China

中国 China
Location of China
National Assembly		N/A
Statistics:
Total Population
-	UN 2021	1,425,893,465
Bahá'í pop.
-	Bahá'í source
-	Non-Bahá'í source	6,451
Official Website		https://www.bahai.org/zh
Related media
Categories: China • People

The People's Republic of China is a country in East Asia which is the second most populous in the world. Standard Chinese is the de facto language and Buddhism, Irreligion, and Taoism are the predominant belief systems.

The region has been ruled by several monarchial dynasties for thousands of years until 1912 when the Republic of China was formed. A civil war was fought in the 1920s and 1940s which led to the Chinese Communist Party establishing control of mainland China in 1949 and the firm establishment of the People's Republic.

The Bahá’í Faith (locally 巴哈伊信仰 Bāhāyī xìnyǎng 'Bahá’í Faith', 巴哈伊教 Bāhāyījiào 'Bahá’í religion', or, in old translations, 大同教 Dàtóngjiào 'Great Unity religion') has had a presence in China since the 19th century. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá‎‎ said that with the proper training each one of the "divine personages" in China "may become a bright candle of the world of humanity" and hoped that "the right kind of teacher" will go there and promote "the principles of divine civilization."

Currently there is no organized Bahá’í community in the country or any form of administration in accordance with governmental requirements but there are Bahá’ís residing in the country who practice the religion on an individual basis and through small group study of the Ruhi Institute materials.

History

Early years

The first Bahá’í to live in China was Hájí Mírzá Muhammad-‘Alí Afnán, a cousin of the Báb, who lived in Shanghai from 1862 to 1868 where he expanded the Afnán family trading business. Another early contact between the Faith and China was Mírzá Abu’l-Faḍl who visited the country briefly in the 1880's.

In 1902 a Persian Bahá’í was posted to Shanghai in their business career and from late 1909 to January 1910 Mason Remey and Howard Struven visited China in the course of an international travel teaching trip for the Faith. In 1914 three Persian Bahá’ís, Mirza Mehdi Rashti, Ali-Hasanoff, and Husayn Uskuli, moved to Shanghai as tea merchants although only Uskuli remained in the country for a considerable period. He departed in 1918 but returned in 1922 with several members of his family including his son-in-law Suleiman Suleimani. In 1917 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá made reference to having made arrangements to travel himself to Kashgar in western China to teach the Chinese people and had obtained a passport, but was prevented from going by the Ottoman authorities.

Liu Chan Song (Chan S. Liu), an early Chinese Bahá’í.

The first known Chinese believer is thought to be Chen Hai An (also known as T. J. Chwang), who attended Bahá’í meetings in Chicago and returned to Shanghai in 1916. Another early believer, Liu Chan Song (Chan S. Liu), first heard of the Bahá’í Faith while studying at Cornell University in 1921, returning to Canton in 1923 where he took up a position at Sun Yat-Sen University.

In 1923 Martha Root moved to China settling in Beijing where she taught English classes at the Peking Esperanto College for six months and delivered talks on the Bahá’í Faith while in the city. She then toured the north of the country for three months accompanied by Agnes Alexander and her sister visiting many cities including Wuhan before departing. In 1924, Root met with President Sun Yat-Sen, with Liu Chan Song as interpreter; Sun is reported to have shown interest and asked for Bahá’í books. Root made a second visit in September, 1930, and visited Canton, Shanghai, and Nanking, and in 1931 Keith Ransom-Kehler made a travel teaching trip to the country being interviewed by the media in Shanghai. Mark Tobey also visited Shanghai in 1934.

By the mid 1930s there were active Bahá’í communities in Canton and Shanghai, and in 1935 Liu Chan Song produced translations of some Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh in Chinese, then translated the Hidden Words in 1936. Martha Root made a final visit to China in 1937 arriving in Shanghai in July and also visited Nanking.

The Second World War and Chinese Civil War disrupted the Bahá’í community and by 1949 all Bahá’í activity in China had ceased.

Recent years

In the 1980s and 1990s there were a few hundred foreign Bahá’ís living in China due to work commitments who did not actively teach the religion, however from 1979 onward some Chinese Bahá’ís who had been introduced to the religion while studying or traveling overseas began to return to China.

In the late 1990s the Ruhi Institute curriculum began to be shared with the international Bahá’í community and Chinese Bahá’ís began to study the materials at the individual level with small groups of friends which lead to many people studying and identifying with the religion with a large number of people having completed the Ruhi sequence of courses by 2005 who began facilitating study groups themselves. These study groups consisted of only ten or fewer friends studying together with groups naturally breaking into smaller groups when reaching a larger size.

As of 2009 it was estimated that there were 20,000 Bahá’ís in China practicing their religion privately and in small study groups with no dissatisfaction in regards to not having formal institutions or a congregational community.

See also

• The Chinese Religion and the Baha'i Faith, by Phyllis Chew

References

• Goossaert, Vincent; Palmer, David (2011). The Religious Question in Modern China. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226304168.
• Palmer, David A. (2013). "From "Congregations" to "Small Group Community Building": Localizing the Baha'i Faith in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China" (PDF). Chinese Sociological Review (45:2).
• The Bahá’í World, An International Record. (1936). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. New York City, NY. Volume 5 (1932-1934), Pg(s) 645-646. View as PDF.

External links

• China at Curlie (formerly DMOZ)