A project of the Furman University First Year Seminar taught by Dr. Tami Blumenfield
//By Vanessa Chambers, Austin Saggus, Grant Schuermann, Christen Sikora
Has the Chinese Government stopped or slowed down progress for environmental activism in China? Is China trying to stop or dilute this sort of activism? Is China polluting environmental activism? The answers may surprise you. Pollution in China is a serious issue and needs to be dealt with as this issue continues to grow at an alarming rate.
Continue reading “Is China Polluting Environmental Activism?”
//By Tyler Knauss, M. Baker and Cat McNeela
Inside the city of Beijing, the Olympic facilities sit relatively unused since the end of the Games in 2008. Placed strategically in the center of the city, they are now only a place for tourists. For how grand these facilities are, as well as the fact that they are not used and have been largely dormant, it could be argued that these facilities were and are a wasted use of labor and capital for the people of China. Much can be said about whether or not it was the correct move of the world to have allowed the Olympics to be hosted in China. “The Olympics marked the beginning, it can be said, of the ascendance of the stability preservation regime in China. Looking back now, it might be that the Olympics were something [China] did that [it] ought not to have done.”
The Chinese government has used the success of the Olympics, and its ability to gather large pools of capital and resources, to assert itself over its people. Because of the spending power the government has, they are able to exert themselves greatly over the citizens of China and rule over them in a tightly controlled environment. “And he who has wealth speaks loudest,” muses Sun Liping, professor of Sociology at Tsinghua University.
With the Chinese government having so much power, coupled with the fact that it is still a one-party system, there is no room for compromise within the system. It can be said that the Olympics in 2008 were just another factor in strengthening the authority and overall ability of the government to increase their power in China. Because of the success of the 2008 Olympics, the government gained a lot of prestige for China as a whole. This prestige and success of the Olympics allowed the government to receive huge praise for the planning and execution of the games. However, the games brought on great duress to the poorer residents of Beijing. Many people there live in squalor and the funding that went towards the games could have been used to help these residents on a slightly smaller scale, but just as successfully as the Olympics. For the billions spent, the political environment brought on by the Olympics gave no cause to the government to put that money in the hands of the poor, but instead used it to support their own interests in bringing about an impressive display for the whole world to watch.
See Also:
Before and After the Beijing Olympics: Economic Change
Before and After the Beijing Olympics: Physical Change
Sources
Adam, Taylor. Business Insider, “The Beijing Olympics Were a Mistake.” Last modified March 27, 2013. Accessed March 5, 2014. http://www.businessinsider.com/the-beijing-olympics-were-a-mistake-2013-3.
Feng Huiling, The Humanistic Values of the Beijing Olympics, (Singapore: Enrich Professional Publishing, 2011), 1 -334.
Yong Zhou and John Ap, “Residents’ Perceptions Towards the Impact of the 2008 Olympic Games,” Journal of Travel Research 48, no. 1 (2009): 78-91.
//By Cat McNeela and G. Tate
In 1979, Deng Xiaoping and his economic reformers introduced the “One-Child Policy” as a temporary measure. Thirty-five years later, the Communist party still clings to this policy (Jian). Not only has this affected the Chinese population, but in the United States it has affected the adopted children and their families.
Filmmaker, Linda Goldstein Knowlton of “Somewhere Between” interviewed four adopted Chinese teens who share their inner convictions about how they dwell on somewhere between cultures. Each teen cogently shared subtle thoughts and emotions about her path from China to the United States. This movie exemplifies how the girls are products of China’s “One-Child Policy”, and how there are social pressures that fueled parents’ quest for sons. Also, the movie dives into the psychology of being an immigrant in the American society. When the movie was released in 2011, Knowlton notes that of 127,500 adoptees from China, 80,000 lived in the United States when the film was produced.
The stories are rather painful, yet shared with a sense of somber acceptance. When they were young children in China, each girl was left behind in a depressing way. One girl was taken on a bus ride and told to wait for her cousin who never appeared. Another was left by her mother in a neighboring village; when her father went to look for her, she was already lost. During the film, they would show clips of birthday parties, and because they were abandoned, they did not know their real birthdays.
As transracial adoptees in white communities, the girls have felt that they never fully blended in. Throughout the movie, each girl called herself a “banana”—meaning yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Later, one of the girls refines this and says, “we are more like scrambled eggs”–the white and yellow mixed up.
At one point, they each ached to know more about the “why” questions of their lives. For example, why were they in an orphanage, why were they adopted, or what became of their birth families? The term “abandoned” was used frequently, which escalated varying emotions. Whenever insecurities or pain surfaced in their voices, it centered on questions of their origin.
More Information at One Child Policy and Gender and Adoption
//By Cat McNeela
In his book Religion in China, Fenggang Yang points out that the Chinese “authorities understand religion on the basis of Marxist atheism: the essence of religion is the spiritual opium of the people, and its destiny is to wither away.” (Yang, Fenggang. Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.) While this would point to a total blackout of religion, in order to understand the existence of religion in China, it becomes necessary to examine the history of religion following the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). During this Revolution, there was a “brutal attempt” to eradicate religion in China. However, it has obviously failed, at least in part. While religion is not as strong a presence as in the United States, a large portion of the population do practice martial arts, as these monks do.
However, that is not to say that religion has gone unchecked. One prime example of the success of the government to limit religion is the Falun Gong. This Qigong group was banned due to “religious overtones,” as stated in Yang’s book. The Falun Gong forced the government’s hand when they petitioned for status as a legal organization. Denounced as an “evil cult,” the Falun Gong were banned in China. However, this ban could not do anything about the millions of followers that the group had already accrued. This has been a trend throughout the Communist regime, with an attempt to eradicate religion being foiled by the enormous number of followers of the religion.
One possible reason for this is explored in Yang’s 2010 essay, Religion in China under Communism: A Shortage Economy Explanation. (Yang, Fenggang. “Religion In China Under Communism: A Shortage Economy Explanation.” Journal Of Church & State 52.1 (2010): 3-33. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.) Yang explores the idea that the reason that religion is so pervasive in the supposedly atheist Communist country is due to supply and demand. People want what they don’t have, and in Communist China that is religion for a vast number of people. This shortage economy principle can explain the huge resurgence of religion in China. The people, seeking to fill the void left by the ban on religion had one of three options, economically speaking: Wait for the shortage to be filled, substitute a similar alternative for the lacking object, or just keep the void. Many Chinese citizens settled for the atheism that was the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) goal. However, a large number of citizens did not accept this void, and instead found their own substitutes. Many used the CCP itself as this substitute, while others found alternative spiritualism. While these alternatives were effective, they did not last. Those who found alternative spiritualism transitioned easily back to their religions. Many temples that had been shut down during the Cultural Revolution were reopened. Today in China Christians and Buddhists rub shoulders with the stolid atheists of the CCP. The suppression has failed.
Picture 1: Photo by Suriya Thonawanik, found at http://www.fotopedia.com/items/defb6ljgvfeen-uedfdsUiNf8
Picture 2: Photo by William Murphey, found at http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-3741243211
Picture 4: Photo by Su–May, found at http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-6145088995
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
//By A. Nichols
Is persecution against Christians in China is still happening today, or is the Chinese government fully allowing total religious freedom? My belief is that Christianity in China will continue to grow, in spite of the high cost that many believers have had to pay. More and more Chinese are willing to risk all they have for a bold faith in Christ, it seems.
After establishing the declaration of being an Atheist country on October 1, 1949, the Chinese government stated that they viewed religion as a combination of feudalism and foreign colonialism, adding that it maintained the separation of state and the church. In the 1978 Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, there is guaranteed “freedom of religion” and the policy regarding religious practice in China states “No state organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens because they do, or do not believe in religion. The state protects normal religious activities. Nobody can make use of religion to engage in activities that disrupt social order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the educational system of the state.”
The Communists have traditionally viewed Christianity as an equivalent to Imperialism. Mao Zedong accused missionaries as being “spiritual aggressors” and kicked an estimated 10,000 foreign Christian workers out of the country. Churches were turned into public assembly halls where Communist propaganda performances were held. Church meetings were replaced with “ideological study sessions whose purpose was to reform ‘misguided’ thinking.” Christians were ‘forced to bow to Mao’ . During the Cultural Revolution, priests were beaten up and imprisoned, churches were destroyed by Red Guards or used as grain houses, and Bibles were burnt as “tomes of superstition.” After the Cultural Revolution, Beijing stated that all Christians were required to belong to “government-supervised patriotic associations,” otherwise known as registered churches, forcing them to pray before an altar of the state and pledge allegiance to the Communist Party. Chinese authorities campaigned against a Christian house church, placing hundreds of Christian believers under arrest for the alleged ‘crime’ of “worshipping in a public square.” About a month later, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s yearly report proved several acts of ‘horrific’ abuses of Christians in China including ‘disappearances,’ beatings, and destruction of churches. Proselytizing and midweek services are also forbidden.
American, South Korean and Taiwanese Christians continue to be very active in the proselytization process in China. Even though Bibles are available in China presently, visitors still have their Bibles and other religious material seized at the border when they enter China and people are often arrested for Bible smuggling. They sneak Bibles and religious literature into the country, being sure to go around the country policies and authority figures. Overall, Christianity is continuing to grow and followers of Jesus Christ seem to become increasingly adamant in attempt to continue to build not only their faith, but also their relationship with God no matter the cost.
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