Ben Jones

December 2019, Wuhan, China. A local eye doctor shares on social media about a disturbing respiratory illness in some patients. He fears it might be another form of SARS—a disease which infected over 8,000 people and killed over 700 (“Frequently Asked Questions About SARS,” 2005). But his wishes to sound an alarm are met with discipline from the Chines Communist Party (CCP) Wuhan government. Police commanded him “to stop making false comments” and investigated him “spreading rumors” (“Li Wenliang,” 2021). Tragically, Dr. Li’s warning went unheard, and he later fell victim to the illness he tried to prevent from spreading.
I left China the summer before the pandemic began. I had only spent two years in China, so I find it ironic that my two years back in the U.S. have been dominated by an event which originated in China. It felt like I had only begun to restart my life in the U.S. when everything shut down. Dr. Li’s story above has now become everyone’s story, and no person or country has gone through COVID-19 unchanged and unscathed. This includes the country many consider where it began: China.
Because of my relationships and interest in the country, I’ve kept up with its current events the best I could. So, when I read that the CCP silenced a doctor in Wuhan about a viral disease, I recalled when the city I lived in was shut down for three months due to a government event. I thought to myself, “This is such a CCP-thing to do.” However, when I saw the quick and powerful response to COVID-19, such as building a hospital in ten days, I also thought, “That is so CCP.” It’s a paradoxical aspect, in my opinion, of the CCP and China: even with just a little bit of understanding of Chinese history, one knows that unilateral decisions by the government have caused the worst and best outcomes for the country and its people. This includes the death of millions of its own people and China transforming to one of the most powerful nations on earth in a matter of decades. Since its introduction around 630 A.D., Christianity in China has been greatly affected by governmental decrees as well, and this rings true in our post-pandemic world of today.
A “Closing Valve” on Foreign Influence and Missionaries Ministry is an area in China which has experienced an “unprecedented” change due to the pandemic. One large affect is the swift diminishing of foreign influence and presence. Consider this before-and-after picture presented by someone I interviewed. This person was teaching at a university in China when the pandemic broke out and planned to return after a short stay in the U.S. However, their return to China has been indeterminately halted due to CCP restrictions on COVID-19. When asked, “What was ministry like in China right before the pandemic?” they stated,
Ministry before was good. It was quite easy to connect with students who were very interested in their foreign teachers. And kids there are taught to be super respectful of their teachers. So, they always seemed eager to listen to anything we would say. The challenge was not stepping on their cultural toes/taboos. For example, it would be bad to invite students to a meal and then to present certain ideas to them. I guess it’s kind of like a bait-and-switch for them. So, I tried to spend lots of time just getting to know them. I think that’s universal in any culture. Even if they won’t call you out on speaking too quickly to heart issues in some cultures, it’s still rude and arrogant to do that without building a relationship—not to mention ineffective.
Then, when I asked my follow-up question, “What has ministry been like in China after the pandemic?” the person said,
Sadly, I don’t know what ministry is like after the pandemic. I haven’t been able to get back yet… but I understand that the pandemic has not slowed the tightening grip [of the CCP] and may well have simply strengthened it. Surveillance alone has taken some big leaps due to the need to track people who might have COVID. And now they seem to be at a point where they seriously want to use it to get control of certain areas. I seriously wonder if many people can even share the way they once did…
I find it helpful to correlate this phenomenon with what occurred in Hong Kong during 2020. The CCP’s initial response to the discovery of COVID-19 was to save face and prevent public discord. However, when it accepted the existence of the new Corona virus, the CCP began to see it as an opportunity. This is seen in the banning of the 2020 Tiananmen Square vigil in Hong Kong. Claiming COVID-19 precautions, the Hong Kong government, highly supported by the CCP, prevented the yearly June 4 vigil and arrested those who organized the event. Shortly afterward, the CCP and the government of Hong Kong instituted the new national security law. This law clamped down on the CCP’s definitions of secession, subversion, terrorism, and foreign collusion in Hong Kong, with punishments including a maximum life sentence and some closed-door trials (Tsoi and Wai, 2020). What followed was a series of pro-democracy protests by Hong Kong citizens—ultimately shut down by a Hong Kong government backed by the CCP—and a number of arrests. This, in my opinion, marked the end of Hong Kong’s semi-autonomous state. Thus, Hong Kong was practically grafted into the full authority of the CCP, which would be a victory in the eyes of the CCP.
Thus, the CCP used the national security law to shrink foreign influence in Hong Kong. I find this similar to how my interviewee answers my last question, “What has been the government’s response to ministry during the pandemic?” Their response goes as follows:
Again, I will repeat the appraisals I have heard from others who are still [in China]. For example, one particular person over there, who would be in a place to see trends and make predictions, suggests that the government is now ready to turn the valve down to a very small flow of immigrants (and cross-border movement of workers) from now on—that it is not a COVID thing going forward. They’ve just weighed the situation and think they have benefited enough from foreign involvement and now need to recognize the overbearing “dangers” of outside influence.
Many foreign missionaries have witnessed this closing “valve.” When news of the virus rampaging Wuhan broke out, scores of foreigners left China. Many thought that this would be a short-term getaway. But their plans to simply move back to the country when the virus died down quickly changed. They would either be waiting for permission to move back for an indefinite time or give up on returning to China altogether.
A young couple, for example, who met in China moved back to the U.S. because of the pandemic. Although they initially had plans to go back, they eventually got married and bought a home in the U.S. Another acquaintance I met had been in ministering in China for nearly a decade prior to COVID-19. Re-visiting their final blog post of 2019, this person writes about planning to be in the U.S. for only a few weeks and says nothing about the pandemic. Then, the virus takes center stage on their blog at the beginning of 2020 and onward. In an early 2020 post, they describe how their short stay in the U.S. has already been extended a month with little certainty of when it would end. They talk about a sense of homelessness—although they can be with family in the U.S., they feel that their true home is in China. The following blog posts detail further the ongoing disruption of COVID-19 to get back to China and their growing sense of trusting in God. There are hopeful mentions of possibly returning to the country only to be met with one obstacle after another. A new travel ban is set. China randomly updates its visa requirements. A year goes by, and they are still in the U.S. What do they do now?
The person decides to move their ministry to a completely different country, leaving nearly ten-year’s worth of building relationships behind. Of course, I am sure they continually keep up with friends in China online, but it is not the same as being there in person.
Again, the CCP might view stories like this it as victories in a war against foreign influence, much like the results of passing the national security law in Hong Kong. With more foreign missionaries leaving the country and taking their foreign ideologies with them, a lack of foreign dependence and presence now exists in China. This allows the government the space to instill a more unified worldview in the nation. This worldview is one where the values and mindset of the CCP become more and more interlaced with that of the overarching Chinese culture.
This is not the first time in Chinese history a strong, centralized government dismissed foreign, Christian influence on a large scale. This happened to the probable earliest form of Christianity in China, Nestorian Christianity, a branch of Christianity which began in Persia according to historical theologian Justo L. Gonzalez (307, 2010). A Chinese Nestorian tablet from 781 AD indicates that Christianity’s roots in China as far back as circa 630 AD (308). This early sect of Christianity in China was later crushed by “political adversaries” (Gonzalez 307) due to, as explained by Serene Fang (n.d.), an imperial edict which illegalized all foreign religions. Another example occurred in the late 1600 and early 1700s when, after a relatively peaceful growth of Catholicism in China. Dominican and Franciscan missionaries debated with Jesuit missionaries which of the two Chinese words should be used to refer to God (Gonzalez 482). Ultimately, the missionaries asked Pope Clemet XI to choose which word was best. “When the emperor of China [Emperor Kangxi],” writes Gonzalez, “learned that this particular dispute had reached Rome, and that the pope was going to settle it, he was incensed at the notion that a barbarian who did not know a word of Chinese presumed to teach the Chinese how to speak their own language” (482). Emperor Kangxi later banned Westerners from preaching in China in 1721 due to the “quarrelsome Christians” and the pope’s involvement in China’s affairs (Ristaino, 21 2008).
Chinese Christians in the Spotlight
With foreign presence dwindling, Christianity in China now hinges on a group of people I feel the West often overlooks: Chinese Christians, specifically those in China.
Chinese Christians—and the foreign missionaries who decided to remain in China during the pandemic—are faced with a completely different situation than the missionaries who left China and are struggling to return. From my understanding, the height of China’s measures against COVID-19 made the country feel post-apocalyptic. The streets of the most populated country on earth lay eerily empty, and guards in hazmat suits stood outside shopping centers. Immediately, people became more isolated than ever before. Two of my friends for example, an American man and a Chinese woman, were forced into a long-distanced relationship even though they only lived one city apart. Some of my other Chinese friends moved in with their parents and did not leave their home for weeks on end. With the CCP on the lookout for any gathering, let alone an illegal church gathering, in-person ministry must have frozen in time.
Any action by Chinese Christians during the pandemic places them further in the spotlight of the CCP and their own people. Christians of both legal and illegal churches made steps to openly serve their neighbors. In a New York Times article published in February 2020, Ian Johnson notes how Christian churches in China raised funds for protective equipment. This includes underground Protestant churches in Beijing raising $10,000 and legal Protestant churches in Wenzhou raising about $143,000 (Johnson). However, the government told the pastors of the underground churches in Beijing to stop their fundraising while denying the donations of an illegal church in Wuhan (Johnson). In this way, COVID-19 has provided Chinese Christians a unique opportunity to display their love and solidarity with their countrymen. Because Christianity is viewed as a foreign religion, it is easy for Chinese Christians to be marked as affiliated with Western beliefs and possibly anti-Chinese. By providing financial and material support during the pandemic, Chinese Christians send the message that, “Hey, we’re Chinese like you, but we are motivated to love our neighbor by faith in Jesus Christ.” Some other Chinese Christians took it upon themselves to serve Christians in other countries more devastated by COVID-19. They secretly sent masks and personal protective equipment to believers in other nations.
But Chinese Christians, especially those attending illegal churches either outwardly helping other Chinese or covertly aiding Christians in other countries further jeopardize themselves. It can be dangerous and uncertain to receive attention of the CCP—particularly during a time the government is striving to create an image of power and control over the Coronavirus. Claims already exist that the CCP is confining Chinese Christians to “re-education” camps, much like the Uyghurs in Xinxiang. A report by Li Nuo (2021) on Radio Free Asia notes that “Authorities in China are detaining Christians in secretive, mobile ‘transformation’ facilities to make them renounce their faith.” Nuo states that this is not only directed at underground Christians, but also legal Christians at times as well. She details that a Christian man, called by the pseudonym, Li Yuese, was held in a CCP facility for ten months as saying and beaten, verbally abused, and mentally tortured. In the report, Nuo quotes Li describing his incarceration: “They threaten, insult, and intimidate you… There were no windows, no ventilation and no time allowed outside… There is no time limit for the brainwashing process… I don’t know the longest time anyone has been held there, but I was detained for eight or nine months.” The torture led Li to want to commit suicide and harm himself by bashing his head against a wall. Open Door USA (2021) lists China as the seventeenth most dangerous country on earth for Christians with an exceptionally high level of persecution. Its 2021 report on China paints a dour picture of the CCP’s crackdown on Christians and how it has utilized COVID-19 to further limit Christians gathering together:
It is getting increasingly difficult to avoid having to fall in line with official ideology, even for state-affiliated churches. Many churches suffering from the state’s tight control reorganized themselves and split into smaller groups—a tactic that didn’t always save them from intrusion. There are reports that authorities used the COVID-19 pandemic to keep churches closed, even after it was no longer necessary for health reasons.
This mixture of excitement and fear for Chinese Christians simultaneously stirs hope and sadness. COVID-19 has pushed the CCP and the people of China to their limits, possibly making them more open to supernatural help and restoration. It provides Chinese Christians an extremely rare chance to be literal lights in the darkness for both China and the world. However, I would be lying if I did not say I am scared for my Chinese Christian friends. I have met few people more welcoming and more diligent in serving others than Chinese Christians. Due to their Chinese heritage and Christianity’s Western affiliation, Chinese Christians understand both Western and Eastern ideologies and culture at a high level. Few are better prepared to critically scrutinize Socrates and Confucius through a Christian lens. Yet, their situation does feel dismal to me. It is difficult for me not to consider them being locked up or tortured some day due to their belief in Jesus Christ. Remarkably, they keep pressing on and stepping out in faith that God is not only their rock and salvation, but that He is the rock and salvation for all Chinese as well—even those within the CCP harming Christians at this exact moment.
For the first time in decades, foreign Christians have a much more limited part and view of Christianity in China. But we cannot be tempted to lose hope. Chinese Christians do not need the West. They need the eternal and unbendable love and power of the Triune God we worship—the same which caused the wicked King Nebuchadnezzar to fall prostrate before Daniel and cry, “Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings” (Dan. 2. 47a).

References
Reported by Li Nuo for RFA’s Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. “Chinese Christians held in secretive brainwashing camps: Sources” https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/christians-camps-04012021081013.html
Li Wenliang: ‘Wuhan whistleblower’ remembered one year on https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55963896

Grace Tsoi and Lam Cho Wai https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-52765838

Serene Fang https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/china_705/history/china.html

Marcia R. Ristaino The Jacuinot Safe Zone: Wartime Refugees in Shanghai. Stanford University Press 2008 https://books.google.com/books?id=MbeT3r-bAfUC&pg=PA21#v=onepage&q&f=false

“China” https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/world-watch-list/china/

Ian Johnson https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/23/world/asia/china-religion-coronavirus-donations.html
Justo L. González The Story of Christianity: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation (Revised and Updated) Volume 1 HaperOne 2010