20th National Congress -- held in Beijing from 16 to 22 October 2002 -- Xi Jinping was appointed to an unprecedented, status-quo-busting, third term as President.
See:
China's Great Leap Backwards: the implications of the CCP's 20th National Congress,
by Elizabeth Kendal for Religious Liberty Monitoring, Oct 2022.
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GAO ZHISHENG
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Internationally acclaimed human rights lawyer and religious liberty advocate Gao Zhisheng has been “disappeared” repeatedly since his first abduction in November 2004. His human rights and religious liberty advocacy had brought him into contact with persecuted Christians, and it was during these early persecutions, that Gao converted to Protestant Christianity. A torture survivor, Gao is doubtless China’s most severely persecuted Christian. [Chronology by Human Rights Watch, to August 2014.]
In August 2014, when Gao Zhisheng emerged from three years secret detention, much of that in solitary confinement, he was a shadow of his former self; indeed many surmised he’d been “utterly destroyed”.
Subsequently placed under house arrest, isolated and denied access to medical care, Gao could have withered and died; but he did not. Instead, he rallied and threw his energy into secret writing. Defying serious health issues and intensive supervision, he was able to write both a memoir and a 40-page human rights report while working on a new constitution. Smuggled out of the country at great risk, Gao’s secret writings have since been published.
Recommended book:
Unwavering Convictions (Carolina Academic Pres, 2017)
Gao Zhisheng’s memoir, published in Taiwan in Chinese in June 2016 and in the US in English in January 2017.
An English translation of his 40-page report, “2016 Human Rights Report for China”, was published in October 2017. Briefing and summary & Full Text .
Gao’s current status: he has been “disappeared” since November 2017.
See: Christian advocate confined in an “infinite darkness”
-- the plight of Gao Zhisheng
By Elizabeth Kendal, Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin,15 November 2017
North Korea
When Pyongyang was the “Jerusalem of the East”
The Korean Revival of 1907 (also known as the Korean Pentecost) stands in history as one of the great transformative revivals of the 20th Century. Geopolitically, it was a tense time, and a spirit of fear and negativity pervaded the annual winter (January) Pyengyang Bible Class.
On the evening of Monday 8 January 1907, as some 1500 Korean Bible teachers, pastors and missionaries gathered together, the meeting was shaken by what Christians described as a powerful visitation of the Spirit of God. The result was an out-pouring of prayer, and a deep sorrow over sin.
The next day it continued as the Bible class was gripped by a spirit of repentance which culminated in confession, forgiveness and reconciliation.
From Pyengyang the movement spread so that the Korean capital, Pyengyang (Pyongyang) became known as “The Jerusalem of the East”.
Recommended:
1907 Revival (a 10:45 minute short film with archival footage)
But, in the mystery of God, the Korean Church would not be permitted to remain on the spiritual mountaintop for long.
War comes to the Korean peninsula.
Located as it is between China and Japan, Korea had long been the site of proxy wars as her powerful, imperialist neighbours fought for control over the strategic peninsula.
On 22 August 1910, imperialist Shinto nationalist Japan annexed Korea, ushering in a 35-year period of profound suffering and intense religious persecution.
In 1919, in the wake of World War I, Korean Christians led a movement for independence. Unfortunately, the hoped-for Western support did not eventuate. Instead, the pro-independence Christians were imprisoned, and the religious persecution intensified. One consequence of this terrible period was that Christianity came to be associated with courageous Korean nationalism, and the profile of the Church was raised.
In August 1945, in the final days of World War II, Soviet and US forces liberated the Korean Peninsula from Japanese occupation. The Peninsula was then divided along the 38th parallel with Soviets occupying the north and US forces occupying the south.
In the north, a Soviet-backed regime was installed, headed by a Red Army-trained guerrilla fighter named Kim Il-sung. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was proclaimed on 9 September 1948, with Kim Il-sung as the Soviet-designated Premier.
In 1950, North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel and invaded the South, triggering the Korean War.
An armistice was signed on 27 July 1953. Though the guns fell silent, the war was merely frozen, not ended, and a comprehensive peace remains elusive.
After the border closed, an estimated 2,300 churches with some 300,000 members disappeared from the north.
Recommended:
The Korean Pentecost and the Sufferings Which Followed
By William N. Blair and Bruce F. Hunt (Banner of Truth Trust, 2015; first published in 1977)
THE KIM DYNASTY
North Korea’s current Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un (born January 1984) is the son of Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, and grandson of Great Leader and Eternal President Kim Il-sung, whom the Soviets installed in December 1945.
As the illegitimate son of Kim Jong-il’s favourite mistress, Kim Jong-un was never meant to rule. Educated in Switzerland, Kim and his sister Kim Yo Chong, spent their childhood privileged, free and anonymous. They were, however, isolated, especially after their guardians abandoned them for the USA. Before being brought home to be groomed for leadership, Kim Jong-un developed a love of American basketball and popular culture. He is doubtless more interested in survival than ideology.
Under the rule of the Kim family, Christianity – like all political dissent – is prohibited. Dissent is punished with incarceration in a labour camp for the whole extended family to three generations. Public executions are also common.
Despite the persecution, the Church has survived and is believed to number between 300,000 and 500,000. Those who are not struggling to endure horrendous prison labour camps, endure prayerfully as secret believers.
The North Korean regime has two great fears:
1) REVOLUTION
Should North Koreans discover the truth – that: (a) they have been fed lies for some 70 years, (b) their situation is actually uniquely horrific, and (c) the only thing preventing them from enjoying the lifestyle of their fellow Koreans just over the southern border is the NK leadership – then mass anger and rebellion could be difficult to control.
To prevent this, the regime endeavours to keep its people cut off from the outside world in a permanent state of blackout. Under Kim Il-sung (1945-1994) the regime was motivated almost solely by Soviet Marxist-Leninism and the ideology of juche (self-reliance). However, under Kim Jong-il (1994 to 2011) the regime was forced to reassess the situation when, at the end of the Cold War, absent Soviet support, the hermit state entered a period of devastating famine. The Great North Korean Famine of 1994 to 1998 is estimated to have cost between 240,000 to 3.5 million lives; along with the myth of juche.
Today, under Kim Jong-un (installed 2011) the regime has worked to maintain isolation while raising living standards. The idea being that when the inevitable happens (as younger cadres know it will), and the blackout can no longer be sustained, then openness should lead inevitably to collapse and the end of the regime. Pyongyang is racing against the clock, for as soon as the regime permitted the operation of domestic markets, and opened to cross-border trade with China, a total blackout could no longer be maintained.
The reality is that black market radios, computers and mobile phones have been creeping into the blacked-out state for years; while American, South Korean and Christian content has long been smuggled in on contraband memory sticks.
As Daily NK reports (31 May 2021): “Recent surveys among defectors show a high percentage of them consumed foreign media while living in North Korea. According to a 2019 survey conducted by Unification Media Group, 91% of respondents said they had consumed South Korean and other foreign content while still living in North Korea. This is despite the fact that 75% of them had also witnessed someone being punished for engaging in this same behaviour.”
Today, more North Koreans than ever before are aware of what life is like outside North Korea.
2) US-ENGINEERED REGIME CHANGE
The regime saw what happened in 2003 to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, a former US ally who did not have a nuclear deterrent. It also saw what happened in 2011 to Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, who had relinquished all his nuclear weapons so he might ally with the West in its “War on Terror”. Saddam was executed by US-backed Shi’ite forces, whilst Gaddafi was lynched by al-Qaeda-aligned, US-backed Sunni jihadists. Convinced the USA is not to be trusted, North Korea will not willingly disarm, but will retain its weapons program for the purpose of deterrence.
THE ROAD TO PEACE AND LIBERTY
The regime’s well-founded fear of US-engineered regime change mean any talks that make disarmament a precondition will never get off the ground.
Despite this, the US continues to demand “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation” (CVID).
Meanwhile, South Korea, China and Russia (North Korea’s neighbours) are lobbying for a series of smaller steps or interim accords with more modest achievements, such as a freeze on missile tests and a suspension of missile production in exchange for an end to international sanctions. After all, the existence of nuclear weapons was not a stumbling block in the Reagan-Gorbachev US-Russia rapprochement of 1987.
Similarly, “reunification” – as in a borderless Korean Peninsula – is more likely to involve a series of smaller steps of rapprochement involving diplomacy, trade, and tourism, with openness carefully managed – probably for decades – as NK’s economy takes shape and catches up with the South’s. Indeed, the most probable scenario for “reunification” is a federation; but even that is a long way off.
Ultimately, the prospects are good for, with peace, NK could “become plugged into one of the globe’s most dynamic economic regions”.
People opposed to this path of peace – that includes ideologues and “hawks” in the NK Peoples’ Army (KPA) and the US government – are working hard to undermine and even derail the rapprochement process.
Meanwhile, sanctions have never worked, for as Russia’s President Putin explains, “Sanctions of any kind are useless and ineffective in this case ... [The North Koreans] will eat grass, but they will not abandon this [nuclear] program unless they feel safe.”
If sanctions are not the solution and war is out of the question, that leaves us with the possibility of returning to six-party talks (North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the USA).
Ultimately, what the Kim regime wants is a bi-lateral treaty with the USA; one that recognises North Korea as a nuclear power, taking regime change off the table. North Korea wants to be recognised as a sovereign independent state, taking reunification off the table (at least for the foreseeable future).
Should a resolution be reached, South Korea, China and Russia (North Korea’s neighbours) are ready to invest in such a way as to facilitate North Korea’s economic development. This is critical, for North Korea cannot truly open to the world until it has radically improved the living standards of its people.
Until then, the endless balancing act will remain:
- when risk is perceived to be high, repression and belligerence is extreme;
- when risk is perceived to be low, engagement and reform inch tentatively forward.
There really is no alternative to returning to the days of inching forward.
South Korea is keen to re-engage with the North, in particular to reopen the Kaesong Industrial Park and resume family reunions. The phone call which took place between North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un and South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday 27 July 2021 – i.e. on the 68th anniversary of the 27 July 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War – was their first in more than a year. Kim and Moon had been exchanging personal letters since April; it was in those communications that the two leaders agreed to take steps to recover trust and improve ties.
Russia, whose Far East shares a border with North Korea, is also keen to engage, particularly to connect the Trans-Korean railway to the Trans-Siberian railway. Not only would this be huge for north-east Asian trade, but it would also serve as competition to China’s Belt Road Initiative (BRI). Russia is also eager to construct a Trans-Korean pipeline to supply natural gas to the peninsula.
Enabled by peace and security, these measures could facilitate the North’s slow but sure transformation. Most critically, these measures would draw North Korea out of Communist Party-ruled China’s sphere of influence and into that of predominantly Christian South Korea, Russia, the US and the West.
This would be good news indeed for the Church in North Korea.
Recommended:
Out of Breath (30 minute documentary, screened by the ABC’s Foreign Correspondent, 19 February 2019)
excerpts:
If ever there was a project to build bridges between North Korea and the rest of us, this is it.
Every six months, without fanfare, medics and volunteers from the US, South Korea and other countries head to the North Korean countryside where they link up with local doctors and nurses to treat patients suffering from the deadly multi-drug resistant TB (MDRTB). . .
NARRATION: These three people, an American, a South Korean and a North Korean, are from countries that are technically at war, yet they aren’t just working together towards a common goal, but enjoying the friendship that has lasted many years. . .
DR STEPHEN LINTON: “Going there over an extended period of time – and I can’t count how many times I’ve been there over more than thirty years – and being involved in many programs and probably having argued more with North Koreans than the next 10 people in the world, after all this experience I’d have to say that North Korea is neither this nor that. It is its own self and it’s just a shame that more people don’t take time to figure it out”.
For more background on the peace process see:
Talks the Only Option
By Elizabeth Kendal, 13 September 2017
A Step in the Right Direction
Inter-Korean Summit of April 2018
By Elizabeth Kendal, 14 March 2018
US-NK Summit
US-NK Summit, Singapore, June 2018
By Elizabeth Kendal, 6 June 2018
A Stalemate in Need of a Solution
By Elizabeth Kendal, 5 September 2018
NK-US Summit
NK-US Summit, Hanoi, Vietnam, February 2019
By Elizabeth Kendal, 20 February 2019