Religions

In China they practice the buddhism, the taoísmo, Islam, the catholicism, the Protestantism and other religions. The most spread between the population they are the buddhism, the taoísmo and Islam.

The Chinese citizens have religious freedom. The State protects the normal religious activities and the rights and I interest legitimate of the religious circles. The Constitution, as well as the Penal Code, the Civil Code, the Electoral Law, the Military Law on watch, the Law of Obligatory Education, the Law of Work and many other laws, contain clear and specific stipulations on the protection of the religious freedom and the rights of the believing citizens. No state organism, neither individual social organization can force to citizen some to profess or noncertain religion, nor can discriminate against the citizens by its religious beliefs.

National religious organizations of China:

The Party and the government always have granted importance to the religious work. From III the Plenary Session of XI the Central Committee, the Party has formulated a series of basic concrete concepts and political when inheriting the policy towards the religions established by the first generation of the collective leader of the Central Committee of the Party and when combining the Marxist point of view with respect to the religion with the concrete realities of the existing religious problem in China in the preliminary stage of its socialism. These concepts and policies are exposed both in documents on the religious work published by the Central Committee in 1982 and 1991, in the Constitution, the pertinent laws and the administrative regulations n.º 144 and n.º 145 of the Council of State, as well as in the important instructions formulated during the new period by the second and third generation of the collective leader of the Central Committee. The Secretary General, Jiang Zemin, have synthesized such concepts and policies in three phrases: first, complete and correct application of the policy of the Party towards the religions; second, fortification in agreement with the law of the administration of the religious subjects; and, third, active direction of the religions so that they adapt the socialist society.

According to incomplete statistics, in China it has more than 100 million believers of diverse religions, more than 85,000 religious temples, a clergy made up of more than 300,000 people, more than 3,000 religious organizations, 74 religious schools and more than ten religious magazines.

At present, the Protestantism counts in China with more than 10 million believers, number that is equivalent to multiply by more than the ten 700,000 existing protestants in 1949, as well as with more than 12,000 churches, other 25,000 places of congregation and 18,000 shepherds and other members of the clergy. The catholicism has about 4 million believers, a clergy trained by 4,000 members and 4,000 churches. Without including the referring data to the lamaísmo (tibetano buddhism), in China there are 13,000 temples consecrated to the buddhism and 200,000 monks who profess this religion. The taoísmo counts on about 15,000 temples and more than 25,000 taoístas monks and nuns. Islam counts with more than 18 million believers of diverse ethnic groups, more than 40,000 magnets and preachers, and more than 30,000 mosques.

From years 80, the Chinese Christians have recovered or constructed 600 churches to the year. At the end of 1996, they have published and distributed more than 18 million units of the Bible, activity in which have enjoyed multiple exemptions of taxes. The 1983 the Protestant Association of China initiated the writing and edition of “Songs of praise”, builds whose distance has surpassed the 8 million unit. The Chinese catholicism has independently appointed 126 bishops and in the last years it has formed to more than 900 young priests. All the Sundays, the protestant church of Chongwenmen, in Peking, it welcomes in more than 3,000 feligreses. In the catholic church of the south of Peking four misas are celebrated all the Sundays, one of them in English dedicated especially to the foreign residents, which altogether they attend more than 2,000 believers.

On the other hand, more than 17,000 religious personalities they are delegated of the popular or member assemblies of the committees of Political the Consultative Conference of the Chinese Town (CCPPCh) of the diverse levels. Like the other deputies of the Popular Assembly and that the other members of the CCPPCh coming from other circles, these personalities participate in the deliberation of the state subjects and enjoy the same democratic political rights.

All this demonstrates that the Chinese Government applies real and concientiously the policy of the religious freedom.

In China, the religious organizations rely at the beginning of autonomy and of self administration, being against to the manipulation and the intervention of the foreign forces in their internal subjects, all this in order to guarantee that the Chinese citizens enjoy, in the true sense of the word, of their religious freedom.

Applying to the principle of autonomy and self administration, and being based on the total equality and the mutual respect, the Chinese Government supports of way decides the friendly contacts and interchanges between the communities and homologous religious personalities of the country and their outsiders. Also, he considers these international bows like part of the nongovernmental contacts between the Chinese town and the other towns of the world. The Chinese organizations and religious groups have been gotten up to World-wide the Buddhist Alliance, to the Supreme Council of Islamic Subjects, to the World-wide Conference of Religion and Peace, to the Conference of Religion and Peace of Asia, to the Christian Federation of the World and to other international religious organizations.

The Chinese citizen enjoys the briefed religious freedom in the Constitution and the laws, being forced to fulfill the duties stipulated in the same. The Constitution establishes in explicit terms that nobody can be protected in the religion to carry out activities that attempt against the public order, cause damage to the health of the citizens or disturb the educative system of the State. All that one that protecting itself in the religion commits a crime will be treated by the Chinese Government in agreement with the law, without mattering that it is or nonbelieving. The monk who breaks the law will be treated according to the law like any other citizen who commits the same crime.

In the multi-ethnic country that is China many ethnic minorities profess religious beliefs. The tibetano buddhism, for example, has one long tradition between the tibetanos and other Chinese ethnic minorities. The Chinese Government, in agreement with the stipulations on the shaped protection of the religious freedom in the Constitution, has formulated concrete political dispositions destined to foment the respect and the protection of the religious freedom of the ethnic minorities, whose normal religious activities are protected by the law. With respect to this point, the 27 of September of 1999 the Chinese Government published a white book in which the policy towards the diverse ethnic groups of China and their putting in practice was exposed in detail.

From 1951 the tibetanos enjoy total religious freedom. From 80 years the Central Government has assigned more than 200 million of yuanes of special bottoms to the maintenance and the restoration of the temples more known Tibet. Also, the Central Government has supported with special allocations the compilation and publication of the Dazangjing (Tripitaka) in tibetano and of other lamaístas sacred books, as well as the establishment of the Institute Superior of Tibetano Buddhism of China in Peking and the one of the Buddhist Academy of Tibet in Lhasa.

At present, he has in Tibet more than 1,700 centers of Buddhist activities and more than 46,000 internal monks and nuns. Almost all the believing families have in house a small room of orations or a Buddhist altar. Every year, a million or more of people go in peregrination until Lhasa. In all the country, there are about 7 million medical instructors of the lamaísmo, 120,000 you lick of both living sexes, 1,700 budas and more than 3,000 monasteries.

The reincarnation of the living Buddha is a specific form of continuation of the tibetano buddhism recognized and respected by the Party and the Government. In 1992, the Bureau of Religious Subjects of the Council of State approved the reincarnation of the living Buddha Gemaba XVII. In 1995, in agreement with the traditional rituals and customs, it was come to the consisting of drawing the card extraction of a gold ballot box, and so one completed the discovery and the confirmation of Panchen XI, mediating the presentation of a report to the Council of State for his ratification.

The Party and the government respect and protect the faith and the customs of the Muslims. In China nine Islamic seminaries have settled down. From years 80, more than 40,000 Chinese Muslims they have gone in peregrination to Mecca. More than 23,000 mosques and the 29,000 existing members of the clergy in Xinjiang satisfy the religious needs with the Muslim population.

In China all the religions are equal and coexist in harmony. The believing citizens and the nonbelieving ones are respected mutually and the indulgence and the magnanimity meet, to attitude related to bequeathed by the Chinese cultural tradition and, more, to the policy of religious freedom formulated and applied by the Chinese Government shared in common.