Inside China's Search For Its Soul

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In many ways, the religiosity that has been reasserting itself in China may simply be delayed evolution. Very similar melting pots of prosperity, superstition and pious philosophy have emerged and thrived in Chinese communities uninterrupted by Mao's revolutions--in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. China of old had three competing and complementary religious traditions: Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. While the religions were often at odds with one another--Confucianism, for instance, is built on a base of worldly order and ancestor worship that's far different from Taoism's mystical beliefs--they have, over a long history, fused together. They continued to do so outside China and are doing it again within China. Sociologists call what has emerged a syncretic faith, resembling more than anything else a pointillist painting in which every individual's beliefs are shaped and colored by specks of each tradition--and, at the close of the 20th century, by the color of money.

It may be an explosive composition. The country's history is filled with terrible uprisings inspired by newfangled religions--among the most recent and cataclysmic, the Christian-tinged Taiping Heavenly Kingdom from 1851 to 1864 and the mystical, Kung Fu-like Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the century. Even Mao's militant idealism can be seen in this light. But China's long history is also filled with moments when faith and pragmatism merged to create miracles. What scares China's leaders is that the very first miracle of the nation's new faith may be their disappearance.