THE STORY BEHIND JESUS IN BEIJING
— PART I —
David Aikman

Edited for length and clarity
Part I - Part II - Part III

Thank you very much ... for allowing me to come and speak to you today. I regard it a great privilege, a great wonderful opportunity, and in fact a great honor.

I felt, on the basis of some fairly sharply worded comments at Amazon.com, that if I came and spoke here it might be like being a lion cast in front of the Christians.

Anyway, I have nothing to hide and a lot of things that (I'm) very happy to have a chance to speak to you about in relation to the book.

First of all, there are a number of you here who were very helpful to me two years ago when I was in and out of Beijing reporting for this book. I want to thank you. I won't name you for obvious reasons but many of you were very helpful and provided invaluable insight and assistance. Suffice to say, if I have failed accurately to represent what you told me at the time, it is entirely my fault and not yours at all. But if it bothers you, give me the information.

I think the best place to start is, Why did I write this book? Why write a book about Christianity in China.

Well, the first and obvious answer is: I was asked to write the book about this.

Who asked me?

Two very different kinds of people. The first were leaders of various house church networks whom I met from 1989 onwards in Henan, Wuhan, in Guangzhou and in the United States, actually. They said to me, 'Will you please write a book about what we are doing, what we are seeing, in China,' which seemed to me a not unreasonable thing to ask, as I'll explain in the course of this discussion, before I open it up to questions.

The second thing was I got a phone call in the spring of 2001 to appear on the TV program "Nightline," which is, of course, Ted Koppel's favorite show. He was not there himself. It was Chris Bury who was standing in for Ted, and I hadn't a clue why I was being asked on the program. And they finally told me; 'Well, we've got some footage taken by a Channel 1 New York film crew. Channel 1 is a commercial channel that usually deals with educational topics in New York City, and this crew has come out of China with some very interesting footage of so-called house church Christians, and we'd like you to comment on this.'

So, when I was actually sitting in the studio with the earpiece in... The way "Nightline" works, for those of you who are not familiar with this, Ted Koppel or Chris Bury very seldom interview people in front of them, in the studio. A lot of the interviews are done by remote, which means you as the guest are sitting staring at a blank television camera. You may have a sort of monitor screen off to the left somewhere, but you haven't a clue what you are going to be asked, you can't make any personal contact with the interviewer, and in the case of what was happening to me, I was about to see a piece of video footage I had never seen before, and then comment on it. It was a sort of fairly daunting experience.

But as it happened, as soon as the footage rolled, I realized I knew perfectly well who the person was. It was Jonathan Chao, or we should say the late Jonathan Chao, who tragically passed away a few months ago. Those of you who know of him, or know him personally, he's a remarkable man, an American citizen, Taiwan born, overseas Chinese, who has been in and out of China many, many times, has worked closely with various leaders of church groups at the house church level in China. And it was fascinating footage of him speaking, and teaching, and going into China, and literally going underground.

Now I hadn't, as I've said, seen the footage before so I didn't know what was going to be shown in front of me. But I did recognize Jonathan Chao. I'd known him for twenty-something years. So I was able to say, 'This is a bona fide overseas Chinese Christian teacher who often goes into China. I'm certainly not familiar with all that he does when he goes in, but it's quite clear to me from this footage that this is a bona fide visit to a bona fide church, and the events portrayed on camera are as they appear.'

And then we had a series of discussions, and in fact I had the great opportunity of explaining the difference between Christianity and Falungong, which not everybody who watches ABC News necessarily knows. And I was able to explain, and I hoped in this case there might have been some Chinese diplomats watching, I was able to explain that the Christians in China are actually very patriotic. They don't want to create an opposition force or overthrow the government, which Falungong has sometimes been very outspoken, claiming they want to do. And I pointed out that the Christians in China were representative of mainstream Protestantism and mainstream Catholicism etc., etc.

So, watching the program that night was a senior editor of a mainstream, very prestigious, New York publishing house who wrote me a letter saying, 'Would you like to write a book about this?'

Now, until that point, the idea of a book had not occurred to me, at least, apart from what had been said to me by the house church Christian leaders. I had actually been asked at the end of the 1980s by a Christian publishing house to write a book about the church in China. I felt that it wasn't the right time, that more things needed to develop, and so I declined. But the combination of the request from leaders of the house churches and an interest from a major New York publishing house really got me moving and I thought to myself, 'This is an absolutely incredible story.' It is a case of the fastest development of any church in any country in Christian history. It's largely unknown except for a few Christian groups in the United States who read missionary newsletters and so forth.

And my feeling was this: I do not want to write a book about this wonderful subject, very inspiring subject, for a Christian publishing house in the United States. I'm quite sure I would have gotten half a dozen very good offers for a book contract from a major Christian publishing house. I wanted this to be a book about China, not about Christianity. You may be saying to yourself, 'What's the difference?'

The difference is, and here I speak as a journalist, the stuff in this book is real stuff. It's not hopes and inventions and aspirations by people who wish that this was happening in China or that was happening in China. It's real events, it's actuality, and as a journalist, you want to present actuality as much as possible. You never do it perfectly, you make all sorts of mistakes, but you try. And I wanted the story to be known outside of the Christian community.

And I need to tell you that since this book was published by a secular publishing house, Regnery, in Washington, D.C., as a result of it's being not put out by a Christian house but by a regular publishing house, secular, I have been invited to speak to places like the Council on Foreign Relations, the State Department, and a certain government institution in Langley, Virginia, because they want to know what's going on in China.

Now, this is not the whole story, obviously, but it's a very, very important part of the story, and actually, I'll tell you in a moment, I think it is increasingly an important part of the story for reasons which I'll explain.

Okay, what were the ground rules of reporting this story? How was I sure that I would be not endangering people?

Well, the first principle of journalism when that happens is you ask the person, 'Are you willing to go on camera or to be quoted by name with this stuff, or do you want to be identified in a way that makes it unclear who you are?' And in the case of all of the leaders of the house churches, everybody was willing to go on the record – it wasn't off-the-record at all – with names and with photographs.

In fact, in 1998, on my first visit to the prominent house church leaders, I came with another journalist, a Mark O'Keefe, then of the Oregonian who won several prizes for overseas reporting for a series of reports for the Oregonian on the persecution of Christians around the world. And one of the places we came on this story that he was writing was China. And he was with me at this rather important meeting in August 1998. So at that occasion, we asked all the people there, 'Can we photograph you with your real names?' And all except one, whom we obviously didn't photograph, said yes.

I was very glad that they did because I had for a long time been urging people connected with the Christians in China that the only way this story would be real rather than fantasy was if real people were willing to stand up and say, 'This is what I believe, this is what I am doing, I've gone to jail already. If they want to put me in jail again, okay, but this is the real thing.'

So in the first place, every Chinese person who is mentioned by name or photograph in the book gave specific permission to be in this book.

In the case of a number of people whom I interviewed for the book, in Shanghai and Beijing, who were professionals, who could have easily lost their jobs, perhaps been arrested for what they told me, we agreed that we would use an assumed name, and indeed that's what we did.

In the case of the secret seminaries I went to, I didn't even say which province, just described the location in general terms. So, there was ample protection at the outset.

And, the final point is something that may be technically a thing that only journalists know, but it's important. If something is in the public domain – that means it's out there, it's on the Internet, it's in a newspaper, it's known about in the public sphere – then you can use it even if the person doesn't give permission. In other words, just to give you an example of this: Mr. Jones may have been arrested on suspicion of murder in Petaluma, California, you could write about Mr. Jones without asking his permission, because his name has already been mentioned in a public document and he doesn't have the right to say to you, 'I'm sorry, you can't use my name in this story you're writing about Petaluma.' The thing is out of the bag, as it were.

So that was the principle I also used in writing about people who had been reported to have been arrested, to have been jailed, and so forth.

But you know, when I was doing this story, and I guess I did about three-and-a half months of fairly serious hands-on reporting during the summer of 2002, I was very conscious that, in spite of what these people had said about wanting to be on the record, there was a certain element of risk for them.

If, for example, the Public Security Bureau had raided the place where they were, and if I were there at the time, then there would have been probably a more serious consequence to them, because a foreigner was present at this meeting, etc. then would have been the case if merely they had been meeting without the permission of the authorities. And, as it happened, I did attend a meeting at a conference outside Guangzhou where there were several house church uncles all being spoken to and addressed and encouraged by some visiting foreigners. But I left one-and-a-half hours before the police raided it. So, mercifully, I was not involved, which might have led to harassment somewhere down the line in reporting. And certainly the presence of a foreign reporter was not one of the complicating factors in detention. Fortunately, all of the people were released, they were not charged with anything, and the Americans were not even expelled, which is nice. They were politely asked to do something else the next time they came to China.

Let's look at the larger picture now. Why is this book called, How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the World Balance of Power ? Well, I have to be honest and admit that the publisher wanted a sort of eye-catching title, or a subtitle, so I sort of groaned when they put this on. But believe me, I groaned even louder when they came up with the first proposal for a title. Without consulting me, they wanted to call the book, The Conversion of China . And I practically pulled my hair out, and I said, 'If you want to go with that title, you take my name off the book.' Because all of you who have lived here know what profoundly negative connotations that concept, that expression, has. So fortunately they agreed to call it Jesus in Beijing , which is not a strictly accurate title, but it's do-able.

As you probably know there was a rather important (Communist) Party work meeting in February of this year at which two things were discussed. One was a documentary on Christianity in China produced by the Chinese documentary filmmaker Yuan Zhiming. It's called The Cross ; many of you have probably seen the DVD. It's a four part DVD, it's a gripping story. A documentary very similar to what was in my book and including a documentation of some of the main, some of the important characters who were in my book, basically saying, 'Listen guys, Christianity is really doing something in this country.' I mean, it's a very powerful documentary. He made it on the basis of several trips with film crews into China during 2001 and 2002. Now, I knew Yuan Zhiming. I interviewed him in the process of preparing for this book, (but) I did not know that his documentary would come out in the same month as my book.

Now, if you're a Beijing bureaucrat inclined to view with paranoia anything coming from overseas depicting an aspect of life in China that is not under your control, what do (these) two events in the same month say to you? Well, it must have been some kind of government, American government, coordination, some foreign coordination.

In point of fact, of course, I had no idea that (Yuan Zhiming) was going to come out with his documentary in October, and he had no idea that the book was going to be published the same month, and even if we had, I doubt whether we would have changed it because the publishing schedule was in line and so forth. But the effect of his documentary and my book coming out in the same month really sent alarm bells ringing throughout the Chinese security establishment. And as a result there was an important meeting, well, there was an important meeting in December, then there was another meeting in February at which basically the word come down; 'This is very serious. There are Christians sprouting all over China. We don't control them and potentially they could prove to be politically troubling.'

Now, of course, most of you know obviously why that's the case. For those of you who aren't quite as familiar with Chinese history, there was a devastating peasant rebellion in the 19 th century called the Taiping rebellion, where the leader of the rebellion, Hong Xiuquan claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus. And even though orthodox Chinese Christians dissociated themselves with this movement, it was a devastatingly destructive peasant rebellion against the central authority in China in the 19 th century, before it was finally suppressed 14 years after it begun. It had led to the deaths of about 20 million Chinese. No small event.

And so you have to understand, even aside from the Communist theory that religion is all bad and bunk and superstition and so forth, there is a deep concern, historical concern, coming out of Chinese history in the minds of people who make decisions, that, Who knows, you know, there might be another religious peasant rebellion which could lead to a government change, etc., etc. So the central authorities took very seriously the depiction of Christianity in the documentary The Cross and in the book Jesus in Beijing .

And as a small footnote, I understand that Jesus in Beijing was translated into Chinese by the Public Security Bureau and distributed to very high levels of the Party. Unfortunately, they didn't get the translation permission, so maybe we should sue the Public Security Bureau.

However, in counterpoint, let me say that some uncles were visiting the United States in December last year, got a chance to look at this, and eagerly requested that the book be translated into Chinese as soon as possible and made available across the country. In other words, the vindication of what was in the book was the request by people who featured in the book to get it out in the Chinese language because this is an absolutely incredible story.

Now, let me just say what the implications are and some of the events that have been happening recently.

There is no question that there is a serious attention, to put it mildly, to house churches by Public Security Bureau officials in various provinces, on the basis of instructions that had been passed down by the Religious Affairs Bureau, by the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party. And there's no question that pressure is tighter now on house church groups than it's been before. And undoubtedly this book, unfortunately, is one reason for that. I have to be honest in saying that.

At the same time, as I heard from a breakfast conversation yesterday with a very well-placed intellectual working for a major think-thank in Beijing, it's having very interesting and unexpected consequences. Unexpected from the point of view of the authorities who are putting this pressure on.

One of the things that's happening is, Chinese intellectuals for the first time are paying attention to the house churches. All of a sudden the house churches have emerged as a political player on the Chinese cultural and national scene. They didn't intend to be. In fact the house churches, all the ones I've met, have vociferous ly denied any political aspirations at all. They simply said, 'Leave us alone. We want to preach the gospel, pray for people etc. We're patriotic, we don't want Taiwan to be independent, we don't want Tibet to be separatist, we're good patriotic Chinese citizens,' and I'm sure that 99% of the house churches believe that.

But, in fact, what is happening is the pressure against the house churches that is being communicated to the intellectual classes of China is changing the equation of Chinese society and culture in a very interesting way. In effect, Christians, whether they like it or not, are being seen as the protector of civic freedom. Not something they sought, or wanted, but something that's happened.

And this intellectual I was talking to at breakfast yesterday said a very interesting thing, and you know, I'm repeating this not because I necessarily agree with it, but because it is a fascinating insight into what is going on in China today from the point of view from an intellectual who also happens to be a Christian. His view is that the pressure on the church that has been directed by the Party authorities is politically suicidal for the Communist Party in China. Wow. How come? Because other things are going on at the grassroots in this country of very significant political implications.

One of them, of course, is the reaction to the SARS epidemic. The sort of, I guess you could call it, the reflection retroactively of the significance of the health crisis in China, which was only revealed by the unauthorized disclosures of a retired military (doctor) in a military hospital, which lead to, as you know, the dismissal of the mayor of Beijing and the minister of health in 2002, and unfortunately the arrest subsequently of this physician, because he wrote a letter asking the Party to re-examine the issue of what happened on June the 4 th , 1989.

So, you've got the retroactive examination of the SARS issue, you've got the pressure on the house churches, you've got the growing role of the Internet. As you well know, there are ways in China, which actually the Chinese are very efficient at, in leashing the Internet. You can shut down certain sites or you can block off access to certain sites. But you can't completely exclude information that comes into China on the Internet, because people find ways of changing platforms or putting into e-mails messages that are otherwise being blocked. So, in effect, you are getting in China today an increasingly large circle of people with access to unauthorized information.

This is having a very profound significance for political involvement in China. I suspect that pressure on the house churches will continue for some months, but not indefinitely. Because as somebody said to me, well, this intellectual I was talking to yesterday, 'You know, your book may become a self-fulfilling prophesy'.

In what sense?

In the sense that if it is 70% true that Christianity is growing very fast in this country, if it is appearing not only in the countryside in peasant communities, but in universities, in think tanks, in places in entertainment, amongst musicians and so forth, then it is filtering up in a way that is transforming the nature of Chinese society.