Religion in China: Ties That Bind by Adam Yuet Chau (review)

This is a book with some valuable insights and a misleading title. It is part of the China Today Series from Polity Books, which offers basic information about Chinese culture and society, with titles such as Education in China and Ethnicity in China. The title Religion in China, within the context of the series, may lead readers to expect an overview of the religious scene in the People's Republic. This is not the case.

As the editor of a daily newsletter about religion in China, Bitter Winter, I check stories about Chinese religions in mainline media every day. In recent years, the highest number of these stories have been devoted to the repression of Islam among the Uyghurs and other Turkic populations in Xinjiang. The present book devotes a few lines to the Uyghur Muslims and only a passing reference to the repression. Vying for second place in the number of stories appearing in the mainline media is the crackdown on house churches, i.e. Protestant churches that refuse to join the government-controlled Three-Self Church. House churches are discussed in a couple of pages only, and a casual reader would not understand the extent of this phenomenon, nor the severity of the persecution. Chau writes that there are "restrictions" on Tibetan Buddhists (137) but does not explain how these "restrictions" operate. We would also expect to find in a book published in 2019 a discussion of the controversial agreement signed between China and the Vatican in 2018. It is not even mentioned.

Readers of Nova Religio may find particularly disappointing that Chinese new religious movements, which are among the largest and most dynamic in the world, are scarcely noted. There are three pages (145–147) on the rise and fall of qigong groups, including Falun Gong, but the magnitude of the repression and the resulting international controversies are ignored. Large Christian new religious movements, such as The Church of Almighty God (introduced under its old name of Eastern Lightning) and the Shouters enter the book only because of their "alleged troublesomeness" (145), discussed in three lines without further elaboration.

I understand that Chau is an anthropologist interested in religious practices, rather than the role of religion in society. In a highly regulated society such as China, however, these practices are conditioned by the attitude of the state, and in many cases determined by the context of repression and persecution. A reader who might not consult other sources would come to the conclusion that some problems exist in China, but would not appreciate the scale of religious persecution there, and how the state's intervention changes the very religious practices Chau seeks to analyze.

Nevertheless, the book also includes valuable information. Chau is at his best when he describes the daily practices of popular Buddhism and Daoism, and the variety of folk religions in China. His extended treatment of the network of temples worshiping the sea goddess Mazu is both well-written and persuasive. And one gets a feeling of how Chinese folk religion lives in myriad festivals and public and private practices, including the activities of spirit mediums, described by an anthropologist who has obviously done substantial work in this field. There is also a good methodological introduction explaining how these practices can be studied. Yet Chau fails to report that some festivals have been forbidden and large Buddhist and Daoist statues destroyed in recent years.

This book is recommended for those interested in Chinese folk religious practices and festivals. For a larger picture of Chinese religion, including its political context and the new repressive measures introduced by President Xi Jinping, readers should look elsewhere.