Letter to the Editor
Recently I read Dr Evelyne Micollier's article on 'Qiqong Groups and Civil Society in P.R. China', published in the IIAS Newsletter 22, in which she states that religion in the PRC 'is still considered to be an "opium for the peope" by officials true to the consensual political line'. As someone who has done a great deal of research on Christianity and religious policy in China during the last ten years, I cannot see that this theory still serves as the 'consensual political line'.
In her article she also mentions the ongoing process of re-evaluation of religion in the field of social sciences. In my opinion it was an outcome of precisely this process that several years ago the theory of 'religion as opium' was removed from the centre of the 'consensual political line'. I would like to refer to a manuscript written by Professor Zhuo Xinping, director of the Institute of Studies in World Religions at the Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. The theme of his manuscript deals with the understanding of religion in contemporary China. Professor Zhuo shows that the theory of 'religion as opium for the people' is but one of the various religious theories and, moreover, it is a theory of the past. *
MONIKA GAENSSBAUER
China Study Project
Hamburg, Germany - 19 July 2000