China's Christmas strictly business

By The Associated Press and The Christian Science Monitor

	NG HAN GUAN / AP Chinese workers put up Christmas decorations outside a shopping mall in Beijing. While not officially celebrated in the communist country, the Western holiday is being embraced by retailers.
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It's a classic Christmas-shopping moment in the unlikely setting of central China — though one that is becoming more common as Chinese, few of whom are Christians, adopt the holiday as a festive time to shop.

But for members of China's unofficial Christian congregations, this is a season of fear as communist authorities crack down on unauthorized worship, detaining activists and bulldozing churches.

"Everyone is scared now. This Christmas will be tougher than usual," said the organizer of an underground church in the eastern city of Hangzhou whose building was destroyed in October. The man spoke on condition of anonymity.

The contrast between the crackdown and the Christmas celebrations highlights Chinese authorities' desire to isolate religious dissenters while exploiting the holiday's commercial potential.

"The central policy of the Communist Party has never shied from good commercial opportunities," said Bob Fu, a U.S.-based monitor of the underground Chinese church.

"They can call it 'Christmas with Chinese characteristics,' " Fu said, borrowing the ruling party's language for China's interpretation of such Western concepts as capitalism and socialism.

China's government allows worship only in government-monitored churches, temples and mosques. But tens of millions of believers belong to unauthorized churches, where clergy and members are frequently harassed and detained.

Official controls on religion stem from government unease that churches could act as a rallying point for opposition and threaten communist rule.

Christianity took root in China about 150 years ago, spread by missionaries accompanying European and American traders who set up colonial enclaves along its east coast. Communist leaders barred most religious activity after the 1949 revolution, ordering Chinese to cut ties with fellow believers abroad.

Today, about 15 million Protestants and 10 million Catholics worship in the official churches. Millions more are believed to belong to the unofficial, or "house," churches.

The rise of Christmas — as a secular bright spot during the bleak Chinese winter — has paralleled the rise of capitalist-style economic reforms.

In Shanghai, the country's commercial capital, a 70-foot-high Christmas tree stands on a stretch of tony Nanjing West Road that is dotted with boutiques for Gucci, Versace and other designer brands.

In an echo of American tradition, several shopping centers are advertising visits by Santa Claus. Another promises a "red-nosed clown special holiday."

Such marketing has spread inland to Changsha, an industrial center along the Yangtze River, where Christmas carols are piped through the Trust Mart discount store and ribbons, wreaths and fake snow adorn doorways.

"It's a lively atmosphere. It makes people happy and helps with business," said shop assistant Wendy Huang, wearing a red-and-white Santa Claus hat and vest.

At Christmastime in the remote mountain valleys of Fujian province, it is possible to pick up the live sounds of a brassy approximation of "Silent Night," "Onward Christian Soldiers" or even "Jingle Bells."

Each year at this time, the 15-member brass band of the Hutou Christian Church is on the march. Farmers, construction workers and small-business owners temporarily leave their jobs to assemble the only brass band, amateur or professional, anyone in this region has heard about. They even have a new CD.

Christianity — in both the official and unofficial churches — is gaining momentum in China.

"Being Christian" is fashionable, with young people sporting crosses as a mild form of dissent, and others feeling the faith has a certain international cachet.

But something more is at work.

In many interviews, congregants say the deity they worship communicates and has power in their lives, especially now when China is going through immense, jarring economic changes that upset older social contracts.

"People in China have a spiritual hunger, very much so," says an official church pastor in Xiamen, "and there is a need for that to be filled. I think this is the main reason why we continue to have larger services."

Last Sunday, several Xiamen churches held a Christmas party, notable because preaching took place to the overflow crowd.

What's happening around Xiamen is a far cry from the way Ji Lu worships in Beijing, the center of political power. Ji helps lead prayers in an unofficial church where 20 people gather in a room so small that when they share tea and cakes afterward, all must stand.

Ji is one of an estimated 30 million to 60 million "unregistered" Christian believers. His sect is made up of nearly 100 other small groups around Beijing — part of a range of illegal evangelical sects in China, some extremely devout, who say the church fills a "spiritual void" in their lives.

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company