| My research focuses on church-state relations in contemporary China, to explore whether or not the Catholic Church in China constitutes a threat to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime. I am undertaking a comparative study of the CCP's religious control over the Catholic and Protestant churches in mainland China through the approach of state-society relations, as well as a macroscopic view of political science with quantitative and qualitative analysis.;As they are both foreign-originated parts of Christianity, the Catholic Church has been subjected to much stricter controls from the mainland CCP since 1949 than the Protestant Churches. Furthermore, the Protestant churches have been the fastest growing religion in China in past three decades, but it had once grown relatively very slowly under late Qing and the KMT regimes, compared with the Catholicism. This research tries to explore these two strange phenomena, to study why the CCP has been so highly attentive towards the Catholic Church but has not eliminated it in mainland China.;Through expounding the differences between the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches in religious doctrines, organizational structures, propagation models, as well as development rates in China, which have been ignored by most scholars in the field, I try to interpret why the CCP has taken much tougher religious control over the Catholic Church, compared with the Protestant ones. Furthermore, I also make comparison between the Catholic Church and the CCP both of those are hierarchical organizations with highly unified ideologies, as well as different kinds of Universalism and Particularism.;In my view, the Catholic Church in China is different from Protestant churches, in that it has the tradition of "The Directives of Matteo Ricci," which expounded Christian doctrines in a Confucian way. It also comports with the traditional dependence on patriarchal clans (kinship) and obedience to secular authority found in Chinese society. It is not a social group that inclines to reform or revolution, but rather a conservative, exclusive, and highly stable one. Therefore, it has never intended to threaten or challenge the CCP's authority. The opposition of the Catholic Church in China has been "misperceived" by the CCP.;As a regime highly unified in ideology and organization, the CCP's state has been highly attentive toward any religion that has a nationwide, structured organization in China, whether it is of foreign or native provenance. Contrary to the common view in the field, it is argued that the Catholic Church could survive in China after 1949 -- in contrast to the "I-Kuan Tao" (Yi Guan Dao; eliminated in 1950's), and "Falun Gong" (eliminated in recent years), because of its powerful world-wide network, its linkage with the Vatican. The CCP wants to maintain the disruption between the official and underground Catholic Churches in the Chinese mainland, to divide the Catholic Church and rule it in China. |
