Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 666 | Wed 12 Oct 2022
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CHINA’S GREAT LEAP BACKWARDS (2): FROM DESPAIR TO HOPE, AS WE PRAY.
By Elizabeth Kendal
As reported in last week’s RLPB 665 (5 Oct), the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will commence on Sunday 16 October. Xi Jinping’s appointment to a status-quo-busting third term as General Secretary of the CCP and President of China will confirm China’s return to Mao-style repression and state control of the economy and the masses. This Great Leap Backwards is Xi’s strategy to keep the CCP in power, no matter the human cost. [For more detail see, Religious Liberty Monitoring: China’s Great Leap Backwards, 5 Oct 2022.] It is increasingly clear that the CCP has no regard for human life. To the atheistic CCP, Chinese citizens are nothing more than expendable cogs in the CCP’s machine. For the Chinese, the human cost of that worldview is increasingly becoming clear.
‘LYING FLAT’: In March-April 2021 a new trend emerged among Chinese youths: that of tang ping or ‘lying flat’ [see: China Insights, 9 June 2021]. ‘Lying flat’ does not mean stopping work, because most youths simply cannot afford to stop work. ‘Lying flat’ is a negative mindset or a viral sentiment wherein youths are opting to stop striving and instead do only that which is essential for survival. They have pursued Xi’s ‘Chinese dream’ (prosperity), working ‘996’ (from 9am to 9pm, six days a week), only to find themselves unable to afford a home or maintain relationships or enjoy recreation. By 2021 these disillusioned youths were increasingly struggling to afford food amidst rising inflation and soaring youth unemployment (19.9 percent). By October 2021, the chatter around ‘lying flat’ had become so ubiquitous on social media that President Xi felt obliged to condemn it.
‘LET IT ROT’: By March 2022 a new trend had emerged, and tang ping or ‘lying flat’ was overtaken by bai lan or ‘let it rot’. [See: China Insights, 7 June 2022.] ‘Let it rot’ is ‘an evolution of 2021’s “lying flat” trend, but with more nihilist overtones.’ No longing opting to do the bare minimum, Chinese youths are ‘voluntarily giving up the pursuit of life goals because they realise that they are simply unattainable’. As Mara Leighton explains, ‘Bailan refers to when a losing team stops trying to win in order to more rapidly bring a game to its end’ [Insider, 6 Oct 2022]. To ‘let it rot’ is to deem the situation hopeless, and the future as unsatisfactory and unchangeable. If ‘lying flat’ is a statement of frustration and disillusionment, then ‘let it rot’ is a lament of hopelessness and despair.
‘RUNOLOGY’: The latest term or sentiment to go viral in China is runxue or ‘runology’[See: China Insights, 24 July 2022]. Made from the English word ‘run’ and the Chinese word xue or study, runxue refers to the study of running away. The term went viral in April 2022, at the beginning of the punishing Shanghai lockdown. As China’s largest city and financial hub, Shanghai’s population includes many highly educated and entrepreneurial Chinese – many of whom have gained advanced degrees and experience overseas – along with many foreigners. As news leaked out of locked-down/incarcerated residents dying from starvation, or from lack of basic medical care or medicines, or from suicide; and as video footage leaked out of Dabai (‘Big White’, zero-COVID policy enforcers) abusing traumatised residents, assaulting the elderly, sealing apartments and beating pets to death, it grabbed the world’s attention (at least for a moment) and set many searching for a way out of China. As the Xi-led CCP works to crush the private sector and redistribute wealth by force, many wealthy Chinese – from greedy crooks and corrupt elites to highly educated and entrepreneurial, successful, benevolent Christians – are desperately seeking a way of escape. Meanwhile, the government is desperately implementing measures to keep them and their money, locked in the country. China is fast becoming a prison.
CHRIST THE REDEEMER: By 1953, the Mao-led CCP had expelled all foreign missionaries. By the late 1960s it had sent most of China’s Christian leaders to forced labour in coal mines and prison labour camps. Yet in the absence of foreigners and pastors, Christ the Redeemer raised up an army of unassuming evangelists – mostly mature Chinese women – who spread the Gospel throughout China’s rural heartlands. Over the decades, Chinese Christianity grew phenomenally; it remained, however, an overwhelmingly rural phenomenon. In the wake of the horror of the 4 June 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, multitudes of China’s educated urban elites started to question their ideology. Amidst the grief, Christ the Redeemer opened the door to spread his saving Gospel through China’s burgeoning cities.
Of all the countries where Christians are persecuted, China is unique precisely because God has worked all things together so that Christians exist everywhere (geographically) and at every level of society. Clearly, God is preparing the Chinese Church for a time yet to come. Meanwhile, as China’s Church perseveres through faith-testing times, we must uphold China’s Church in prayer. Though Satan will fight to the bitter end, his fight will be in vain – especially as we pray! May Christ the Redeemer yet again work all things for good in fulfilment of the Father’s good and perfect plan (Romans 8:28).
PLEASE PRAY THAT OUR COMPASSIONATE GOD WILL
* break through China’s deepening darkness and escalating repression to continue building his Church in China – along the coast, in the valleys and on the mountains; among the rural poor and the urban elites; among China’s Uighurs, Tibetans, Mongolians, Manchu and Han… indeed among all 56 tribes and tongues of the Chinese empire. May those who seek answers, find grace and truth in Jesus Christ. May those who fear the darkness of repression, impoverishment and death, find freedom, light and life in Jesus Christ. May those who no longer have hope for the future, find hope and purpose in Jesus Christ. May the Lord be pleased to use the tears of fearful sufferers and the tears of faithful intercessors to turn hard hearts of stone into soft hearts of flesh; may multitudes of disillusioned Chinese feel their hearts strangely warmed and receptive to the Gospel. Lord have mercy!
* grace the Church in China with wisdom, insight and creativity as she seeks new means of sharing the Good News of Jesus in an increasingly repressive and dangerous environment, among a people who are increasingly disillusioned and despairing, confused and seeking. Christ have mercy!
No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel can avail against the Lord (Proverbs 21:30 ESV). ‘I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted’ (Job replies to God; Job 42:2b ESV). You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many (Paul to the church, in 2 Corinthians 1:11 ESV).
SUMMARY FOR BULLETINS UNABLE TO RUN THE WHOLE ARTICLE
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FROM DESPAIR TO HOPE IN CHINA, AS WE PRAY
As life has become increasingly difficult in Xi Jinping’s China, two slogans have gone viral. By early 2021, Chinese youths were talking openly about tang ping or ‘lying flat’. Having pursued the ‘China Dream’ (prosperity) and found it unattainable, they are now opting to ‘lie flat’: i.e. to stop striving and just do what is necessary to survive. By early 2022, that sentiment had evolved to bai lan or ‘let it rot’. More nihilistic, ‘let it rot’ describes the voluntary abandonment of all life goals as simply unattainable. If ‘lying flat’ arises from frustration and disillusionment, then ‘let it rot’ arises from hopelessness and despair. May God grace the Chinese Church with the means to speak grace and truth into this deepening darkness, despite suffocating repression and escalating persecution. Please pray.
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Elizabeth Kendal is an international religious liberty analyst and advocate for the persecuted Church. The RLPB is a donor-funded ministry. To support this ministry visit www.ElizabethKendal.com.
Elizabeth has authored two books: Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today (Deror Books, Melbourne, Australia, Dec 2012) which offers a Biblical response to persecution and existential threat; and After Saturday Comes Sunday: Understanding the Christian Crisis in the Middle East (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR, USA, June 2016). She is also an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam at Melbourne School of Theology.
For more information visit: www.ElizabethKendal.com