This is a two-part story; please go here for Part 2
Dong Luo Bin was an employee of the Chinese Consulate in Auckland, the capital of New Zealand. However, one day in May 2018, he successfully fled from the consulate and applied for political asylum with the government of New Zealand. This is the first case of an employee of a foreign consulate asking the New Zealand government for asylum since the Cold War.
But why did 34-year-old Dong Luo Bin, who worked in a well-paid logistics position in the consulate, bravely decide to flee?
Witnessing forceful suppression of the church
Born in a rural village in Hebei, China, in 1984, Dong Luo Bin was raised in a Catholic family. But he was significantly impacted by the restrictions, and even repression, of his religious beliefs imposed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). At just 5 years old, he recalls his fear when Chinese police officers forcefully and violently suppressed his village’s Loyalist Catholic Church (underground church).
“More than 80 percent of the people in our village are Catholics because of our historical heritage,” he said. “Our village was suppressed because the Chinese Communist Party wanted to bring all Catholicism and Christianity under the control of its ‘Three Self-Patriotic Church.’
“So they wanted to tear down our existing church, which had been built by Western missionaries, and make a new government-approved church in its place, with its government-appointed priest.” Dong Luo Bin says the villagers disagreed with the decision and tried to stop them, but the Communist Party found a pretext to demolish the church.
The so-called “Three Self-Patriotic Churches” are government-controlled versions of Christian churches in China, which include Protestant and Catholic churches. They aim to be “self-governing, self-supporting, and self-preaching” under the leadership of the CCP’s Religious Affairs Administration. In other words, Christianity in China must be under the supervision of the Communist Party, with no ties to any foreign religious groups.
“We all understood the reason the government was doing this. When people didn’t go, they would blackmail them and create conflicts among them, giving the CCP a reason to suppress them,” Dong Luo Bin recalled.
When the suppression worsened, the CCP first sent in armed police, but they hadn’t anticipated that many parishioners or that they would stand united. “So they immediately sent the army over instead, imposed a curfew, and surrounded the village. You were only allowed in, not out; if you wanted to go out, you would be shot at with a gun.”
Dong Luo Bin says that the older he grew, the more he felt it was not just his religious belief being suppressed, but his humanity.
“As I got older, I realized that we could only hold church at other people’s homes and couldn’t attend properly. Priests had to leave in a hurry after Mass. They dared not linger longer and had to sneak out through the back door. At Christmas, Easter, or major festivals, the priests in the village would ‘get tea’ (meaning, the police would come after him in the name of having tea to take him into custody or threaten to do so). We had to find priests from other parishes and pick up priests late at night for Mass, even when it was bitterly cold.”
Due to the influence of communism in Chinese society, he witnessed a sad change in people. “All these universal values that I had accepted, such as fraternity, charity, thinking of others, and forgiving your enemies, became unacceptable in society. Instead, people think there’s something wrong with you for trying to be a good person. This repression is difficult for normal people, who don’t live under communist rule, to understand.”
Realizing there is no freedom anywhere in China
Around 2012, when Dong Luo Bin was 28 years old, he was nearly arrested for an article he’d published online.
“I once posted an article on QQ about the church and the current social issues in China. I sent it out at around 9 p.m., and several hours later, around midnight, I suddenly heard a lot of cars in front of my house, with doors closing and people getting out. I had all but laid down to rest when suddenly my feet were sweating as I realized I was in danger.”
Earlier that night, one of the elders in the village had learned that the police would have Dong Luo Bin arrested for posting the article. However, the man stood up for him, so Dong Luo Bin was saved from being arrested. “It was then that I realized that there is no freedom, even on the Internet,” Dong Luo Bin said.
He also shared articles on WeChat that reflected the current state of Chinese society, only to find that they were quickly deleted. “Even things I had written myself were no longer available. We live in a transparent world without any privacy. All of this sowed the seeds of my eventual escape. Even then, this departure was already growing in me, and I would think about leaving China now and then.”
