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Authoritarian Containment
Authoritarian Containment
Public Security b ureau S and Prote S tant Hou S e
cH urc H e S in u rban cH ina
Marie-Eve Reny
1
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Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
© Oxford University Press 2018
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Reny, Marie-Eve, author.
Title: Authoritarian containment : public security bureaus and Protestant house churches in urban China / Marie-Eve Reny.
Description: New York, NY, United States of America : Oxford University Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017027130 (print) | LCCN 2017051193 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190698102 (updf) | ISBN 9780190698119 (epub) | ISBN 9780190698089 (hardcover) |
Subjects: LCSH: Church and state— China. | House churches—Government policy— China. | Protestant churches— China. | Authoritarianism— China.
Classification: LCC BR1288 (ebook) | LCC BR1288.R46 2018 (print) | DDC 322/.10951—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017027130
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1. Explaining Authoritarian Containment 26
2. Informal Protestantism in China and Local Government Toleration 45
3. Why Public Security Bureaus Contain Protestant House Churches 68
4. Everyday Forms of Containment 86
5. Containment and Authoritarian Regime Resilience 102
6. Containment across Authoritarian Landscapes 114
Conclusion 134
Afterword: The Demolition of Protestant Churches and Crosses in Zhejiang from 2013 to 2015 145
Bibliography 151
Index 169
Acknowledgments
i
Writing a book is a lengthy process. It is gratifying, at times frustrating, and above all, humbling. Thankfully, other individuals, and a number of institutions, have been involved in the project at different stages. It is their help that I wish to highlight here. This book originates in large part from the doctoral field research I conducted in China when I was a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto. The institution provided me with resources and intellectual support without which I would have been unable to conduct the research. In China, I was fortunate enough to be affiliated with Tsinghua University. Although I spent limited time on campus, the affiliation helped me navigate the field. I am ultimately grateful to the members of my dissertation committee, who provided invaluable feedback on the project before and during my dissertation defense. Those include Jacques Bertrand, Joseph Wong, Lucan Way, William Hurst, and Andrew Mertha. My book project, however, is more than an edited version of my doctoral dissertation. I conducted follow-up field research in China when I was a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. I wish to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for supporting both my postdoc in Chicago and my followup fieldwork in China. The Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago provided an ideal intellectual space to think about ways of turning my dissertation into a book manuscript. The scholars and students I interacted with
there, including at the comparative politics and East Asia workshops, helped me think more comparatively about my work.
In seeking to apply my theoretical framework to informal religious groups other than Protestant house churches and autocracies other than China, I developed an interest for the study of Salafism in Jordan. In the summer of 2013, soon after the beginning of my appointment as assistant professor at Université de Montréal, I did field research in Jordan over the course of one month, with the support of a small Université de Montréal- SSHRC grant. I wish to thank both institutions for supporting my research in Jordan. While in Amman, I benefited greatly from the help of the University of Jordan’s Center for Strategic Studies in setting up interviews. The individuals I met there made a real difference in whom I was ultimately able to speak with and the information I gathered in the field. I was further assisted with interpretation during a number of interviews, which was of invaluable help. At Université de Montréal, I benefited from the help of Mai Murray, who did an exceptional job at collecting supporting information for the Egyptian case study in the comparative chapter of the book. I wish to thank Mai for her research assistance for that part of my book project. Colleagues in the Department of Political Science and the Department of History at Université de Montréal took precious time from their busy schedules to read my book project and provided tremendously helpful feedback on it. Those are Jane Jensen, Frédéric Mérand, David Ownby, Dominique Caouette, and Françoise Montambeault. I am grateful for their help. I finally wish to thank David McBride, the editor of my book at Oxford University Press, for his interest in my project, and his team, for assistance in the editing process.
Above all, the depth and quality of my findings would not have been the same had the individuals I interviewed in China and Jordan not agreed to take part in my research project. I owe them a sincere debt of gratitude. My family was also supportive of my work and ambitions, even when they did not generate tangible results in the short term. It is to them that I dedicate this book.
Authoritarian Containment
Introduction i
In China, religious practice is protected under the law only insofar as it is supervised by the state. Regulations on religious affairs state that all normal (zhengchang) religious gatherings should be approved by and registered with the State Administration for Religious Affairs.1 Pastors are selected by religious patriotic associations, which operate under the state administration. They preach sacred texts that are sanctioned by the government, and may only do so in government-registered religious sites.2 If they wish to preach outside these venues, they need government approval.3 Approval may be denied or may take time to get. The clergy can only invite foreign pastors to take part in religious events in Mainland China with government authorization.4
These regulations are part of a system of state corporatism that was implemented by Mao in the early 1950s and influenced by the Soviet model.5 The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sought to rid itself of imperial influence in China and thought the best way to prevent believers from being influenced by foreign, and especially Christian religious organizations, was for the government to keep a close eye on religious practice.6 The party assumed religion would wane with the advent of economic and social modernization, but meanwhile it should still be
1 The term normal is used to mean legal. Bays 2004; Goossaert and Palmer 2011; Koesel 2014; Marsh 2011, 218; Spiegel 2004; Yang 2012, 75; Guojia zongjiao shiwuju 国家宗教事务局 2005, 2, 23–24.
2 Vala 2009, 107; Yang 2012, 75.
3 Yang 2008, 28; Spiegel 2004, 49.
4 Spiegel 2004, 52.
5 Marsh 2011, 168.
6 Bays 2004; Goossaert and Palmer 2011; Vala 2012, 46; Marsh 2011, 167–168.
allowed under tight government supervision.7 Early on, regulations were intended to create a political environment that would be unviable for the practice of religion outside state control.8 Mao’s institutional legacy has remained almost intact to this day.
Nevertheless, starting in the 1980s, and even more so in the 1990s, China witnessed an expansion of religious groups operating outside the state’s grip. This was notably the case of unregistered Protestant churches, which proliferated at a rapid pace in the country’s urban areas. While Protestants accounted for 5 to 7 million believers in the 1980s, they are now estimated to “range from 50 to 130 million.”9 Eighty percent of Protestants are thought to practice in unregistered churches.10 Many churches are not registered with the State Administration for Religious Affairs because their leaders think religion and the state should be separate, and congregations should be able to manage their own activities without government interference. The central government considers these churches illegal.
The Puzzle
Local governments are expected to conform with regime objectives, enforce central government regulations, and take an active role in constraining religious organizations to adhere to the law. Yet reality suggests municipal governments have done so in a targeted manner. Public security bureaus were given the task of prosecuting and preventing illegal religious activities,11 but they have not applied systematic pressure on unregistered churches to register or shut down. These bureaus have instead tolerated a large number of informal churches and turned a blind eye on their activities.12 The latter include renting or purchasing unregistered
7 Goossaert and Palmer 2011; Marsh 2011. This system was abolished during the Cultural Revolution and put back in place in 1979 following the end of Mao’s totalitarian regime.
8 Dunch 2008, 163; Spiegel 2004, 50–52; Kindopp 2004, 3.
9 Homer 2010, 61; also see Bays 2004; Cao 2017, 46; Madsen 2010, 62.
10 Li 2009, 19. I use the terms unregistered, informal, and house churches interchangeably in this analysis. Each is meant to describe congregations falling outside the scope of legality according to central government regulations. The term house church, which is most commonly used, has been questioned as not all unregistered churches are set up in actual homes. See Vala 2012 on terminology. Although the term underground church (dixia jiaohui) is sometimes used to refer to Protestant house churches, it tends to be more commonly applied in Mandarin to refer to unregistered Catholic churches.
11 Goossaert and Palmer 2011, 330. Other government departments may be involved in the activities of house churches. This includes local branches of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, which have approached some house church leaders in an attempt to have them register. Under special circumstances, the United Front Work Department may approach members of unregistered communities to find out more about their opinions with respect to the regime. State actors in charge of security, and especially public security bureaus, are nevertheless the main agents intervening in house churches’ everyday activities.
12 For a similar observation on local authorities’ leniency toward house churches, see Kindopp 2004.
residential and commercial property to run church services, building Christian schools registered under the label of educational companies, and traveling in and out of churches’ locality, or the country, to preach religious beliefs without formal state approval. In some cases, Christian entrepreneurs have even built illegal chapels on the compounds of their factories to proselytize among workers with the informal approval of local state officials.
This situation is particularly intriguing given that to ensure their resilience, authoritarian regimes, including China, commonly seek to neutralize and keep an eye on possible groups in society that could aggregate and articulate their interests autonomously, by co-opting them.13 Among such groups, autocrats worry particularly that religious organizations might use faith to mobilize citizens against their regime. As Karrie J. Koesel among other authors emphasizes, religion and the state are contending forms of rule, and while they might at times cooperate, they may also compete with each other.14 Anna Grzymala-Busse further observes that religions may have a deep effect on the everyday lives of their followers and “some . . . make claims about every aspect of their adherents’ lives.”15 Anthony Gill believes that in regimes where the state is secular, the fast expansion of religion might signal that there are growing ideological disagreements between society and the state.16 Religious leaders might push for a stronger role of faith in the public sphere, which might make the authorities nervous. Religious groups might also condemn human rights abuses committed by authoritarian regimes or challenge those regimes in times of crises.17 With their appeal, religious leaders have the ability to shape the minds and opinions of their followers in profound ways. Dan Slater, for instance, notes that religion, alongside nationalism, has “broadly resonant frames,” and activists in Southeast Asian countries have used religious symbols to rally supporters in their struggle against autocracies.18 Koesel adds that religious practice facilitates “robust forms of associational life,” and religious organizations are socially diverse.19 This places religious leaders at a considerable advantage vis-àvis autocratic regimes as they can mobilize citizens relatively easily.
13 Albrecht and Schlumberger 2004; Bellin 2000, 2012; Collier and Collier 1979; Dickson 2000, 2003; Gershenson and Grossman 2001; Escribà-Folch 2013; Escribà-Folch and Wright 2010; Ezrow and Frantz 2011; Fjelde 2010; Gandhi 2008; Gandhi and Przeworski 2006, 2007; Geddes 2006; Gerschewski 2013; Kim and Gandhi 2010; Linz 2000; Magaloni 2008; Magaloni and Kricheli 2010; Schedler 2009; Stacher 2012; Svolik 2012; Wintrobe 1998.
14 Koesel 2014, 2. Other authors have also written on the subject, including Gill 2001, 3–4, 120; Kindopp 2004, 3; Lacroix 2011; Madsen 1998, 130–131; Philpott 2007, 506; Yang 2010.
15 Grzymala-Busse 2012, 423.
16 Gill 2001.
17 Gill 1998, 2001, 4, 120; Kindopp 2004, 9; Lacroix 2011; Lust-Okar 2007; Slater 2009, 2010.
18 Slater 2009, 209.
19 Koesel 2014, 3.
Examples of religious groups that succeeded in undermining authoritarian rule or influencing the collapse of these regimes abound. In the 1980s, the Catholic Church was involved in organizing a civil disobedience campaign against Ferdinand Marcos by issuing official statements in disagreement with the regime and seeking popular support through Manila radio stations.20 In Poland, the Catholic Church was crucial to the emergence of the anti- Soviet Solidarity movement in 1980.21 In South Korea under Park Chung-Hee, both Protestant and Catholic Church leaders challenged the state by joining the pro-democracy movement in the 1970s.22 These examples are a few among several. Monica Duffy Toft et al. indeed find that among seventy-eight countries that democratized between 1972 and 2009, religious actors were instrumental in pushing for a political transition in forty-eight of them.23 In thirty of those cases, religious actors were actively involved in democratization, while in the other eighteen countries, they upheld the process.24
Religious leaders have undoubtedly supported and legitimized authoritarian rule in some cases.25 Slater observes that in Southeast Asian postcolonial societies, “communal elites have granted authoritarian regimes a critical imprimatur of symbolic legitimacy, mobilized followers to suppress regime opponents, and allowed state institutions to insinuate themselves into doctrinal practices.”26 By capitalizing on their “symbolic power,” states have been able to exert their influence through “protection pacts” among elites, thereby making regimes more durable.27 In a similar vein, Paul W. Werth maintains that in Tsarist Russia, the recognition of religious pluralism helped make Orthodoxy and non-Orthodox minorities useful to the empire to achieve broader ends such as “the maintenance of social stability, its desire to foster heterodox loyalty, its determination to control its Jewish population, and its own inclination to construe faith as a matter of birth and ancestry.”28
This being the case, some religious leaders who initially cooperated with autocrats, or complied with the latter, eventually challenged authoritarian rule.29 Koesel notes that this was true of some monks who took part in the 2007 Saffron
20 Kashambuzi, “How a Catholic Archbishop Saved the Philippines,” November 19, 2012; Slater 2009, 2010.
21 Johnston and Figa 1988; Osa 1996; Smith 1996; Toft, Philpott, and Shah 2011; Yang 2010.
22 Chang 1998; Johnston and Figa 1988.
23 Toft et al. 2011, 92.
24 Toft et al. 2011, 96.
25 Slater 2010; Smith 1996.
26 Slater 2010, 16.
27 Slater 2010, 16–19, 22–23.
28 Werth 2014, 85.
29 Gill 1998.
Revolution against the military dictatorship in Myanmar.30 Gill further observes that the Catholic Church in Brazil, which was initially co-opted by autocratic elites, later became an outspoken critic of the regime.31 There is no reason to believe China is immune to religious mobilization, and the CCP recognizes that.32 Beijing has voiced fears over the instrumentalization of religion for purposes of political mobilization. In 2016, President Xi Jinping called for preventing the political use of religion by foreign actors.33 The party further reiterated the need to make more local religions whose origins are foreign, including Protestantism.34 Similarly, high officials from the United Front Work Department (tongyi zhanxian bumen) were said to have expressed concerns that the US government might use some informal churches in China to overthrow the regime peacefully.35 These concerns are not new. In the early 1990s, the CCP leadership realized that approximately 70 percent of the country’s religious activities might operate outside government control and worried that informal churches could eventually challenge the regime if left unmonitored.36 The fact that churches are informal does not imply they oppose the regime. Yet for the CCP, congregations that are not directly supervised by the state might have connections with pro-democracy Christian organizations overseas.37 In a post-Tiananmen setting where the Chinese Communist Party feared any pro-democratic threats, Premier Li Peng called for a clampdown on informal churches.38 A decade later and shortly after the government’s clampdown on the Falun Gong, the former head of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, Ye Xiaowen, thought “religion became a weapon in the hands of the dissidents for inciting the masses and creating political disturbances” and might be used to challenge the regime.39
30 Koesel 2014, 4.
31 Gill 1994, 1998.
32 Shambaugh 2008; Brady 2008; Spiegel 2004.
33 Nectar Gan, “Be on Guard for Foreign Religious Infiltrators, Chinese President Warns,” South China Morning Post, April 25, 2016.
34 Kou Jie, “Meeting Calls for Religion with Chinese Characteristics,” Global Times, April 25, 2016.
35 Interview with a Christian academic, Shanghai, 2010. Also see Goossaert and Palmer 2011 on CCP concerns that Protestantism might be used as a tool for the promotion of Western influence.
36 Interview with an academic, Shanghai, 2010.
37 This fear associated with the clergy’s foreign connections also applies to state- sanctioned religious organizations. In February 2012, Beijing imposed restrictions upon official religious organizations’ charitable activities, further limiting their ability to secure foreign aid. A document published by six government departments stressed that “charitable operations under religious bodies should . . . be free from the influence of external forces.” See Teddy Ng, “Government Introduces Fresh Regulations to Stop Charitable Organisations from Spreading Religion and ‘Undermining National Interests,’ ” South China Morning Post, February 28, 2012.
38 Hunter and Chan 1993.
39 Quote from Marsh 2006, 113–114; also see Yang 2011, 22.
Beijing’s concerns over the political intentions of informal Protestant churches were exacerbated because a number of high-profile unregistered congregations became more assertive in pushing for the right to practice as autonomous organizations. This was particularly true of Shouwang Church in Beijing, Wanbang Church in Shanghai, Qiuyu Zhifu Church in Chengdu, and Liangren Church in Guangzhou starting in 2009.40 From the state’s perspective, these churches indirectly fought for an independent civil society. Had the government accommodated their claims, other societal organizations would have likely asked for equal treatment.
In light of such central government concerns, one would anticipate to see local governments implementing regulations on religious affairs, by co-opting informal churches and shutting down the ones resisting central government policy. Reality, however, suggests that local public security authorities have not actively worked with religious officials on co-opting unregistered churches. Clampdowns on house churches also remain targeted and sporadic. Rather, local public security bureaus in Chinese cities have bent many rules in favor of unregistered churches. This book thus begins by accounting for why local officials tolerate Protestant house churches.
I argue that public security bureaus tolerate these churches to contain the influence of informal Protestantism in urban China. I define containment (ezhixing) as the conditional and bounded toleration of a group outside state- sanctioned institutions.41 Toleration is conditional insofar as it involves a bargain. State security actors grant religious leaders some autonomy in exchange for complying with a set of conditions. Rules may be implicit or explicitly stated. The authorities expect religious leaders to keep a low profile and share information about their internal activities with public security bureaus. They further expect unregistered pastors to refrain from crossing red lines (guo hongxian) deemed unacceptable by the regime such as criticizing the government (piping zhengfu), organizing political activities (anpai zhengzhi huodong), concealing religious activities that the authorities would consider sensitive, like those involving large groups of believers and international Christian organizations, or actively seeking to build cooperation with pro-democracy actors overseas. Should these red lines be crossed, churches
40 China Aid Association 2010, 34.
41 Containment is better known in international relations and underanalyzed in the study of state- society relations, and comparative politics more generally. See Gaddis 1982; Shambaugh 1996; and Staniland 2012, 2015. In the study of church- state relations in China, Mickey Spiegel 2004 has used the term containment to describe how the Chinese government deals with a growing number of house churches. Spiegel’s analysis begins with the assumption that containment exists, yet it does not conceptualize containment nor does it theorize about the conditions under which it is applied on some churches and not others. The same is true of Kindopp 2004.
could face coercion, including harassment, blackmail, or increased surveillance. Public security bureaus employ these measures to signal to religious leaders that there are consequences to moving away from their initial bargain.
Toleration is also bounded. Informal autonomy is granted to religious leaders because the state is unwilling to give them formal autonomy. By accepting the conditions of the containment bargain, including the decision not to engage in political activism, religious leaders are bound by an unwritten contract whereby they relinquish the possibility of asking for formal rights. Over time, if religious leaders’ interests remain constant, the rules of the bargain are “self-enforcing.”42 The more informal church leaders comply with local public security authorities, the more informal space they have, and the less likely they will press for formal recognition.
Alternative Explanations
Why do autocratic state actors tolerate informal religious organizations? Five arguments in the studies of international relations, comparative politics, and Chinese politics provide plausible answers to this question: the deterrent impact of international pressure on autocratic behavior, fragmented authoritarianism and its resulting principal-agent dilemma, the political economy of religion, social networks, and consultation-based policy learning. While these explanations are important, none of them can account, or account fully, for why public security bureaus in urban China tolerate Protestant house churches.
The Impact of International Pressure
Since the end of the Cold War, changes in the distribution of power worldwide have raised the costs of authoritarianism and domestic human rights violations.43 Western governments are more active at promoting democracy and applying pressure on non-democratic countries to reform.44 Scholars have suggested that international pressure deters authoritarian regimes from using repression indiscriminately. For Thomas Risse and Kathryn Sikkink, socialization in the international community may make autocrats more inclined to take human rights seriously.45 For James Fearon, autocrats adopt human rights norms because they care about what the leaders of other countries think of them.46 In accounting for
42 On the “self-enforcing” nature of bargains, see Weingast 2002, 682.
43 Levitsky and Way 2010.
44 Bunce and Wolchik 2011; Diamond 1995; Drezner 2011; Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán 2013.
45 Risse and Sikkink 1999.
46 Fearon 1997.
why some authoritarian regimes have lasted and others have democratized, Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way emphasize, among other variables, authoritarian rulers’ international “linkage,” namely “the density of ties” with Western countries and multilateral institutions.47 Denser “linkage” increases the costs of repression over time for autocrats.48
It is, however, unclear whether international pressure impacts autocratic rule and, if so, whether it has the effect of increasing or decreasing state repression.49 Reed M. Wood contends that international pressure and sanctions increase autocratic repression. They encourage political activism, decrease the resources necessary for dictators to compel cooperation among rival elites, and facilitate elite divisions and defections within the leadership.50 According to Escribà-Folch and Wright, sanctions also have different effects on authoritarian regimes, depending on their type. Neopatrimonial regimes lacking taxation capacity are unable to mitigate the negative effect of sanctions and find themselves with fewer government revenues to ensure elite loyalty. Dictators’ lower ability to buy off rivals leads to elite divisions and might increase risks of repression.51 Singleparty regimes like China are more politically stable in the face of international pressure as they have the capacity to raise taxes. Sanctions would not impede their ability to keep co-opting rivals.52
Economically feeble states with an insignificant military are also likelier to face pressure from external powers or the international community to reform their political system than strong states with a large economy and military.53 Applying pressure on such countries would not only be fruitless but could also be costly: the international community would risk alienating crucial economic partners.54
International pressure on autocratic powers might ultimately have counterproductive outcomes. Autocracies that are increasingly powerful economically and on which other countries depend for trade might have developed a sense of confidence, making them more immune to sanction threats. David Shambaugh predicts that enhanced Chinese power “is likely to result in increased defensiveness
47 Levitsky and Way 2010, 23, 43; Levitsky and Way 2005, 22. I do not flesh out Levitsky and Way’s entire argument here as the other variables lie outside the scope of the analysis.
48 Levitsky and Way 2010, 51, 53.
49 Wood 2008; Marinov 2005; Peksen 2009.
50 Wood 2008.
51 Escribà-Folch and Wright 2010, 339–340, 344.
52 Escribà-Folch and Wright 2010, 341. This also resonates with Smith (2006)’s observation that singleparty regimes are more stable in the face of sanctions than personalist autocracies.
53 Levitsky and Way 2005, 21.
54 Levitsky and Way 2005, 21.
and assertiveness,” 55 and several scholars have observed that China’s rise has made it more assertive. 56 Autocracies on the rise sometimes coerce opposition voices to send the international community a signal that it has no say in their domestic affairs. For instance, prior to US president Obama’s visit to China in November 2009, the Beijing authorities clamped down on Shouwang Church, one of China’s most influential unregistered congregations. 57 It is thus difficult to claim that international pressure consistently impacts Beijing’s behavior. It is even harder to trace how international influence might shape local governments’ policy calculations toward house churches in a decentralized polity like China.
Fragmented Authoritarianism and the Principal-Agent Dilemma
Public security bureaus in China could tolerate informal Protestant churches as a result of a principal-agent dilemma. Local officials may simply not consider the strict application of central regulations on religion a priority, and mobilizing forces to do so may be a waste of resources given the large number of informal religious organizations. Resource constraints, including police stations’ low budgets and officers’ limited income, might further lower incentives to monitor unregistered religious gatherings. This would be especially true in small and remote localities. The principal-agent dilemma is not unusual in China, where the bureaucracy is decentralized, and local and central government officials develop a different and possibly competing set of interests.58 Kenneth Lieberthal and Michel Oksenberg describe the Chinese bureaucracy as “fragmented” because central policy, when applied on the ground, changes based on the priorities of local governments.59 By empowering local governments and increasing their financial responsibilities, decentralization creates conditions for
55 Shambaugh 1996, 205.
56 Christensen 2006; He and Feng 2012; Johnston 2013; Wang 2012. Wang nevertheless nuances this claim by observing that China is more assertive toward the United States than it is with other countries. See Wang 2012, 169. Johnston suggests China’s assertiveness is not new and has varied from one policy matter to another over time. See Johnston 2013, 45–46. Finally, Fravel claims that China’s dealings with its neighbors in the context of territorial disputes have at times been cooperative and at times less so. One can therefore not say China is increasingly assertive across policy issues. See Fravel 2005, 46–47.
57 Yingxu Xu, “The Meaning of Shouwang,” Pushi Institute for Social Sciences, April 15, 2013.
58 Fewsmith 2013; Landry 2008; Pei 2006; Whiting 2004.
59 Lieberthal 1992; Lieberthal and Oksenberg 1988; also discussed in Mertha 2008, 2010; Tanner and Green 2007; and Xie 2013.
the evasion of central government policy.60 Decentralization may also deepen the gap between central and local policy because it is harder for the central government to monitor local governance closely.61
In China, gradual economic reforms and fiscal decentralization made the central government lose control over its local agents, strengthened local governments’ power, and accelerated corruption.62 Simultaneously, local governments were given the main task of ensuring the country’s economic development, and their ability to go up the ladder in the bureaucracy depended on how well they fulfilled that task.63 Reforms, in this sense, redefined what were considered high-priority tasks by local cadres, not only leading them toward selective policy implementation, but also favoring profitable policies, sometimes at the expense of citizens’ interests.64 To increase their revenues in the 1990s and 2000s, local officials commonly imposed extralegal fees on the rural population, expropriated arable land from peasants illegally that they resold at profitable amounts to contractors, and violated the central government’s environmental protection policies in the name of growth.65 In this context, tolerating unregistered churches may have constituted one of many instances in which local authorities moved away from central government policy.
The principal-agent dilemma argument is undoubtedly relevant in policy spheres that challenge local economic growth. It is, however, less relevant in areas where the main concern is stability maintenance. Local governments prioritizing stability maintenance will have their interests aligned with the central government. Yet while their objectives are in line, the means through which state security actors at the local level fulfill those goals may vary from the institutional arrangements developed by central authorities. The resulting policy gaps are not manifestations of a principal-agent dilemma but attempts by public security authorities to find a stable solution to central government regulations on religious affairs that do not work. Public security bureaus avoid enforcing Beijing’s unpopular co-optation policy on churches that insist on operating outside state corporatist structures. Localities break central government regulations to better address their grassroots-level reality, and avoid alienating and politicizing informal Protestant churches.
60 Tanner and Green 2007, 667–668.
61 Edin 2003; Landry 2008; Tanner and Green 2007; Whiting 2004.
62 Pei 2006.
63 Edin 2003; Hillman 2010; Oi 1992; Montinola et al. 1996.
64 O’Brien and Li 1999; Tanner and Green 2007, 668.
65 Cai 2003; Chan 1995; Guo 2001; Yep 2004.
Religious Groups and the Political Economy Argument
Public security bureaus may tolerate unregistered churches informally because they generate valuable material benefits for the local administration, and revenue that is reinvested in the economy. Religious groups open profitable faithbased businesses and organize festivals, which contribute to local prosperity. 66 In some localities, business transactions are opportunities for entrepreneurs to proselytize and build churches. 67 Cao observes that because religious bosses build factories and help the state attract foreign investments, local officials turn a blind eye on their informal religious activities. 68 Adam Yuet Chau further finds that local authorities in Shaanbei tolerate folk religious temples that do not clearly fit in the categories of Buddhism or Daoism. Along with André Laliberté and Fenggang Yang, Chau claims temples are tourist locations operating as profitable businesses whose donations are shared with the local administration. 69
Besides their contribution to the economy, informal religious organizations help reduce local administrations’ financial burdens in terms of social redistribution. Koesel claims that “public goods and services are one of the most important material resources that religious communities can offer local governments.” 70 Similarly, Laliberté claims that the revenues local Buddhist institutions generate enable the authorities to fight poverty and social inequalities. 71 Local authorities embrace such contributions, as they further stability.72 Religious communities’ involvement in social welfare takes various forms from building and fixing roads to collecting funds for post-earthquake infrastructure reconstruction. 73
Religious groups in other parts of the world have also contributed to reducing authoritarian states’ social burdens. According to Quintan Wiktorowicz, informal Islamist groups in the Middle East have been actively involved in charity work.74
66 Koesel 2014, 72, 81–82.
67 Cao 2011, 30–33; Goossaert and Palmer 2011, 302.
68 Cao 2011, 31; also see Koesel 2014, 81–82.
69 Chau 2006, 217; Laliberté 2011a, 113, 118; Yang 2012, 110–111; also see Yang and Wei 2005, 76.
70 Koesel 2014, 72.
71 Laliberté 2011a, 113, 118.
72 Koesel 2014, 72, 77. Hurst et al. 2014, however, suggest local sites of worship may not always contribute to stability through social service provision as they might facilitate citizens’ petitioning.
73 Bays 2012, 200; Koesel 2014, 72, 77; Laliberté 2011a, 119.
74 Wiktorowicz 2001, 83.
Abdullah Al- Arian, Asef Bayat, and Tarek Osman observe that religious organizations in Egypt have promoted social welfare among socio-economically underprivileged groups, thereby filling a task on behalf of the state.75 Janine Clark finds that Islamic clinics offer services to the middle class that run parallel to the statesanctioned healthcare system and have proven to be more effective and affordable than the latter.76
Religious communities’ involvement in local growth and charity work serves a legitimating purpose for local states. Religious organizations help improve the population’s perceptions about local governments. 77 They may further correct enduring misperceptions in some localities that informal religious organizations are politically or ideologically threatening actors. Officials may be inclined to view religious actors as constructive and working in the interest of stability.
78
The political economy arguments are insightful when it comes to understanding why local governments cooperate with religious organizations. Yet they assume financial and symbolic incentives primarily drive local authorities’ dealings with informal religious groups. 79 Material interdependence may reduce uncertainty and foster trust between religious leaders and some officials. Yet in settings that remain politically closed, economic cooperation does not precede a political bargain as local officials would not cooperate with religious dissidents. The authorities grant house churches informal privileges in return for benefits insofar as religious leaders’ interests are reconcilable with the political priorities of the regime. A political bargain is ensured between state security actors and religious leaders before any attempt at engaging in economic cooperation.
The Social Network Argument
Lily L. Tsai makes the compelling argument that local officials who are “not held accountable by citizens through democratic mechanisms” might still act in the interest of the population and provide it with an unexpected amount of services.
75 Al-Arian 2014; Bayat 1998, 164; Osman 2013, 93.
76 Clark 2004a, 20; Clark 2004b, 943–944.
77 O’Brien and Li 2006.
78 Koesel 2014, 73–74.
79 Koesel 2014, 160. Cao 2007, 2011 makes a similar observation in his study of Christian bosses’ relations with local authorities in Wenzhou.
They do so as they are socially enmeshed in their respective localities, or what Tsai names “solidary groups.”80 Networks might be religious or nonreligious. Being part of those networks gives them a sense of duty “to provide public goods.” According to Tsai, the community expects them to do so: if they fail to fulfill their social duties, they risk being labeled as “bad officials” undeserving of “moral standing” in the community. Tsai conceptualizes the sense of responsibility derived from social networks as “informal institutions of accountability.”81
Following Tsai’s argument, public security bureaus in China might show lenience toward unregistered Protestant churches because they are part of social, family, professional, or religious networks involving Christians practicing religion informally and feel a moral obligation to protect their churches. Informants have reported examples of officials in some localities being Christian or having had Christian relatives or friends. Jason Kindopp similarly notes that in Guizhou and Yunnan, local party chiefs are religious.82 Forcing informal churches to register with the government, or to shut down, might be condemned by members of the networks public security bureau officials find themselves in. Officials linked to Christian networks may thus choose not to force unregistered churches to register with the State Administration for Religious Affairs, and allow those churches to run their activities.
This argument is relevant to relatively small rural communities where officials are likely to know church members personally. Tsai’s research indeed was conducted in villages. The argument nevertheless applies less easily to urban areas where public security officers are not as likely to be part of networks of church leaders operating informally. Explaining why public security bureaus tolerate unregistered churches requires looking for an explanation other than social networks.
The
“Consultative Authoritarianism” Argument
Jessica Teets argues that since the 1990s, local governments have moved from corporatism, where they manage the affairs of societal organizations, to “consultative authoritarianism,” where organizations operate outside the
80 Tsai 2007a, 4.
81 Tsai 2007a, 4, 13–14; also see Tsai 2007b.
82 Kindopp 2004, 6.
government system and benefit from some “operational autonomy.” 83 Parting with the political economy argument, Teets observes that societal organizations’ provision of services does not explain this shift. 84 Rather, changes in state- society interactions in favor of “consultative authoritarianism” happened as a result of “policy learning by local officials” and an attempt to find a solution to a corporatist model that did not work. 85 This transformation came from “direct experience with emerging civil society groups and emulating state- society models observed in other provinces and states.” 86 International nongovernment organizations were particularly important in promoting policy learning, and informing the transformation of local statesociety interactions. 87
Teet’s findings, however, cannot answer my question as to why local governments tolerate unregistered Protestant house churches. Institutional learning helps shed light on the mechanisms through which local governments rethink some policies, but it does not tell us why local governments choose the reforms they choose among a set of other possible options, and for what purpose. Local governments might also learn from already-established international NGOs in less sensitive policy spheres like the environment, healthcare, and social welfare. Yet they are unlikely to be as easily influenced by overseas organizations in the area of religious rights. While China has opened up to a significant level since the 1980s, religious policy remains a sensitive sphere where the Chinese state is reluctant to allow the international community to play a role in shaping reforms at the grassroots level.
My Argument
My empirical research demonstrates that public security officials tolerate Protestant house churches in an attempt to contain them. My analysis seeks to account for why public security bureaus contain some informal churches but not others and analyzes the impact containment has on authoritarian regime resilience. I maintain that the strategy public security bureaus use toward house
83 Teets 2014, 26.
84 Teets 2014, 27.
85 Teets 2014, 176.
86 Teets 2014, 176.
87 Teets 2014, 3, 9–11.
churches depends on how threatening of regime resilience they perceive them to be. Two factors determine state perceptions of threat.
The first factor is interest reconcilability, or whether the interests of unregistered church leaders are compatible with the regime’s priority of ensuring its resilience. While state security actors cooperate with religious actors with reconcilable interests, they refuse to bargain with religious leaders whose interests are irreconcilable. What determines whether interests are compatible or not is not defiance of central government policy in itself, but the motivations and intentions underlying it. Church leaders with irreconcilable interests are those who call into question the regime’s control over religious institutions because they oppose the Chinese Communist Party’s rule. Not only are they unregistered because they resist the state’s control over religion, but they also believe the only way for churches and the state to be fully separate is for China to be democratic. Those pastors have demands, which if accommodated, would involve liberalizing the political system. Church leaders with reconcilable interests refrain from calling into question the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule. They operate outside the state’s control because they believe religion and the state ought to be separate, yet they do not necessarily think of democracy as the way to reach this separation. How church leaders themselves frame the reasons why they are unregistered matters, and the fact that they oppose government control over their activities may be unrelated to their opinions about the regime.
The second factor is whether churches are in religious networks and if these networks are loose or cohesive. Churches that are part of networks have developed horizontal ties with other organizations, and those might be domestic, international, or both. Loose networks are those in which churches are not institutionally bound, that is, they lack a hierarchy vertically linking organizations to one another. Churches that are part of a loose network may not necessarily cohere around a common set of beliefs, goals, and practices. Cohesive networks are those in which churches are institutionally bound, that is, they are characterized by a hierarchy vertically connecting religious organizations to one another. Organizations that are part of such networks cohere around a common set of beliefs, goals, and practices. Network cohesion matters insofar as it influences churches’ mobilization capacity. Cohesive networks are better able to organize large- scale mobilization than loose ones, and for that reason, authoritarian regimes worry more about those.
The house churches in this analysis have reconcilable interests with local governments as they do not have opinions that challenge the regime. Their leaders do not disturb the political status quo as they are aware that they operate in an environment where they are vulnerable. They choose to run illegal
