Church in China “much alive”

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33034, 29 September 1972, Page 11

Church in China “much alive”

The Chinese are the *®ast military-minded people ta the world, according to Mr P. L Kauffman, a missionary-states-man and director of Asian Outreach, a missionary literature programme

aimed at the Asian countries. Mr Kauffman, who was born in China, is touring European countries to tell them that the church in China is “very much •live, but forgotten by the West.”

“Western opinion of China! Is usually wrong," said Mr; Kauffman in an interview ini Christchurch. ‘The idea that the Chinese people are an I enigma, a puzzle, and mysterious is a total fallacy. "They are a non-military, non-aggressive, home-loving, land-loving, and family-lov-ing people." Vietnam was purely an internal affair. "China is withdrawing her support,” Mr Kauffman said. "The last offensive by North Vietnam was backed by the Soviet Union, not China. You will see less and less engagement by China in the war.” The West, he said, had done nothing but make mistakes with China for the last ■4OO years. It was not able to understand China; it had always been viewing her from false viewpoints. Tne West needed to understand that China was one of the leading nations of the world, and respect it as such. Mr Kauffman said that it was not that President

Nixon opened China to the Western world but that China has chosen to open her own doors to President Nixon. "Mao has lost control of the country,” Mr Kauffman said. “The pragmatic leadership in China now realises that the biggest threat to China is the Soviet Union, and the economic might of Japan. China also fears a revival of Japanese militarism; I and so it has decided that it must associate with the I Western world, especially I the United States, because ■ the United States can proIvide the military ana econoJ mic help China would need in the event of a Soviet attack." i Mr Kauffman said that a I confrontation with the Soviet ! Union was very much a pos- ■ sibility. Confrontation with j the United States was more remote now than it ever was. I Russia’s aim was to enI circle China and put pressure on her from all round. “That’s I what she is doing in Pakistan and North Korea — and i she has no business there,” ■Mr Kauffman said.

China was having to follow Russia’s policy of revisionism. "The Chinese are having to choose between the idealist Marxism of Mao and the pragmatic Marxism of Chou En-lai. One is a dream, the other’s real.”

Speaking about the Church Mr Kauffman said that the Church in China had not been suffocated. “There are about two million Christians in China, and I don’t mean

by that they just go to church," he said. The first signs that China was officially beginning to recognise religion had already appeared. “As China opens her door to outsiders, it is going to have to soften pressure on the people inside,” Mr Kauffman said. “You can do certain things when the wall is up that you can’t do when it is down.

“I believe there could very well be a spiritual revival in China in the very near future,” he said.