Thursday, July 14, 2022 Unification Church linked to Abe’s death, sounds alarm in China over cult group’s infiltration

What is the Unification Church and could it be linked to former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s assassination?

A bride poses for a photo before a giant image of the late founder of Unification Church Sun Myung Moon and his wife Hak Ja Han before a mass wedding ceremony in Gapyeong on September 7, 2017. Photo: AFP

 

 The curtains have come down on former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe after the sobering end of his funeral. But the cloud of suspicion surrounding his assassination still looms large in the minds of many around the world. Sentiments of shock continue to be expressed at the fact that Japan's worst political assassination since World War II is related to a cult.

On July 8, Abe was fatally shot while addressing a crowd at a campaign stop in Nara by a 41-year-old man identified as Tetsuya Yamagami, who confessed to the police that he "did not resent Abe's political beliefs," but that his resentment toward the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, known as the Unification Church, a religious movement founded in South Korea, turned into a desire to kill the former national leader.

Yamagami believed Abe had promoted a religious group to which his mother made a "huge donation," Kyodo news agency has said, citing investigative sources. His mother subsequently went bankrupt.

The police investigation into the assassination prompted the head of the Japanese branch of the Unification Church to confirm on July 11 that Yamagami's mother is a member.

Looking back on the history of the Unification Church, people have seen the specter of an extremist religious group looming over the political arena of Japan, South Korea, and even the US.

In the mid-1960s, Abe's maternal grandfather and former Japanese Prime Minister, Nobusuke Kishi, would never have imagined that his association with Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church, would sow the seed that eventually led to the death of his grandson.

Expansion of a cult

Moon founded the Unification Church in South Korea in 1954. Within a year, about 30 church centers had sprung up. Moon began organizing the Unification Church on a large scale in the US in the early 1970s. He also sent his church emissaries to Japan in the early days when the Unification Church developed fast. He settled in the US in 1972.

One of the activities that the Unification Church likes to practice is Tetsuya Yamagami. Moon claimed that he can complete the unfulfilled task of Jesus: To restore humankind to a state of perfection by producing sinless children, and by blessing couples who would produce them. According to media reports, thousands of couples often attended such mass weddings. But those couples would only meet each other weeks prior and they went into marriage based on Moon's arrangement. Many had to remain separated for several years doing church work. 

Thousands of couples attend a mass wedding held by the Unification Church on August 27, 2018 in Gapyeong, South Korea. Photo: VCG

At the same time, Moon was particularly interested in politics. Church leaders plotted a strategy to defend former US President Richard M. Nixon for his role in the Watergate crisis and held rallies in support of him. In the late 1970s, Moon was embroiled in many scandals and was under investigation by US federal authorities mainly over allegations that he has ties to South Korean intelligence and was involved in bribing members of Congress to support President Park Chung-hee, according to a New York Times report.

Moon liked to court world leaders and politicians to advance the Unification Church and sometimes he behaved quite oddly.

Moon, who spoke fluent Japanese, launched an anti-communist group in Japan in the late 1960s, the International Federation for Victory Over Communism, and built relations with Japanese politicians, according to the church's publications, Reuters reported.

Nobusuke Kishi, Abe's maternal grandfather and a former prime minister, was an honorary executive chair at a group banquet hosted by Moon, the International Federation for Victory Over Communism said on its website.

In 2004, Moon had himself crowned "humanity's savior" in front of members of Congress at a Capitol Hill luncheon, read the New York Times report.

Prominent people including the US president were paid to appear at Moon-linked conferences. "The first President George Bush did so after he left office. Others, like former President Gerald R. Ford, Bill Cosby, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, and Jack Kemp, attended banquets and gatherings, sometimes saying later that they had not known of a connection between Moon and the organizations that invited them," said the New York Times report.

The Unification Church has a long history of courting Republican officials as part of a propaganda campaign, according to media outlet The Independent. In September 2021, former US President Donald Trump appeared in a virtual address linked to the Unification Church. He praised the founders of the Unification Church. Abe also participated in the same event.

The Financial Times reported that for decades, close ties between the Unification Church in Japan and prominent figures in the governing Liberal Democratic Party have been an open secret in Japanese politics.

"The Unification Church has a strong capacity for brainwashing with propaganda and external expansion. Through the establishment of personal worship and an emphasis on donations for purposes of enrichment, meddling in private property distribution and marriage autonomy of the congregation, the group has garnered a loyal following," an Beijing-based expert on Japan studies surname Zhou told the Global Times.

On the other hand, Zhou pointed out that, through generous political cash and mutual exploitation, the Unification Church has gradually gained a strong foothold in East Asia and the world.

Along with the expansion of the Unification Church was the growth of Moon's business empire. He was involved in many industries in South Korea and also had various commercial interests in Japan. Right-wing nationalist donors in Japan were said to be an important financial source. In the US, he had business interests in a range of fields including jewelry and construction, and bought properties including the New Yorker Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

"In addition to spreading extremist ideas, the Unification Church also has a strong sense of modern business management, operating the religious group as a company, investing and expanding extensively in industry, finance, culture, education, media, and other industries, providing the basis for a 'virtuous' cycle of development for the expansion of its extremist ideology and political infiltration," Zhou said.

The church has about 600,000 members in Japan, out of 10 million globally, Reuters reported.

Thousands of couples attend a mass wedding held by the Unification Church on August 27, 2018 in Gapyeong, South Korea. Photo: VCG

Conservative tone

During the Cold War, the Unification Church movement was criticized by the mainstream media for its anti-Communist activism.

In 2010, Moon bought the US-based media publication the Washington Times into the New World Communications, an international media conglomerate similar to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which owns Fox News. The conglomerate was directly affiliated with Moon's Unification Church, the US News reported.

The newspaper often plays up claims that the Chinese mainland will "invade" the island of Taiwan, for example, citing US officials who accuse the Chinese military of posing an "acute threat" to the island

The New York Times reported that Moon acknowledged that in the two decades since the founding of The Washington Times in 1982, he pumped in more than $1 billion in subsidies to keep it going.

In 2002, during the 20th anniversary party for the Washington Times, Moon said, "The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world," the Washington Post reported in 2009.

Unification is a political concept, and the Unification Church, which uses this concept as its name, has always been a heretical religious organization with distinct political positions and intentions, Zhou noted.

Unification Church followers hold a memorial service mourning the death of their leader Sun Myung Moon in the church's Seoul headquarters on September 3, 2012.? Photo: AFP 

Alarm bells

The cultist elements behind the Abe assassination have set off alarms in China, which has maintained a zero-tolerance attitude toward cults through various efforts.

The Unification Church has been classified as a cult since the 1990s in China. In May 1997, the Ministry of Public Security listed the Unification church as a cultic organization, according to chinafxj.com, a website promoting China's anti-cult policies under the State Council.

The chinafxj.com website states that the Unification Church has been infiltrating China since as early as the country's Reform and Opening-up in 1978 in the name of investment, sponsorship, and tourism, in a bid to take root in China and expand its influence.

In recent years, the cult's infiltration efforts have become more active in China. Its affiliated organization "International Education Foundation," for instance, carried out penetration activities in some cities in the name of cultural exchange and educational cooperation. The church also set up branches secretly in Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenyang, Xi'an, and other major cities to carry out illegal missionary activities. Sunmoon University also tried to absorb Chinese believers via cooperation with China's universities, said the website.

Currently in China, the Unification Church is among the list of 18 defined cultist organizations masquerading as Christian churches, according to chinafxj.com.

The cults share similar traits and modes of operation, such as deifying leaders or founders, promoting inhumane, antisocial, and immoral theories, and inciting the public to confront the larger society, Yan Kejia, director of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Religious Studies, told the Global Times. "The cults could easily confuse the public by taking advantage of religious beliefs and feudal superstition."

China has been cracking down on cults, especially since the late 1990s, Yan noted. "The efforts have been greatly beneficial. The campaigns against cults are widely understood and supported by the public and have brought a breath of fresh air to the society."

"The Abe incident proved that governments should pay great attention to issues surrounding cultic activities. It also reminds China that the work to fight cults should be consistently enhanced," he said. 

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 In this file photo taken on April 21, 2015 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe waves as he headed for Indonesia at the Tokyo International Airport. Photo:AFP 

 
 

 

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China has lifted 700 million out of poverty over 70 years, set to eliminate its last poor very soon

 

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Helping hand: President Xi Jinping (second from left) has a complete portfolio of poverty relief plans, despite the sudden onslaught of Covid-19. — Xinhua

 

BEIJING: China is making a final sprint to eliminate absolute poverty as it marches towards a moderately prosperous society.

Leading this anti-poverty effort is President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and chairman of the Central Military Commission.

The Chinese leadership has set 2020 as the deadline to eradicate poverty. Every CPC leader in the past had worked towards this target, but the work by Xi has impressed many people.

Last March, Xi convened a televised symposium on poverty alleviation. He reiterated the deadline and vowed to lift the remaining five million-plus people out of poverty by the end of the year, despite the sudden onslaught of Covid-19. In September, Xi said China has “every confidence” of achieving the goal.

The nation will meet the poverty eradication target (set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development) 10 years ahead of schedule, Xi told the 75th session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly then.

In his latest instruction made public in mid-october, Xi said there should be no letting up until a complete victory has been secured.  

 Millions climb out of poverty trap

Poverty has plagued China for thousands of years. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the anti-poverty war has lifted over 700 million rural people out of poverty.

Great strides had been made under the reform programmes and opening up of China in 1978, started by Deng Xiaping.

Xi assumed the historic responsibility of leading this anti-poverty fight, after he was elected general secretary of the CPC in November 2012. At that time, About 99 million Chinese lived under the poverty line, earning a per capita income of less than 2,300 yuan (about US$1 dollar) a day.

To meet the 2020 anti-poverty deadline, over 10 million people have to be lifted out of poverty every year. This equates to about one million people every month, or 20 people every minute.

President Xi goes to the ground

About one month after taking over the helm of the CPC, Xi braved winter cold to visit poor villagers in Hebei Province. Sitting down with them, Xi asked about their income, if they had sufficient food and enough quilts and coal to stay warm.

In November 2013, Xi went to Shibadong, a Miao ethnic minority village nestled in the mountains of central China’s Hunan Province. There, he put forward the concept of targeted poverty alleviation.

Across the country, all impoverished people and the factors that have led to their poverty are identified. Each household or individual is given a customised poverty relief plan.

They might get help to start a small business, be relocated out of mountains or receive training to find jobs in cities.

Their children will be given education. And there is a system to keep track of progress to ensure the measures are having their desired effect.

Xi has put poverty relief work under the leadership of the CPC of 90 million members. Party chiefs at all levels are required to take up a role.

Over 2.9 million public sector officials are sent to villages to fight poverty “at the front line.”

The leader has convened a series of meetings on poverty alleviation. Before every meeting, he would visit impoverished regions to learn about local situations and listen to suggestions of grassroots officials and members of the public.

Xi has a complete portfolio of poverty relief plans. He sets basic targets at meetings: rural poor people must not worry about food and clothing, and have access to compulsory education, basic medical services and safe housing.

A lot of emphasis is given to the role of education to stop repeat of poverty from one generation to the next.

He has advocated relocation as an effective anti-poverty solution, and repeatedly warned against needless formalities, red tape.

Yuri Tavrovsky, a sinologist and professor at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, noted China’s anti-poverty fight has obviously gathered pace under Xi’s leadership.

No single poor to be left behind

Xi is no stranger to poverty. As a teenager and young adult, he spent seven years with peasants on the Loess Plateau where he lived in cave-like adobe houses and slept on a flea-infested bed on clay stove.

He joined the CPC in the village of Liangjiahe, and had his first experience as a grassroots-level CPC secretary there.

Xi once said his biggest dream back then was to make it possible for the villagers to have meat on their plates, which was a luxury during those days before the rise of China.

In his 80 domestic inspection tours over the past eight years, he has seen some of the most remote and impoverished areas in the country.

Xi has stressed that “no one should be left behind”. In the first four years as CPC chief, he had visited China’s 14 “contiguous impoverished areas.” At times he had to travel by plane first, and transfer to train and car before reaching the remote villages.

“What impresses me most is that Xi always puts people’s well-being first,” said Zhao Ruqi, an official who worked with Xi in Fujian.

In 2016, when visiting a village in Ningxia, Xi was seen checking the shower facilities in a villager’s home, and was happy to learn that the family had a solar water heater.

Recalling his early trips to some poor areas, Xi once said his heart sank when he saw the bumpy and rugged roads, harsh living conditions of the locals and heard stories of children dropping out of school, and patients not getting timely medical treatment and attention.

“But when I went to poor villages in recent few years, I saw substantial changes,” Xi said at the March symposium. “Seeing the smiles of the people, I feel delighted.”

The number of Chinese living in poverty has dropped from 98.99 million to 5.51 million in the seven years since 2013.

UN Secretary-general Antonio Guterres has remarked that China made the greatest contributions to world poverty alleviation in the past decade.

In China, the per capita net income of the poor has more than doubled – rising from 4,124 yuan in 2016 to 9,057 yuan in 2019, registering an average annual growth of 30%.

Rural people are seeing a significant improvement in their lives and standard of living. The development of rural industries has changed lives, as has relocation of villages. In the past five years, more than nine million rural poor in China have been moved out of inhospitable areas.

Yang Qingzhong recalled that his family of six had to cram themselves into a tiny mudbrick house in mountainous Guizhou Province.

In 2018, the family moved into a spacious modern apartment in town, allocated by the government. And he found a job in a workshop near his new home, making rattan chairs.

All over the country, rural infrastructure, education and health-care have improved. Some rural hospitals partner with their metropolitan counterparts to offer high-quality medical services to rural residents.

“Illness-induced poverty is one of the toughest problems in rural areas,” said Hu Yi, head of the public hospital in the county of Zhenxiong in Yunnan Province. “Now they don’t have to travel far to get treated, not even for serious illness.”

Benefiting from the poverty eradication programmes, some ethnic minorities – residing in the country’s remote areas in southwestern corners – have also experienced positive changes in their life.

But China under Xi’s leadership is not going to stop at poverty eradication. “Poverty eradication is only the first step; better days are still ahead,” Xi said in a letter to the Dulong ethnic minority group, congratulating the Dulong people for collectively shaking off poverty.

Xi has reminded his people that shaking off poverty is not the finishing line, but the starting line of a new life and new endeavour.

Revisiting Hunan in September, Xi said China must establish a long-term strategy to prevent any relapse into poverty. Among the plans being implemented in China are rural revitalisation programmes and economic development to build a moderately prosperous society. — Xinhua (Compiled by HO WAH FOON

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