Shantou students influenced by preaching

Discipline watchdog finds illegal religious infiltration at university

The provincial discipline watchdog has revealed a case of illegal religious infiltration in a university in Shantou, South China’s Guangdong Province.

Shantou University had “inadequate prevention for illegal religious infiltration,” said a statement from an inspection team dispatched by the provincial discipline inspection agency of the Communist Party of China to the university in October and November 2016. The statement was issued on the website of the provincial discipline inspection agency on Tuesday.

An employee surnamed Chen from the university’s Center for Christian Studies told the Global Times on Tues- day that the center is not connected with the inspection statement.

The person in charge of publicity at Shantou University could not be reached as of press time.

Shantou – a coastal city and special economic zone – has exchanges with many countries, Mo Yueyun, head of the Marxism Study Center under the South China University of Technology in Guangdong Province, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

“Therefore, it might be more vulnerable to influences of foreign Christian and Catholic groups than other regions in China,” he explained.

In the past decade, young university students have been subject to religious influence through multiple channels, and a “religious fever” has spread among them, said Mo.

According to Mo’s research on religious infiltration on campus in 2014, some foreign teachers might use their jobs to preach in Chinese universities. For instance, they could preach by organizing English learning activities or sponsoring poor students, or through universities’ “cultural exchanges” or “academic research,” Mo said.

“A foreign teacher from the US once brought me to a party where I was preached for about two hours,” a female graduate from the Beijing Institute of Technology told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Some graduates of Wuhan University in Central China’s Hubei Province and Zhengzhou University in Henan Province also said that they have the experience of being preached on campus.

Another student from the Beijing Institute of Technology said that almost all foreign staff teaching English were introduced by a US- based Christian organization, adding that “some of them often played films and songs praising Jesus to us.”

Moreover, foreign religious groups seek to disseminate information through mail, the Internet and broadcasting, said Mo.

The preaching activities of the “foreign hostile forces” in Chinese universities were not aimed at spreading religion but advocating their values and lifestyle,” Mo noted.