Mandatory cremation and purchase of cemetery spaces for the ashes are denounced as both a scam enriching greedy bureaucrats and an attack against ancestor worship.
by Wu Guoxuan
After the massive protests against the “Zero COVID” program for the first time compelled the CCP to repeal an official policy, we are seeing more public demonstrations in China, which would have been unthinkable or subject to bloody repression only a few years ago.
One of the most recent is happening in Suizhou, in Hubei province, and is about a reform of funeral and cemetery practice enacted by the prefecture-level city. To protest the reform, thousands of villagers from the rural areas around Suizhou blocked National Highway 316 on May 1, during the May Day holidays, and continued to protest for three days. Finally, they were dispersed by reinforced contingents of police with vague and probably false promises that something will be done about their grievances.
Mandatory cremation has been introduced in several parts of China, but normally with a grain of salt and a certain respect of local ancestral traditions. Suizhou’s regulations also apply to rural and mountainous areas where the dead are traditionally buried in village cemeteries. Old families have their ancestral halls where the dead are buried, and ancestor worship is practiced. Some are very simple or consist of a few graves on an isolated hill. Locations are chosen according to Feng Shui.
The new Suizhou regulations provide that as of March 20, 2024, all residents in the prefecture who die should be buried in the new “public welfare cemeteries” constructed in recent years. The prefecture announced the aim of the “three 100%”: 100% of uniform funerals, 100% of cremations, and 100% of burial of the ashes in the public welfare cemeteries. Since the construction of the new cemeteries had a cost in excess of US $37 million, the prefecture asks all citizens to buy a place for their ashes for 3,000 yuan ($416) for each member of their family (or more, in certain cemeteries). In fact, they do not “buy” but “rent” for twenty years, after which it is unclear whether the ashes will be dispersed, or families will be asked to pay an extra fee.
For impoverished villagers in the post-COVID economy, the fee is not small, and those who would not pay are threatened with jail penalties. More painful is the fact that the meaning of ancestral halls will disappear without burying relatives there, and the regulation is seen as yet another attack against ancestor worship, which the CCP denounces as a “feudal superstition.”
“We can accept cremation,” one villager told “Bitter Winter,” “but even if they are cremated, the ashes of our deceased relatives should be placed in the ancestral graves. With the new cemetery system, where will our children and grandchildren go to worship their ancestors?” Others said it is all a massive scam, where money will be pocketed in the end by some corrupt officials.
Protesters regard as particularly cruel Article 7 of the regulations: “If one spouse died and has been buried, and a tomb has been reserved for the other spouse, if the other spouse dies after 0:00 on March 20, 2024, s/he cannot be buried with the spouse who was previously buried. S/he must be cremated, and the ashes must be buried in the public welfare cemetery.”