Group Founded by Sun Myung Moon Preaches Sexual Abstinence in China
September 12, 2000
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

BEIJING, Sept. 11 - For several years now, a small New York-based foundation
has aggressively spread its conservative message in China: sex before
marriage is immoral, fidelity in marriage is essential and abstinence is the
only way to prevent AIDS.

Offering free seminars and workshops, the International Educational
Foundation has been warmly embraced by a range of conservative Chinese
officials distressed about their country's slide toward sexual freedom. 

In partnership with a government health education institute, the foundation
has now worked in every province, and its Beijing office is in a Health
Ministry building.

But in many ways the foundation is a strange bedfellow for the Communist
Chinese government, which has been waging an especially harsh campaign
against evangelical religious groups and spiritual movements.

The International Educational Foundation was started by the ardently
anti-Communist Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the South Korean founder of the
Unification Church. Its headquarters is in the church's main building in
Manhattan. And its leaders are prominent members of the Unification Church.

"Many Chinese officials are very conservative, and those that support the
ideas being taught by the foundation don't worry too much about what else is
behind it," said Qiu Renzong, a specialist in medical ethics at the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences who has criticized the group for undermining
China's AIDS prevention effort.

Critics of the group say many Chinese supporters - for the most part loyal
Communists and atheists - are only dimly aware of the foundation's religious
roots or what the Unification Church represents. Mr. Moon has said he is a
messiah who at age 16 was asked by Jesus to continue his divine work; he
says he and his wife are the "true parents" of church members, and he
prefers to personally select their spouses.

But in China as in the United States, Moon-affiliated groups have
consistently succeeded in promoting their conservative social agenda in even
the most hostile environments, generally by tapping into the fears of local
conservatives and forming alliances with them.

Playing down religion and their links to the Moon organization, the
foundation uses its deep pockets to support a number of conservative social
causes, and local allies tend not to ask too many questions.

Zhu Qi, a Chinese health official who has sponsored the foundation's work in
China, said he was aware that it was a "church-affiliated group," although
he said he was unsure which church it represented. He added that the group
was "welcome, so long as they weren't doing missionary work."

"It's true that it's very unusual for Chinese organizations to cooperate
with foreign religious groups," he said. "But I think the reason we can
cooperate is that their Christian values are in line with traditional
Chinese values. Also, they have a degree of economic strength."

This summer, the Chicago school board discovered that a similar
Moon-affiliated group, the Pure Love Alliance, had been given permission by
inner-city principals to teach its abstinence-only curriculum in classrooms.
The chancellor of the Chicago public schools angrily banned the group when
its links to the Moon organization were discovered.

Though acknowledging their ties with Mr. Moon, the foundation's leaders
emphasize that their focus is on "actualizing virtues that are universal,
like respectability and honesty," not on promoting religious dogma, said
Alan Saunders, who is based in New York. Mr. Saunders said the group was
independent from the church, supporting itself through its business ventures
and donations. He added that Mr. Moon financed only large conferences.

"Many people who work with us are not Unificationists," Mr. Saunders said.
"In Russia we're in 5,000 schools. Most of the teachers do not have the
Unificationist perspective, so we're not endorsing religiousity."

But critics in China complain that the foundation has misled people,
presenting second-rate science to promote a health policy based on
conservative values rather than research. They say the group's focus on
abstinence undercuts the fight against AIDS in China.

The foundation's lecture material denies that condoms can prevent pregnancy,
transmission of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, or other sexually
transmitted diseases. And lecturers tell students that there is no such
thing as "safe sex."

"When H.I.V. was spreading province by province through China, the Chinese
government spent a lot of time working with religious groups to use morality
to defend the people against AIDS," said Wan Yanhai, who runs a Chinese Web
site about H.I.V. and recently co-authored a report called "The Foreign
Shepherd," about the International Educational Foundation's work in China.

Others criticize the group for obscuring its religious background and
particularly its ties to the Unification Church, a far-flung group with a
controversial history, hundreds of intertwined businesses and some
unconventional religious beliefs.

"I think most Chinese don't have a good idea of what this group is, even if
they have heard it's the Unification Church," said Er Yan, the other author
of "The Foreign Shepherd," who is also the general coordinator of the
Chinese Society for the Study of Sexual Minorities. "They portray Mr. Moon
as just another respected religious leader."

Mr. Er and others worry that the Moon organization is using the seminars to
promote its own goals at the expense of sound health policy. Former members
of the Unification Church say Mr. Moon has long wanted to gain a foothold in
China.

"The group has a 30-year track record of using lots of money to gain access
to high political positions," said Steven Hassan, a former senior member of
the church who has since become one of its critics. "They create a front
group, offer lots of money, set up conferences. And inveigle their way into
whatever can be inveigled."

Although the foundation's teaching materials and lectures focus on secular
virtues, the vocabulary and practices of the Unification Church creep into
the curriculum - with occasional references to the "true parents" (Mr. Moon
and his wife) and ceremonies in which foundation teachers perform mass
blessings of marriages. The International Education Foundation, with offices
in New York, London, Moscow and Beijing, says it has operations in more than
a dozen countries, although its Web site focuses mostly on the former Soviet
Union, Mongolia and China.

The Moon organization has been cultivating ties to China since the early
1990's. The foundation itself first came to China in 1994, Dr. Zhu said.
Today, with Dr. Zhu's help, the foundation generally works directly with
local government bureaus across China to set up seminars on abstinence and
chastity.

Foreign groups are not allowed to operate in China without a local partner,
and the Moon group tends to work with socially conservative Chinese
bureaucrats, generally associated with the Education or the Propaganda
Ministry or with the All China Women's Federation. They see the growing
number of liberal, often Western-trained health officials as the enemy.

The group has apparently helped overcome any misgivings with cash.

Researchers at the All China Women's Federation, who said they were aware of
the group's ties with the Unification Church, said the foundation often
lavished money and other perquisites on officials and cash- poor local
governments.

Mid-level officials and, sometimes, their children have been treated to
trips abroad to attend conferences, a rare opportunity for most Chinese
college students.

This spring, the foundation flew more than 100 Chinese students to a seminar
at the University of Bridgeport, in Connecticut, which is owned by the
Unification Church. Mr. Er, the co-author of "The Foreign Shepherd," said it
was an offer that many Chinese couldn't refuse.

"Even if they don't believe in the message," he said, "they see it as a free
trip for their kids."

Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company </subscribe/help/copyright.html>  


美反共教会基金顺利进入中国 

    【多维新闻社12日电】多维社记者李兰田报导/纽约一家很小的基金会最近几年一直在
中国宣传它的信息：婚前性行为不道德，忠实婚姻最重要，禁欲是防止艾滋病的唯一方式。
    纽约时报12日发表文章说，这家名称为国际教育基金会的机构提供免费讲座和培训班，
受到中国保守官员的热情欢迎，那些官员担心中国价值观堕落到性自由。这家基金会同中国
卫生部等部门合作，已经在各省开展工作。
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韩极端反共的统一教会成立的。总部就在纽约曼哈顿的教会大楼内，基金会领导都是统一教
会的重要成员。
    中国政府取缔各种非官方批准的宗教活动，更不能容忍反共组织。但南韩最反共的统一
教会旗下的基金会却以保守观念和金钱进入中国。
    中国社会科学院医学伦理专家邱仁宗说，许多中国官员都非常保守，那些支持基金会说
教的人并不考虑背后的东西。他批评基金会破坏了中国防止艾滋病的努力。
    许多批评者说，中国那些支持该基金会的人并不了解它的宗教根源及其统一教会的含
义。该教会的创始人说他在16岁的时候耶苏告诉他，要他继承神的旨意，他说他和他妻子
是教会成员的真正父母，他要为教会成员亲自挑选配偶。
    但国际教育基金会在中国和美国一样都非常容易推行他们的保守观念。它淡化宗教和同
教会的联系，利用自己的资金赞助几个保守的社会项目和地方盟友。中国卫生部官员朱奇（音
译）说，他发起合作项目时也知道该基金会附属于某教会，但不知道是哪个教会。但他说，
只要不传教，就欢迎。但他认为基金会的基督教价值观符合中国传统价值观，此外该基金会
有一定的经济实力。
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立即禁止这一团体的活动。
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那些讲座说世界上没有“安全的性”。管理中国艾滋病防治教育网站的万延海说，“当艾滋病
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或者他们的子女，基金会为他们提供出国参加会议机会。
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