History OFFERS the best reference for crisis management in times of upheaval. This is particularly true for Christian churches in Hong Kong under China’s draconian security rule.
Last month, Monsignor Javier Herrera-Corona, previously the Vatican’s unofficial envoy in Hong Kong, warned that the territory’s further political integration with China would surely lead to autocratic restrictions on religious activities, and the Catholic Church should be prepared.
Worse still, Beijing and its public security agents in Hong Kong publicly condemned Cardinal Joseph Zen (陳日君), a 90-year-old retired bishop, as one of the leading figures in the 2014 “Umbrella movement” and the 2019 democracy protests, even though Zen offered only moral and humanitarian support to victims of police oppression. In light of the government’s warning, local Christians would have to keep their heads down.
Even as Christians in Hong Kong remain a minority, it is a visible living faith. Churches in the territory provided vital relief efforts for countless mainland Chinese refugees in 1949. Catholics and Protestants in Hong Kong helped build an impressive structure of medical, educational and social welfare systems that healed the sick, nurtured the young and fed the poor.
Church leaders performed a delicate balancing act stabilizing church-state relations, but they are now waking up to the government’s fear over their global connections.
The territory is facing tremendous challenges under Hong Kong’s National Security Law. For the first time since 1989, none of the Catholic parishes, Protestant churches nor local mission schools commemorated the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4 this year.
The suffocating silence is forcing Christian agencies and churches to reassess their everyday operations in a restricted environment. Some foreign agencies have handed over executive and financial management responsibilities to their local colleagues to avoid suspicion.
Keeping Hong Kong out of the international spotlight is a top priority for the security regime. This harsh reality has made it difficult for clergy to keep politics at arms’ length, while defending church members critical of human rights abuses.
During this year’s anniversaries of the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the July 1, 1997, democracy rally, Hong Kong security officials ordered several political prisoners to tell Amnesty International and overseas churches not to publicize their cases in exchange for shorter sentencing. Such a manipulative tactic was designed to isolate the prisoners and weaken their resolve.
Despite Beijing’s intensifying ideological and political control of the territory, more Christians are learning the stories of martyrs in the Maoist era and the involvement of Taiwanese, South Korean and Philippine churches in democratic struggles. Reflecting on martyrdom and civic activism reveals valuable insights for empowerment.
The experiences of migrants and cross-cultural exchanges have transformed the Christian landscape. A significant number of Hong Kong’s Catholics and Protestants are from abroad, with numerous ministries for Southeast Asian domestic workers and for Mandarin speakers. Neighborhood churches often provide multilingual religious services in Cantonese, English, Mandarin, Tagalog and more.
Given Christianity’s cosmopolitan profile, China would need to think carefully before imposing mainland-style religious patriotic control in the territory.
Hong Kong Christians are part of global churches. They have lived with anxieties and on the stamina of their faith for decades. They have overcome great odds and are unlikely to give up now.
Joseph Tse-Hei Lee is professor of history at Pace University in New York.
Criticisms of corruption, a poorly managed bureaucracy and uninformed, unprincipled or unaccomplished policy in China are often met with harsh punishments. Many protesters in the “blank paper movement,” for example, have been disappeared by the authorities. Meanwhile, the WHO has asked China to provide data on its COVID-19 situation, with the Chinese government choosing to disseminate propaganda instead. The first amendment of the US Constitution, written in 1791, prohibits the US government from abridging the freedom of speech, press, assembly, petition, or religion. More than 200 years later, China, the world’s second-largest economy, still lacks the freedoms of speech and the press,
As the People’s Republic of China (PRC) constantly strives to rewrite the Taiwan narrative, it is important to regularly update and correct the stereotypes that the PRC tries to foist on Taiwan and the world. A primary stereotype is that Taiwan has always been a part of China and its corollary that Taiwan has been a part of China since time immemorial. Both are false. Taiwan has always been a part of the vast Austronesian empire, which stretched from Madagascar in the west to Easter Island in the east and from Taiwan in the north to New Zealand in the south. That
The latest Cabinet reshuffle retains top economic and finance officials in their posts. Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花), National Development Council Minister Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫), Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman Thomas Huang (黃天牧) and Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) Minister Chu Tzer-ming (朱澤民) are all to remain. President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and former vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁), who is to be sworn in as the new premier tomorrow, reportedly wanted them to complete unfinished tasks and maintain coherent policymaking. This indicates that Tsai’s administration wants to formulate consistent and stable policies, reassure the business community and restore
To boost Taiwan’s international competitiveness, the government has launched a “bilingual nation” policy, pledging to achieve this goal by 2030. After the new Cabinet takes shape, it should promptly review the implementation of the policy, and then make adjustments if needed. How can Taiwanese’s English be improved? The answer is simple: Better English education would be a start. Oddly, many universities and even the College Entrance Examination Center (CEEC) are doing the opposite at the moment, taking Taiwan further away from becoming a “bilingual nation.” The CEEC, for example, which holds the General Scholastic Ability Test (GSAT) in January as well
RSS