Chinese journalist discusses lack of liberty in his country
Beijing journalist Promise Hsu took his message for religious and political freedom in China to LSU on Wednesday.
In his “The Chinese Quest for Liberty” lecture, Hsu told the story of how he became disenchanted while working as a broadcast journalist for the state-controlled China Central Television, called CCTV.
So Hsu left the station in 2005 to start his quest to answer the question, “Why do you (the U.S. and much of the Western world) have liberty, and we don’t?” In the process, he befriended many international scholars, including Ellis Sandoz, director of LSU’s Eric Voegelin Institute.
“China did not and does not have freedom,” Hsu said. “I wanted to pursue an answer to this phenomenon.”
His focus shifted partially when he attended a Christian “house church” with a friend in Beijing and he was eventually baptized. A house church is an unregistered fellowship that is sometimes subject to persecution from the Communist government, which tightly controls religion.
Hsu described the experience as “shocking” and life-changing because he was never religious in any way nor even someone who liked to join organized groups. He described the experience of Christians in China as similar to the very early Christians during the Roman Empire.
For instance, last year Hsu wrote about the government standoff with the Shouwang Church — one of China’s largest “house churches” — in Beijing and how church members moved their worship services outdoors after being evicted by the landlord. The eviction reportedly occurred because of government pressure. Multiple worshippers were arrested in the process of the outdoor worshipping standoff.
To Hsu, the movements for liberty and religious freedom largely go hand in hand. “It’s not about who you are. It’s about your faith. It’s about whom do you believe in,” Hsu said of liberty and religion. He said he is currently writing an article tentatively called, “How to live in the two worlds at once,” about the dynamics of the spiritual and secular worlds.
Hsu said it would have been impossible for him to read the Bible just a few years ago. Now, he said, he understands all things better, political and otherwise, through the Bible. “It helps me to see the invisible,” he said.
The movement for freedom — political and religious — is moving slowly, he said, but it is progressing. However, Hsu said he is not entirely optimistic. “I don’t see any inevitability,” he said.
Hsu said he finds it fascinating to compare the freedoms that developed in the U.S. to his native country.
On George Washington’s birthday Wednesday, Hsu said he sees the first U.S. president as a worldwide icon and role model. Even as president, Washington fought against the presidency having too much power, he said.
“He was always reluctant to accept any leadership position,” Hsu said. “Examples like him are very rare because too many people are ready to take the power.”