Selective tolerance in China

This story made the front page of the Wall Street Journal yesterday, and it caught my eye mainly because of the unusual headline “Pigs Get the Ax in China TV Ads, In Nod to Muslims.” Besides, it had a cute postage stamp with Piglet (from Winnie-the-Pooh) on it. So what’s up with this?

Next month, China will ring in the Year of the Pig. Nestlé SA planned to celebrate with TV ads featuring a smiling cartoon pig. “Happy new pig year,” the ads said.

This week, China Central Television, the national state-run TV network, banned Nestlé’s ad — and all images and spoken references to the animal in commercials, including those tied to the Lunar New Year, China’s biggest holiday.

The intent: to avoid offending Muslims, who consider pigs unclean. “China is a multiethnic country,” the network’s ad department said in a notice sent to ad agencies late Tuesday. “To show respect to Islam, and upon guidance from higher levels of the government, CCTV will keep any ‘pig’ images off the TV screen.”

So China, well-known for religious persecutions and human rights violations, is getting sensitive to Muslim sensibilities?

The pig ban is a significant shift for a government that seldom puts the interests of minority groups ahead of those of the broader population. China has more than 20 million Muslims, but they constitute less than 2% of its population.

For most other Chinese, the pig has powerful and positive cultural associations as one of the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac. Year of the Pig decorations already festoon cities and villages all over China.

Pork is the meat most widely consumed by the country’s Han Chinese majority. On average, Chinese annually eat more than 80 pounds of pork , according to United Nations statistics. At banquets in southern China, people often roast whole pigs, decorated with blinking red lights in their eye sockets…

Pigs symbolize prosperity and good fortune as well as fertility and virility. “Pigs are fat and they mean good luck,” says Miao Saiwang, a spokesman for the Bank of China, a commercial lender. In some areas this year, the bank is using the slogan: “Golden pigs bring good fortune.”

And now they’re entering the Year of the Pig. But the Chinese government is cracking down on images of pigs? They’re suddenly getting very broadminded about religion. Selectively.

The Chinese government does not tolerate Catholics faithful to Rome, who were forced to go underground to practice the authentic faith. China formed the “Patriotic Association”, (PA) as the “official catholic church” which they, of course, control. The tension that causes with Rome is difficult to negotiate.

“The greatest obstacle in diplomatic relations between the Vatican and China in the omnipresence of the Patriotic Association (Ap). It is also the most serious problem for the life of the Church, because it risks corrupting the dogmatic fundament(al)s of Catholicism.

It’s also a serious problem for the life of faithful Catholics there, because they are continually hunted down, arrested and persecuted by the government.

The AP is also the cause of the persecutions.  In China, all Catholics who refuse AP control meet in place(s) that are not recognised by the         Government, with priests who are not registered and Bishops tied to the Holy See, but not recognised by the ministry for Religious Affaire.  According to a retired member of the Ministry, “the members of the AP reveal the places of the underground communities; they lead the police there and insist on the arrest of the non official Catholics”.

According to AsiaNews data at least 17 underground bishops have disappeared, been arrested or are detained in isolation; 20 priests have been arrested.  The latest arrest took place on December 27th in Hebei.  Of the 9 priests arrested, 5 remain in prison, 4 have been released.

Some official bishops confirm that there has been a hardening in AP ideology in recent years.  It is due above all to the fact that “the most part of secretaries are not Catholic, but atheist, among the most radical members of the Party whose scope is to destroy all religions or at least closely control them”.

Or…at least the real Catholic Church.