‘China: A Moral Crisis and the Growth of Christianity’ by Roger Garside

Abstract:

Under the atheist Communist Party, China is experiencing a spectacular growth in faith and activity in all the five major religions whose existence the Party officially permits (Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, and the Catholic and Protestant branches of Christianity). The estimated number of baptised Christians has risen from 4 million in 1949 to 70 million today, of whom at least half worship in unregistered, technically illegal churches.

Roger Garside first served in the British Embassy in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution, when the Party tried to eradicate all religion. He served there a second time from 1976 to 1979, when Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong died, and the Reform Era began, permitting a revival of religious activity. Last May, he returned to China and witnessed the vitality of Buddhist, Daoist and Christian worship.

In this talk, Roger will offer answers to the following questions: What explains the rise in Christianity? How has it come about? Is it a regional or national phenomenon? Urban or rural? How has the Party-state reacted to it? How does official policy affect the human rights of Christians? What is the character of today’s churches? How do registered and unregistered churches relate to each other? What does the growth of Christianity mean for the future of China?

Speaker biography:

Roger Garside holds degrees in English Literature from Cambridge University and in Management Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He studied Mandarin Chinese full-time for two years at the University of Hong Kong.

He served in the British Diplomatic Service between 1962 and 1987, being posted to Burma, Hong Kong, China (twice), and France. In a break in this service, he studied at MIT and worked in the World Bank, as a Country Program Officer for Thailand, 1971-75.

In 1979-80, he took leave to teach Chinese Politics at the US Navy Post-Graduate School, Monterey, and write Coming Alive: China After Mao, (published by McGraw-Hill in the USA and Andre Deutsch in the UK), which describes the struggle for the succession to Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong, and how and why it was won by Deng Xiaoping.

From 1987 to 1990, he was Director of Public Affairs at the London Stock Exchange. From 1990 to 2000, he founded and managed GMA Capital Markets Limited, an international consultancy advising on the development of capital markets in countries making the transition from a command economy to a free-market economy. His company worked in Hungary, Russia, Vietnam, Egypt and Tanzania, and other countries in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Since his retirement from business, Roger has written reviews of books on China for various publications, including The Economist and The Spectator, and follows developments in Chinese politics and economics.

About the Human Rights, Development and Global Justice Series

Our series aims to create an open, interdisciplinary academic platform for the discussion of issues related to human rights, development and global justice. Special attention is given to the global south, but not to the exclusion of other places.

We hope to generate exchanges furthering academic insight and creativity, to strengthen the School’s connections with scholars around the world, and to enrich undergraduate and postgraduate teaching curricula among the School’s wide offering of modules related to the jurisprudence of human rights, transnational human rights, and global justice more widely.

The events series is currently convened by Dr Eva Pils. It is supported by funding provided by The Dickson Poon School of Law. For information about other events in the series, please visit the King's College London website.