Organizer and Chair: Ron Guey Chu, Academia Sinica
Discussants: Marianne Spiegel, Human Rights Watch; Cynthia McLean, Canada
China Programme; Henry Rosemont, Jr., St. Mary's College; Todd T. Lewis,
Holy Cross College; Myron L. Cohen, Columbia University; Sumner B. Twiss,
Brown University
As liberalization in China in the past decade brought economic prosperity, religion has come back in a big way, along with fresh repressions on religious activities. The purpose of this roundtable is to account for this unleashing of religious vigor despite governmental sanctions and most of all to reflect on the question whether the new religious freedoms will become permanent or continue to expand in the future as the modernization process seems to stay for good. Panelists consist of academics and human rights advocates. In attempting to provide the latest diagnosis of religious health in China, the panelists will discuss the current persecutions of religious personages, the state of Christian communities, and popular sectarian religious activities in the context of political, legal, theological and historical particularities of China.