by Gianni Criveller

The editor-in-chief of AsiaNews recounts his trip back to the Chinese capital, which he had to forcibly leave in 2011 when his visa was cancelled in one of the moments of friction between China and the Holy See. The tale of "a great modern metropolis which, like it or not, shares  the uncertainty of a generation struggling to survive with many other cities in the world. A social and existential emergency that transcends the boundaries of political systems and ideologies".

 

Milan (AsiaNews) - Last June I went back to Beijing for a few days. It was an exciting trip: it was the first time I had been back there since I was stopped at Beijing airport in July 2011 and prevented from returning to my workplace.

Over the past months, friends in Beijing have written to me: 'It is time for you to come back and visit us! I was already planning a trip to Macao and Hong Kong: I thought the time was right. There was a facilitation: a new experimental scheme allows Italian (and other European) citizens to enter China without a visa for 15 days. This is, I believe, an opening on the part of the authorities who fear economic setbacks to the significant decrease in the number of tourists, businessmen and visitors from abroad.

There are five ancient churches in Beijing: I know their founders, their complex historical events, the protagonists of a long missionary season, the decades in which they were closed and put to other uses. Visiting them is like a pilgrimage for me. They speak to me of the faith and the testimony of a small people that yesterday as today, in ever difficult circumstances, maintains the faith with a moving resilience.

The churches have evocative names: church of the north, south, east and west. The northern church is now the cathedral and has beautiful new stained glass windows. Seat of the Portuguese Jesuits, it was later the headquarters of the French mission. The southern church, which was also a cathedral in past decades, was started by Matteo Ricci on the site where he resided.

The east church formerly housed works of art by the favourite court artist of three emperors, Giuseppe Castiglione, a Jesuit missionary. It is majestically located in Wangfujing, the pedestrian island that has become Beijing's most glamorous shopping and tourist street. The west church was built by Lazarist missionary and court musician Teodorico Pedrini. There is a fifth church, dedicated to St Michael, closest to Tiananmen Square, in the former foreign legation area.

The churches are restored and open. Masses are in Chinese, of course, but there are many celebrations in various world languages, and foreign faithful flock to them. I have seen a large Korean community fill the Church of the West. They celebrate in English (and on Sunday mornings also in Latin) in all the churches. In the northern one, they also celebrate in Italian and Spanish.

I do not have the feeling that the Chinese Catholic faithful have increased. Rather the opposite. As in other world metropolises, the churches are crowded more by foreigners than by residents. And I fear that the transmission of the faith to the younger generations is rather difficult, as it is everywhere in the world. What is more, the rules of religious policy require minors not to attend church, amplifying the effect.

The old Beijing, that of the districts with their characteristic small, low houses and narrow streets, called hutongs, no longer exists. There are a few exceptions, dedicated to tourism.

Today Beijing is a very modern city, with palaces, wide streets, and an extensive and well-functioning underground network. Traffic is very heavy: I visited Beijing for the first time in 1992; it was still crowded with bicycles then the main means of transport. If you took a taxi, you could cross the city in a few minutes.

Now this is no longer the case. In the past decades, factories have been moved away from the cities in order to improve air quality. Only electricity or gas can be used for winter heating, and no longer the polluting coal. The results are there: I have seen the sky as blue as I can remember seeing it in the past.

Many other things have changed in these 13 years: Beijing is highly digitised. To visit Tiananmen Square you have to register online; cash has almost completely disappeared, everything goes through mobile phone apps.

Even ordering in restaurants and shopping, almost everywhere, is done digitally. These procedures simplify many things, especially for those who are familiar with using their mobile phones. The city is safe: hardly any theft or violence happens, I was told. The network of cameras that pervades the area certainly contributes to this. Many admit that individual privacy certainly cannot be invoked as a priority.

In its history, China has alternated between phases of openness to the world and its novelties and phases of exaltation of its national resources and centralisation of thought. I believe we are now in the latter phase. If you do not stay overnight in a hotel, you have to register at the nearest police station.

The foreign visitor is only asked one question: do you have faith? And as a secondary question: do you attend church? I find this a rather curious question, and that visitors even find it bizarre! Years ago it would not have been asked of a foreigner.

The Covid crisis has had a major impact on people's lives, especially the younger generation. In Beijing and China, as in many other cities and nations around the world, young people are emotionally, psychologically and structurally fragile.

Two teacher friends told me that, unfortunately, discontentment, inner anger, hostility towards the world, depression and suicide are widespread among young people in their early years of university. They are the ones who have emerged from an adolescence spent in covid closures.

Many of them know that they will not find a job after graduation, and face their university years with deep uncertainty. Until a few years ago this was not the case: it was difficult to get into university, but then you came out with an assured career. The authorities now recommend teachers not to be too strict towards students, but rather to evaluate their academic performance with great generosity.

In short, Beijing, a great modern metropolis, like it or not, shares with many other cities in the world the fatigue of these difficult years and the uncertainty of a generation struggling to make a living.

I was struck by the fact that some social and existential emergencies have no boundaries, and even transcend political systems and their ideologies. Chinese children are more like their peers around the world than their older compatriots.

There is a well-known saying of Confucius that I often thought of in those days: "a friend from afar: is this not a great joy?" It describes the excitement of catching up with some people whom I had not even been able to say hello to in July 2011 and with whom it had been difficult to keep in touch since I feared I was under control after what had happened to me.

I thought back to that night spent at the airport, isolated in a waiting room and after hours of being awake, with my visa cancelled, put on the first plane to Hong Kong. Although I was always treated with kindness, it was a rather traumatic experience: I was forced to do things I did not want to do and I realised very well that it was the anticipated end of a life project to which I had devoted so much energy and hope.

A project that had Beijing as its destination. Nineteen years after my first arrival in Taiwan (1991) and after having resided for a long time in Hong Kong and Macau, I had finally settled in Beijing in 2010. It felt like exactly where I was supposed to be.

I had even calculated that Matteo Ricci, the missionary to whom I have devoted many years of study and who is an ideal reference point, had taken the same number of years - 19 in fact - for his 'ascent' to the capital of the empire (Macao 1582 - Beijing 1601). I had just a few weeks before obtained a work visa valid for 13 months, and was the research director of a study centre at a university in the capital.

I was rejected in retaliation: the Holy See had formalised the excommunication of some Chinese bishops who had agreed to be ordained illegitimately. The Chinese authorities did not take it well, and some people, including me, were prevented from returning to China. I was included in the list, I have reason to believe, because of some articles I had written years before on religious politics.

There followed for me a period of bitterness and a sense of failure, which I overcame thanks in part to six wonderful sabbatical months in Jerusalem. After five years the ban was lifted and in the spring of 2016 I was invited to speak at a conference dedicated to Ricci in the city of Nanchang, the fourth leg of his ascent to Beijing.

PIME superiors then called me to Italy (first to Monza and then to Milan), and I was never allowed to return to Beijing, Ricci's last stop, where his tomb still lies. And to Beijing, God willing, like Ricci, I would like to return and stay.

"RED LANTERNS" IS THE ASIANEWS NEWSLETTER DEDICATED TO CHINA . WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE IT EVERY THURSDAY ON YOUR EMAIL? SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER AT THIS LINK