Ye Xiaowen
| Ye Xiaowen | |
|---|---|
| 叶小文 | |
| Director of the Bureau of Religious Affairs | |
|
In office July 1995 – 1998 |
|
| Preceded by | Zhang Shengzuo |
| Director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs | |
|
In office 1998–2009 |
|
| Succeeded by | Wang Zuoan |
| Party Secretary of the Central Institute of Socialism | |
|
In office 2009–2016 |
|
| Preceded by | Lou Zhihao |
| Succeeded by | Pan Yue |
| Personal details | |
| Born | August 1950 (age 60) Ningxiang County, Hunan, China |
| Nationality | Han Chinese |
| Political party | Communist Party of China |
| Alma mater | Guizhou Academy of Social Sciences |
| Occupation | Politician |
Ye Xiaowen (Chinese: 叶小文; pinyin: Yè Xiǎowén; born August 1950) is a Chinese politician who held various top posts relating to state regulation of religion in China from 1995 to 2009.
In 1995, Ye became the director of the Bureau of Religious Affairs under the State Council. There, he worked to prevent religious unrest, select the 11th Panchen Lama, and ban the controversial Falun Gong group. In 1998, the Bureau of Religious Affairs was renamed the State Administration for Religious Affairs, while Ye Xiaowen remained its director. He acknowledged presiding over religions in China, and changed policy to say that religion has a place in society, although he persecuted groups that he thought brought foreign control to Chinese churches, like the Roman Catholic Church. In 2007 he declared State Religious Affairs Bureau Order No. 5, which attempted to reduce the influence of the 14th Dalai Lama and other foreign groups on the reincarnations in Tibet. All the while, he traveled often to the United States to defend his religious policy against criticism. Ye was relieved of his religious post in September 2009 to direct the Central Institute of Socialism.
Ye Xiaowen was born in 1950 to a teachers' family in Ningxiang County, Henan, although he grew up in Guizhou. He joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1975. Ye was one of the few Chinese students to study sociology after the discipline was suppressed for 20 years, becoming vice director of the Guizhou Academy of Social Sciences. In 1985, after Hu Jintao was promoted to party chief of Guizhou, he was made Secretary of the Guizhou Communist Youth League. As part of his mandate in 1992, he traveled to Northwest China to find out why some young people were religious, and to try to convert them to the Youth League instead. The reflective article he wrote earned him the attention of religious and Communist Party leaders in China.
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