Lianghui

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Lianghui (simplified Chinese : 两 会 ; traditional Chinese : 兩 會 ; pinyin :Liǎnghuì; Wade–Giles :Liang3 Hui4; literally: "two meetings") is a common Mandarin Chinese abbreviation for a pair of organizations which have close relations.

Simplified Chinese characters standardized Chinese characters developed in mainland China

Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are one of the two standard character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the People's Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s to encourage literacy. They are officially used in the People's Republic of China and Singapore.

Traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters

Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the standardized character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong and Macau, and in the Kangxi Dictionary. The modern shapes of traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the clerical script during the Han Dynasty, and have been more or less stable since the 5th century.

Hanyu Pinyin, often abbreviated to pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China and to some extent in Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Mandarin Chinese, which is normally written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones. Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters.

Contents

In the Chinese government, the term refers to the annual plenary sessions of the national or local People's Congress and the national or local committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. It is used also by the officially sanctioned Protestant and Catholic churches in China, and has been used by some to avoid Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China.

National Peoples Congress highest state body and legislature of the Peoples Republic of China

The National People's Congress is the national legislature of the People's Republic of China. With 2,980 members in 2018, it is the largest parliamentary body in the world. The National People's Congress meets in full session for roughly two weeks each year and votes on important pieces of legislation, and members are considered to be part-time legislators and are not paid to serve in the NPC.

Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference Political advisory body in the Peoples Republic of China

The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), also known as the People's PCC or simply the PCC (政协), is a political legislative advisory body in the People's Republic of China. The organisation consists of delegates from a range of political parties and organisations, as well as independent members. The proportion of representation of the various parties is determined by established convention, negotiated between the parties.

Governmental usages

When referring to politics of the People's Republic of China, "national lianghui" (全国两会) refers to annual plenary sessions of the two organizations that make national-level political decisions: the National People's Congress (NPC) and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

A less common political usage of lianghui is abbreviating the Republic of China's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) in Taipei, and the PRC's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) in Beijing.

Straits Exchange Foundation Taiwans semi-official organization for dialog with China

The Straits Exchange Foundation is a semi-official organization set up by the Government of the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan to handle technical or business matters with the People's Republic of China (PRC). Though technically a private organization, it is funded by the government and controlled by the Mainland Affairs Council of the Executive Yuan. Its role is effectively to function as the de facto embassy to the PRC, as a means of avoiding acknowledgement of the PRC's statehood status.

The Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits is an organization set up by the People's Republic of China for handling technical or business matters with the Republic of China (Taiwan).

Protestant usages

The Protestant "National Lianghui" office in Shanghai. CCCTSPM.jpg
The Protestant "National Lianghui" office in Shanghai.

Protestantism in China uses lianghui to name the two Chinese government-sanctioned Protestant organizations: the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and the China Christian Council (CCC). Due to the close relationship between these two organizations, they are sometimes mistaken as the same organization.

Protestant Christianity entered China in the early 19th century, taking root in a significant way during the Qing dynasty. Some historians consider the Taiping Rebellion to have been influenced by Protestant teachings. Since the mid-20th century, there has been an increase in the number of Christian practitioners in China. According to a survey published in 2010 there are approximately 40 million Protestants in China.

The Three-Self Patriotic Movement is a Protestant church in the People's Republic of China, and one of the largest Protestant bodies in the world. It is colloquially known as the Three-Self Church.

China Christian Council Protestant religious organization in China

The China Christian Council was founded in 1980 as an umbrella organization for all Protestant churches in the People's Republic of China with Bishop K. H. Ting as its president. It works to provide theological education and the publication of Bibles, hymnals, and other religious literature. It encourages the exchange of information among local churches in evangelism, pastoral work and administration. It has formulated a church order for local churches, and seeks to continue to develop friendly relations with churches overseas.

Administrative structure

Beginning in the 1980s, both associations were simultaneously headed by K. H. Ting (丁光訓, 1915–), an ordained Anglican Bishop of Zhejiang in 1955 (prior to the absorption of all Anglican and Protestant denominational churches into the TSPM). He would retire from both positions at the 6th National Christian Conference, where he addressed the delegates on 29 December 1996.

K. H. Ting, Ting Kuang-hsun or Ding Guangxun, was Chairperson emeritus of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and President emeritus of the China Christian Council, the government-approved Protestant church in China.

Anglicanism The practices, liturgy and identity of the Church of England

Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition which has developed from the practices, liturgy and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation.

A bishop is an ordained, consecrated, or appointed member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight.

The TSPM and CCC together form the constituent organizations of the National Conference of Chinese Protestant Churches. [1] The distinctive roles of the TSPM and CCC are hard to distinguish due to overlaps but both organizations maintain separate Standing Committees.

The administrative structure of the lianghui is diagrammed as follows:

Administration Structure of Lianghui.png

Ministries

The TSPM and CCC jointly administer the following ministries: [2]

Organizes resources both domestic and abroad, to plan and coordinate the activities of local churches to promote an active social welfare programs, disaster relief programs, and emergency relief work.
Coordinates the editing, publication and distribution of books, audio and video materials, Bibles and hymnals. Also sets guidelines for the publication of materials by local TSPM committees and Church councils.
Researches main trends of Churches overseas, major themes involved in Reconstruction of Theological Thinking, and issues concerning church development in China.
Supervises and coordinates issues relating to educational guidelines for Theological Seminaries and Bible Colleges in China, organizes overseas study program for theological graduates, supports lay training programs, and organizes training programs in specialized fields.
Supervised and coordinates the establishment and development of relationships between Chinese churches and overseas churches through regular mutual visits and exchanges on the basis of mutual respect, and equality.

Number of Christians

There are large numbers of Chinese house churches in China which are outside of the registered organizations. [3]

Together, the TSPM and CCC claims a total of between 9.8 million to 13.5 million Protestant Christians in China. [4]

Controversy

The TSPM and CCC are viewed with suspicion and distrust by some Christians both within and outside China. Some claim the TSPM to be a tool of the Communist Party of China to control and regulate the expression of Christianity. [5] As a result, many groups refuse to deal with the TSPM or CCC and there exists a large unregistered House Church movement in China with some claiming that it serves the large majority of Protestant Christians in China. [6]

There are allegations of regular and systematic persecution against Christians associated with the House Church movement and other unregistered Christian organizations in China. [7]

Catholic usages

Roman Catholicism in China uses lianghui, or yihuiyituan (一会一团 or "one association and one conference"), referring to the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (中国天主教爱国会) and the Bishops Conference of Catholic Church in China (中国天主教主教团). These two state-approved Catholic organizations do not accept the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, in contrast to the Chinese Catholic Bishops Conference (天主教台灣地區主教團) in Taiwan.

Internet usages

During the 2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests, the word lianghui became a covert means of avoiding Internet censorship. [8] [9] [10] [11] When PRC censors attempted to limit news of the Arab Spring by disabling internet searches for Chinese words such as "Egypt," "Tunisia," and “jasmine", protest organizers urged bloggers and activists to call planned protests lianghui. If the government were to censor this dissenters' circumlocution, it would effectively block internet news about the governmental NPC and CPPCC meetings.

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Protestant Church in China: Administrative Structure Archived 2007-09-28 at the Wayback Machine (URL last accessed on May 1, 2007
  2. ↑ (in Chinese) Ministries - Protestant Churches in China, web of CCCTSPM Archived 2007-10-24 at Archive.today
  3. ↑ OMF: China Profile (URL last accessed on May 1, 2007)
  4. ↑ Amity Foundation: How To Count The Number of Christians In China Archived 2011-07-21 at the Wayback Machine (URL last accessed on May 1, 2007)
  5. ↑ Grant, Paul: The Three Self Church, NSM, January 1, 2007 (URL last accessed on May 1, 2007)
  6. ↑ 24/7 Prayer: Statistics of Christians in China (URL last accessed on May 1, 2007)
  7. ↑ Forum 18 Analyses: Reports from China (URL last accessed on May 1, 2007)
  8. ↑ Jeremy Page, New Chinese Call for 'Jasmine' Protest Circulates Online, Wall Street Journal, February 24, 2011.
  9. ↑ Jo Ling Kent, Organizers call for second round of demonstrations across China, CNN World, February 25, 2011.
  10. ↑ Lianghui, Schott's Vocab, New York Times, March 2, 2011.
  11. ↑ Jargon Watch, Wired Magazine, May 31, 2011.

Further reading

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