VZCZCXRO5163
OO RUEHCN RUEHGH RUEHVC
DE RUEHBJ #2383/01 2301205
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 181205Z AUG 09
FM AMEMBASSY BEIJING
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5693
INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 002383 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KIRF PGOV PHUM PREL SCUL CH
SUBJECT: RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE ON THE CHINESE WEB 
 
REF: A. BEIJING 01770 
     ¶B. BEIJING 1928 
     ¶C. BEIJING 02005 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1. (SBU) Searches for online discussion of religion on the 
Chinese Internet from June to August revealed a robust 
discourse on religious doctrine and practice on Christian, 
Muslim, and Buddhist websites, discussion forums, and blogs 
as well as on mainstream commercial portals.  Chinese 
religious sites varied in appearance, willingness to include 
discussion of political topics and links to other sites. 
Chinese Christian portals and websites had large numbers of 
hits and postings and were observed to be used for networking 
and proselytizing, but political content was noticeably 
absent.  Chinese-language Islamic sites mostly focused on 
cultural and religious discussions among Hui Muslims and 
often featured scholarly discussions of scriptural or 
cultural topics.  Islamic sites also were observed to include 
limited discussion of select political issues, including the 
influence of the July riots in Xinjiang on the perception of 
Muslims in China.  However, many websites that had hosted 
material on Islam had been censored after the riots. 
Buddhist websites we observed included a variety of Buddhist 
sects.  They did not appear to be as interconnected as 
Christian or Muslim sites.  Some had clear ties to foreign 
organizations.  Buddhist websites concentrated on Buddhist 
doctrine, religious practices and scriptures.  These sites 
made little mention of the Dalai Lama, except for political 
or personal criticism that often echoed Chinese government 
propaganda.  The pedigree of "pro-government" postings and 
comments is difficult to determine, because the Communist 
Party is known to compensate web users who write such 
content.  End Summary. 
 
Christian Websites: Social Networking and Proselytizing 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) Christian portals and websites on the Chinese 
Internet claimed a large readership and provided social 
networking functions.  Based on website content and blog/blog 
comment postings, it appears that Chinese Christian netizens 
use the Internet to network and proselytize.  Searches for 
"Christian Websites" in Chinese on Baidu.cn, China's most 
popular search engine, and Google.cn, returned over 1.6 and 
4.9 million results respectively (Note: Search engine results 
are a notoriously inexact measure of Internet usage, however 
we provide the data here to give a general idea of the amount 
of religious content online. End Note).  PolOff was able to 
access hundreds of relevant links and portals through normal 
filtered Chinese Internet providers.  The majority of sites 
visited by PolOff were registered in the Shanghai region, 
including 52jidunet.com and ccctspm.org.  Christianity was 
discussed on mainstream commercial Chinese sites as well. 
Baidu Q&A (zhidao.baidu.cn) services noted at least 52,000 
questions related to the word "Christianity" from 2003 to 
August 2009, and Tieba.Baidu.cn listed over a million similar 
postings over the same period.  The government-approved 
"Three Self Movement" Protestant Church was represented in a 
portion of sites, but most sites did not refer to the "Three 
Self" congregations.  (Note: The "Three Self Movement" 
Protestant Church is one of the five officially recognized 
religions in China.  End Note.)  Some Christian sites claimed 
to have a high volume of page views, with one site 
(ccctspm.org) claiming over 4.9 million views from 2001 to 
July 2009, another (zhsw.org) recorded over 6.24 million 
views from 2005 to August 2009.  Many individual blogs linked 
from portals like 172god.cn recorded tens of thousands of 
hits, and some chatrooms and forums received hundreds of 
postings on a daily basis throughout July. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Chat room discussions ranged from testimonies and 
stories of personal religious experience to advice on 
parenting and marriage.  Portals such as God123.cn and 
Jidunet.cn were replete with links to individual church 
websites, blogs, chat rooms, and RSS feeds.  Similarly, 
religious resources, sermons, online Bibles of various 
translations (Good News Translation, New Revised Standard 
Version), Christian bookstores, news sources, and seminaries 
in China were openly available.  PolOff observed Christian 
music downloads available on the majority of sites.  Portal 
sites like God123.cn also contained links to foreign 
Chinese-language Christian networks in Hong Kong 
(gnci.org.hk), Taiwan, the United States, Canada, Australia, 
and elsewhere which PolOff was able to access directly from a 
Chinese Internet cafe.  On these sites, PolOff observed 
Chinese netizens using social networking functions and chat 
 
BEIJING 00002383  002 OF 003 
 
 
rooms to arrange social functions, basketball tournaments and 
bible study sessions. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Netizens on the majority of Christian websites 
visited by PolOff openly encouraged others to proselytize, 
bring friends to church, and discuss religion.  One blog, 
manboli.ccblog.net, reposted a letter that his house church 
had distributed to the neighborhood inviting them to church. 
One supportive netizen commented, "if we do not proselytize, 
it will bring us misfortune."  Jidujiao.cn, a portal site 
registered in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, contained 
encouragements to "share this with friends" on their main 
page.  This website also appeared to have overt support from 
non-Chinese sources based on the names listed on its donation 
page. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Political discourse was noticeably absent from the 
Christian sites.  One forum overtly encouraged self 
censorship and cautioned users not to post political or 
pornographic material.  The site included a 24-hour phone 
number to call to report such posts.  Reached by email, the 
webmaster for this site told PolOff the warning was put on 
the website by the webhost.  The forum was "unwilling to have 
contact with people touching on politics," he said. 
Chinafuyin.cn posted a similar note urging self censorship. 
Various forums did make note of government efforts to shut 
down Christian sites, in one case suggesting that a censored 
site should "find another location" to avoid censorship. 
Some posts speculated that one reason for the censorship of 
Christian sites was that the government had "gone overboard" 
in its efforts to restrain Muslim sites, and Christian sites 
had been caught up in those efforts. 
 
Focus on Hui Muslims, Theological and Political Issues 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) Searches for websites on Islam resulted in a large 
number of websites aimed at Chinese Hui Muslims.  Of the 
sites PolOff visited, approximately half of the formerly 
active links to additional Muslim sites were blocked, 
suggesting recent efforts to censor sites with Muslim 
content.  (Note: Searches for Falun Gong revealed the same 
pattern.  The few sites that were accessible were critical of 
Falun Gong.  End Note.)  Searches on Baidu.cn for 
Islam-related postings (tieba.baidu.cn) were completely 
blocked when searched on August 11, but Baidu's Q&A section 
(zhidao.baidu.cn) about Islam returned over 13,000 posts. 
Portals like islamcn.net, 2muslim.com, and yich.org (over 3.1 
million hits from 2004 to August 2009) contained links and 
connections to other domestic Islamic sites.  Most Islamic 
sites we visited were registered in Beijing or in western 
provinces. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) In contrast to many of the Christian websites, many 
Hui websites we observed, including China774.cn, appeared, 
based on their design, to have been designed by 
professionals.  China774.cn was owned and run partly by an 
internet design company (Johaa.com) that produced sites in 
Chinese and Arabic.  Advertisements on many of the sites 
offered Halal food, travel packages, study abroad packages, 
wedding photography, and Arabic lessons.  Almost all portals 
contained a simple explanation and introduction to Islam. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Articles from scholarly journals on Islam, such as 
Arab World Studies, were broadly posted and linked.  On 
several Muslim forums PolOff found discussions of political 
issues such as the impact of the early July unrest in 
Xinjiang on perceptions of Islam by non-Muslim Chinese, in 
addition to many discussions on scripture and culture. 
However, PolOff searches during the period of the unrest 
found little mention of Uighurs on these forums. (Ref A) 
Additionally, a popular Uighur forum, uighurbiz.net has been 
blocked in China since the Urumqi riots (Refs A, B, C). 
Bulletin Board Services (BBS) such as Islamcn.net claimed 
high viewership with some popular posts recording tens of 
thousands of views in July. 
 
Diverse Buddhist Sects, Links to Taiwan and Outside 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶9. (SBU) PolOff was able to access Chinese websites belonging 
to a variety of Buddhist sects through searches on Baidu.cn 
and Google.cn, which turned up over 5.9 million and 53 
million results respectively.  Similar to the Christian 
websites that PolOff visited, doctrinal issues were discussed 
openly on mainstream commercial Chinese sites.  Sites 
dedicated to discussion of Buddhist beliefs were registered 
in many regions throughout the country.  Regardless of 
affiliation, many sites (fjnet.com, fjlt.net, bbs.zgft.cn) 
 
BEIJING 00002383  003 OF 003 
 
 
made reference to the World Buddhist Forum, an international 
forum held every few years in China and attended by over 1000 
monks from 50 participating countries, held most recently in 
Jiangsu Province in March 2009.  Many websites, including 
fjnet.com and fjdh.com linked openly to sites hosted outside 
of mainland China including some hosted in Taiwan.  These 
sites were accessible through Chinese Internet providers. 
Most sites we visited focused primarily on doctrine, Buddhist 
practices and study of Buddhist scriptures. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Searches for Buddhist sites revealed a large number 
of websites featuring prominent inclusion of familiar Chinese 
government propaganda on Chinese culture, economy, and 
environmental issues.  Buddhist sites such as zcfj.fjnet.com 
and Tibet.cn, both registered in Beijing, included pictures 
of monks smiling as they met local officials.  Christian and 
Islamic sites were not observed to include similar material. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Chinese sites related to Tibetan Buddhism made 
little mention of the Dalai Lama.  Many included government 
and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) accounts of Tibetan culture 
and religious beliefs.  Baidu.cn and Google.cn searches for 
Tibetan Buddhism or Dalai Lama were dominated by 
republication of articles from official media expounding 
official policy on Tibet and the Dalai Lama.  The content of 
one site, Tibet328.cn, the "Tibet Human Rights Website," 
launched in March 2009 on the "50th anniversary of democratic 
reforms in Tibet and the liberation of the serfs," was 
particularly noteworthy as thinly disguised government 
propaganda, including discussion of the role of the CCP in 
protecting human rights in Tibet. 
 
¶12. (SBU) An August 11 discussion on Tibet328.cn included 
commentary critical of the Dalai Lama's recent comments in 
support of Xinjiang activist Rebiya Kadeer; the site also 
contained many reposted Xinhua news articles condemning the 
Dalai Lama.  Essays critical of the Dalai Lama were reposted 
on several Buddhist sites including tibetbuddhism.org, and 
individual blogs such as blog163.com/jujunjun.  One such 
article was a critique of the Dalai Lama's statement that his 
successor would be determined by popular election.  An 
article by the Deputy Director of the Tibet Autonomous Region 
Standing Committee added, "Dalai caters to western 
sentiments, he wears the robes and appearance of religion, 
but to be blunt he has political motives."  Another article 
from blog163.com/jujunjun was entitled "Dalai from an early 
stage was never fit to be a real Buddhist."  Note: the 
Chinese Communist Party compensates some bloggers and 
comment-posters for pro-government, pro-Party comments and 
posts.  The existence of these paid content generators, 
dubbed in Chinese the "fifty cent party" for the price they 
are paid per pro-government post, makes it difficult to 
assess the authenticity of pro-government opinions expressed 
on the Chinese Internet. 
GOLDBERG