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Typologies of Secularism in China: Religion, Superstition, and Secularization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2023

Aymeric Xu*
Affiliation:
Scuola Superiore Meridionale, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, IT

Abstract

This article examines four typologies of secularism in China from the sixteenth century onward, through an analysis of the triadic relationship between the secular, religious, and superstitious. These notions have been considered to be derived from the particular intellectual and political history of the West, but this fails to grasp the complexity of non-Western belief systems. This article proposes to instead examine how Chinese policymakers and intellectuals actively fabricated religion and produced secularization. It goes beyond a simple rebuttal of Eurocentrism, and arguments regarding the mutual incomparability of Western and Chinese experiences of secularization. It distinguishes four typologies of secularism that emerged successively in China: (1) the reduction of Christianity from the sixteenth century to the 1900s; (2) the Confucian secular and (3) atheist secular that were conceptualized, respectively, by royalist reformers and anti-Manchu revolutionaries during the final two decades of the Qing Dynasty; and (4) the interventionist secularism pursued by the Republican and the Communist regimes to strictly supervise and regulate religious beliefs and practices. The paper argues that, if secularization is indeed Christian in nature, secularism and religion were not imposed in China under Western cultural and political hegemony. Instead, the Christian secular model was produced in China mainly via pre-existing cultural norms and the state’s ad hoc political needs, making the Christian secularism itself a multipolar phenomenon.

Type
The Outsides of Religion
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History

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31 This definition of xiejiao was provided by the Shunzhi Emperor in a 1656 imperial edict. He enumerated the Luo Teaching (無為教, Wuweijiao), the White Lotus (白蓮教, Bailianjiao), and the Incense Smelling Teaching (聞香教, Wenxiangjiao) as typical xiejiao. See Wenhai, Li, Qingshi biannian (Chronological account of the Qing dynasty) (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 1985), 464 Google Scholar.

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46 Ibid., 282; Peng Chunling, Rujia zhuanxing yu wenhua xinming: yi Kang Youwei, Zhang Taiyan wei zhongxin (1898–1927) (The transformation of Confucianism and the New Culture Movement: On Kang Youwei and Zhang Taiyan [1898–1927]) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2014), 171.

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60 See, for instance, Chen Huanzhang, “Mingding yuanyou zhi guojiao wei guojiao bing bu aiyu xinjiao ziyou zhi xin mingci” (Endorsing the historical state cult as the state cult of the Republic does not counter freedom of religion), in Shanghai Jingshi Publishing, ed., Minguo jingshi wenbian (Collection of articles on social and political affairs of the republican era) (Beijing: Beijing tushuguan chubanshe, 2006), vol. 8, 5056–57.

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65 DuBois, “Local Religion,” 395.

66 Huang, “Zhongguo jindai sixiang zhong de mixin.”

67 Deity worship did not necessarily constitute a defining element of religion, regardless of how the term was understood by Chinese elites at the time. Kang Youwei’s ideal religion, analyzed in this section, took the form of atheism. Some intellectuals found it unproblematic to qualify Buddhism as an atheistic religion. But deity worship was generally regarded as a characteristic of religion, as Wang Jingfang’s observation cited in the next section clearly shows. For Buddhism and religion, see, for instance, Zhang Taiyan, “Jianli zongjiao lun” (On the creation of religion), Minbao 9 (1906): 1–26.

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70 See, for instance, Deng Shi, “Guxue fuxing lun” (On the renaissance of ancient learning), in Deng Shi and Huang Jie, eds., Guocui xuebao (Journal of national essence) (Yangzhou: Guangling shushe, 2005[1905]), vol. 1, 112.

71 Liu Jinzao, Qingchao xu wenxian tongkao (Supplement to the documents of the Qing dynasty), cited in Huang, “Zhongguo jindai sixiang zhong de mixin,” 189.

72 The word “secular” was listed in major English-Chinese dictionaries published in the late-Qing period, which often translated the term as 俗世 (sushi, worldly affairs), 世事 (shishi, worldly affairs), 風俗 (fengsu, customs), and 世俗 (shisu, earthly minded, not pertaining to the spiritual world). “Coming once in a century” is also a common interpretation. In the late-Qing dictionaries I was able to find, only the 1908 An English and Chinese Standard Dictionary includes the term “secularism,” which the author explained, in English and in Chinese, as “the principles of the Secularists, which are founded on an exclusive regard to the interest of this life (祇注重今生利益不信來生之學說, 惟俗論),” and a synonym of “secularity,” which, according to the same dictionary, means “worldliness (俗心, suxin)” and “supreme attention to things of the present life (一心注重於現在生中事物, 祇知今世不信來生).” The secular/religious binary is conveyed in the translation of “secularize”: “to convert from a regular or monastic into secular (還俗)” and “to convert from spiritual appropriation to secular or common use (抄聖物爲世用).” None of these explanations related the notions to a political regime, and the Chinese words chosen to translate these terms were easily understandable and commonly used by Chinese readers at the time, sometimes in a somewhat pejorative manner (a person only interested in pettiness, for instance). This nuance is also reflected in the translation of certain other entries in the dictionary. See Yen, Wei-Ching Williams, An English and Chinese Standard Dictionary (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1908), 2018 Google Scholar.

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84 Nedostup, Superstitious Regimes, 27–28.

85 Goossaert, “Republican Church Engineering,” 213.

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97 See, for example, Jiang Zemin, “Baochi Dang de zongjiao zhengce de wendingxing he lianxuxing” (On maintaining the stability and continuity of the religious policy of the party), in Zhonggong Zhongyang Wenxian Yanjiushi Zonghe Yanjiuzu, ed., Xinshiqi zongjiao gongzuo wenxian huibian (Selection of documents on religious work during the new period) (Beijing: Zongjiao wenhua chubanshe, 2014), 210.

98 “Guanyu woguo shehui zhuyi shiqi zongjiao wenti de jiben guandian he jiben zhengce” (On the principles and policies on religion during the socialist period of our nation), in Zhonggong Zhongyang Wenxian Yanjiushi Zonghe Yanjiuzu, ed., Xinshiqi zongjiao gongzuo wenxian huibian (Selection of documents on religious work during the new period) (Beijing: Zongjiao wenhua chubanshe, 2014), 54–72.

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103 Josephson, Invention of Religion, 4.

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106 “Quanguo renmin daibiao dahui changwu weiyuanhui guanyu qudi xiejiao zuzhi, fangfan he chengzhi xiejiao yundong de guiding” (Notice of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on the ban on evil organizations, and prevention and suppression of the activities of evil cults), effective 30 October 1999, in Zhongguo fazhi chubanshe, ed., Xinbian xingshi shiyong fadian (A practical manual of the criminal code) (Beijing: Zhongguo fazhi chubanshe, 2005), 186–87.

107 Palmer, David A., “Heretical Doctrines, Reactionary Secret Societies, Evil Cults: Labeling Heterodoxy in Twentieth-Century China,” in Yang, Mayfair Mei-hui, ed., Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 134 Google Scholar.

108 Ibid.

109 Jean-Pierre Chantin, “Les sectes en France. Quel questionnement sur la laïcité?” in Patrick Weil, ed., Politiques de la laïcité au XXe siècle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2007), 553–69.