China from the Inside

Chinese people confront police over the right to impeach crooked officials. China's becoming polarised as prosperity benefits some and bypasses others. How can people with a grievance negotiate with the state?

If Chinese people are unhappy that they can't participate in elections, or are unhappy with their legislature, and have lots of complaints, and are hoping for others to help them change the situation, then I think this is unrealistic. This is a kind of slave mentality. Ultimately the people need to know their rights and take up the sword and fight for these rights.

This may be China's century. She's growing richer. Growing stronger. And the process is taking her people through momentous upheavals. This television series has had exceptional access to the country, her institutions and people - at a critical time. This is China From the Inside.

How free are the Chinese people? How free to worship as they please? To learn the truth from the media? To hear the truth from the Communist Party and the government?

The main thing is to speak the truth. Why should a nation be drowned in lies? Look, in the days of the emperor, whoever lied to him would be killed for disrespect. But now the liars get promoted as officials - get rich. Now rich people's dogs live better than the peasants.

It's no longer a question of how much freedom the people are being granted, but how much they want for themselves. There are new ideas in China, some from the intelligensia, some bubbling up from the grass-roots and some from progressive thinkers in the Party itself.

Ideas about social justice and the rule of law, about public participation in politics and protecting people's rights. Ideas for building what some call a civil society.

Civil society is like a seed. As long as it's in the soil, as long as the conditions are right - climate, water, and sunshine - then it'll grow. The seed may be weak, but the force of its growth is strong. It needs to grow. You may want to stop it, but the clever leaders will realize that this is a new force.

Bumpa Ri - a sacred mountain decked in prayer flags - overlooks Lhasa, the Tibetan capital.

The scraps of paper are called wind-horses - sacred texts which ride the wind, bringing good luck.

8.30 in the morning - Tsangkhung Nunnery is summoned to prayer.

It's a special day. The monthly service for the deity Naljorma has coincided with the 600th anniversary of the death of Tsong Khapa, a founder of the major school of Tibetan Buddhism.

Yak butter tea sustains the nuns during this long winter's day of prayer.

Only when we've finished reciting the required set of prayers do they pour the tea. And after it's served, we have to say the 'Tea Grace'. Only then, are we allowed to drink it. And with the weather so cold, you really crave hot tea.

China's Constitution protects what it calls 'normal religious practices'. Throughout the service, pilgrims come and go. Every winter, when there's less work for farmer and nomad, they converge on the holy places of Lhasa.

Some have been on the road a year, walking a thousand miles to make donations and pray.

Important though today's ceremony is, the Director of the nunnery, Tenzin Sangmo, does not attend.

I am the oldest and now can't sit cross-legged for long. Anyway, I never had the chance like the other nuns to study and practice these prayers and rituals, because I've been too busy working. I've had my hands full renovating the nunnery and restoring the holy statues. I've had to run around getting hold of people, petitioning the authorities, managing our budget. These have been my worries.

It isn't natural decay to old buildings that's kept temple leaders so busy, but the effects of the Communist Party's long struggle to control faith in Tibet.

Since Tibet's rebellion against China in 1959, when the Dalai Lama fled into exile, religious buildings have been razed to the ground; monks and nuns imprisoned.

And thousands of Tibet's monasteries were devastated in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution.

It was terrifying during the Cultural Revolution. Because all the sacred objects were destroyed. That wasn't unique to our nunnery. It happened across the country. Nothing was left. Not even a stick of incense.

It is because faith is so central to the lives of Tibetans, and so closely entwined with their national identity that it worries the Chinese state, of which Tibet is a part.

he atheist Communist Party exercises religious tolerance as a function of political control.

Some people with insidious aims use religion to carry out activities to overthrow, to split China. Such things do happen. So we must heighten our vigilance. We have a strict line on this. The Party has a policy of respecting religious freedom. If you go in for religion, your beliefs should be respected and protected. But if you use religion as a cover to try to split China, or harm national security then you're breaking the law. It's not allowed.

Violent clashes in 1988 between the police and Tibetan monks. Buddhism has been feared as a rallying point and cover for Tibetan independence. Clampdowns have alternated with concessions. Tolerance with repression.

Today, Tibetan Buddhism is permitted on the Party's strict terms - neither government employees nor students are allowed to practice. The state micro-manages religion.

We get many applications at our nunnery for acceptance as a nun. But we can't just enrol people as and when we like. There's a limit set by the Party, and that dictates our decision-making.

The Communist Party isn't just worried about numbers. It also requires all applicants to be vetted.

There's a spiritual vacuum in Tibet. The Dalai Lama has been away nearly half a century.

Just displaying his photo can lead to arrest. It's hard to know what the pilgrims feel about their long-absent spiritual leader. Hard to know how they'd respond to his possible return, because, tellingly, it's not safe for them to discuss it.

Deputy Governor Nyima Tsering believes Tibetans increasingly share the Party view.

More and more of the people realize what kind of person the Dalai really is. He is false and deceitful. You could say that in recent years profound changes have occurred in Tibet. More and more of the masses realize what kind of person the Dalai is. Draped in the cloak of religion he tries to promote Tibetan independence.

So ordinary people see ever more clearly that he's trying to split the Motherland and make Tibet independent.

Under the 'patriotic education' policy monks and nuns must sign a statement renouncing the Dalai Lama and acknowledging Tibet as an integral part of China. Some have refused, and have been arrested or expelled from the monastery.

Religion in China is administered by the state from the Beijing palace where the last emperor was born. All religions are alien to Communism, but Christianity has particular echoes for the Party.

The Chinese say Buddhism came in peace to China, on elephants and white horses. But the Christian God came to China riding on a cannon-ball.

Ordinary Chinese people call Christianity 'the foreign religion' and naturally associate it with a history of bullying and looting China.

Christianity has been adapted for China. Removed of what Ye Xiaowen has called its 'Western Taint'.

Xishiku is the largest Catholic church in Beijing.

This is Catholicism, but it isn't orthodox Roman Catholicism.

Overseeing the Patriotic Catholic Association of China is not the Pope 5000 miles away in the Vatican, but the Chinese Communist Party.

It's the principle of every citizen to uphold the Party's leadership. As citizens we cannot call this into question. They are the ruling Party.

Our relationship with the Party is that they lead, we follow. We enjoy respect in terms of our faith and the constitution specifically protects our beliefs. For all this the Catholic Church thanks the Chinese Communist Party.

The State limits the number of churches, Catholic and Protestant, approves the appointment and dismissal of clergy, monitors the printing and distribution of bibles. Perhaps twenty million worship in the officially approved churches, but some Chinese don't want anything between them and their God, least of all the avowedly atheist Communist Party.

In the hour before it opens, a public swimming bath becomes a place of baptism.

This is a rare glimpse into the hidden world of unregistered or 'house' churches in China.

Zhang Qianjin is a preacher in the Protestant house church.

Around 40 million Chinese of different denominations worship quietly in anonymous buildings and people's homes.

We just read the Bible, study God's words and worship God together. Why do we have to be managed by a government organisation? The Bible tells us we only have one Lord: Jesus Christ. There should not be a secular administrative body that manages the church above the Lord.

Why does the Director of Religious Administration think people go outside the law to attend house churches?

Maybe because the church is too far away, or transport's not good, or because it feels more intimate to worship at home with family - and of course we can't exclude some very special, complicated reasons. Some people want to make their own sect, form their own team, attract their own believers. This happens. It's not a big problem.

Police jostle with believers as the authorities demolish a house church. Local policy is inconsistent. Officials in some places turn a blind eye to the house churches; elsewhere they are persecuted.

For the Chinese state, there's something innately suspicious about any group of people that openly shuns state control.

Falun Gong, a meditative sect practising healing exercises, was only branded a dangerous cult when in 1999 ten thousand practitioners from across China suddenly appeared on the pavement outside Party Headquarters in Beijing. Their protest for recognition was silent and peaceful but this power to mobilise the masses greatly alarmed the Party.

A year later a Falun Gong protest in Tiananmen Square crushed by police and plainclothes men. In the draconian suppression of Falun Gong, many believers including the middle-aged and elderly, were arrested, beaten, sent to labour camps.

The government really dislikes protest. According to Chinese law, you must apply for a permit to organize protests or public gatherings to speak your mind. And they can just turn you down.

An angry demonstration in Beijing, but the police simply stand around, watching.

It all depends on who is protesting about what. Irritated by Japanese claims over some disputed islands, the Chinese government allows a group of nationalists to harangue the Japanese Embassy.

This event is being conducted in accordance with Chinese law. Before coming here we fulfilled the relevant registration requirements. We've given the police the name of the person in charge and detailed notes on today's event.

Vital to the protest's effectiveness is the presence of another key group of players in China - the media.

By allowing the protest and letting the media cover it, the Chinese government conveyed a message of defiance to Japan.

Managing the media has always been a priority for the Communist Party.

Just once a year, the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao holds a press conference.

Shouldering the main burden of delivering the official message is the state broadcaster, China Central Television.

As the Chinese Communist Party is our ruling party, we as a TV station, publicise the Party line and its policies to the letter. In propaganda terms, at home we represent the Party and government, and abroad the country and the Chinese race. An extremely important function is to relay the voice, the ideas of our ruling party.

The Prime Minister's defiant stand on Taiwan brings a loyal round of applause from the press. But there's more to the media in China than deference and propaganda.