SPATIO-TEMPORAL ANALYSES of RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS in CHINA: a CASE STUDY of ZHEJIANG PROVINCE a Thesis Submitted to Kent St
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SPATIO-TEMPORAL ANALYSES OF RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS IN CHINA: A CASE STUDY OF ZHEJIANG PROVINCE A thesis submitted To Kent State University in partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts By Huanyang Zhao December 2015 © Copyright All rights reserved Except for previously published materials i Thesis written by Huanyang Zhao B.A., Kent State University, 2013 Approved by Jay Lee, Professor, Ph.D., Department of Geography, Masters Advisor Scott Sheridan, Professor and Acting Chair, Ph.D., Department of Geography James L. Blank, Professor, Dean, Ph.D., College of Arts and Sciences ii TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………………………. iii LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………………….. v LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………………............ vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………………. viii CHAPTERS I. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………….…. 1 II. RESEARCH HYPOTHESES AND QUESTIONS ...……………………………...… 7 III. RELEVANT LITERATURE…...………………………………………………….…. 11 IV. RESEARCH PURPOSE AND DATA………………………………………….......... 18 4.1 Research Purpose…………………...……………………………………….. 18 4.2 Data Description…………………..………………………………………… 19 V. ANALYSES AND RESULTS…..……………………………………………………. 23 5.1 Spatial Analysis ...……………………………………………………………. 23 5.1.1 Spatial Clusters Identification………………………………………….. 23 5.1.2 Analytic Design, Procedure and Results……………………………….. 25 5.1.3 Spatial Diffusion Detection…………………………………………….. 25 5.1.4 SPSS Results…………………………………………………………….. 30 5.1.5 Regression Curve Estimations………………………………………....... 33 5.1.6 Demographic Analysis………………………………………………….. 41 5.1.7 Regression and Correlation Analysis Results…………………………… 48 iii 5.2 Temporal Analysis ……………………………………………………………. 55 5.2.1 Analytical Purpose & Methods…………………………………………. 55 5.2.2 Analytical Process & Results…………………………………………… 56 5.2.3 Temporal Analysis of the Institutional Development of Christianity….. 57 5.2.4 Temporal Analysis of the Institutional Development of Domestic Religions (Buddhism & Daoism)…………………………………………….... 61 5.3 Spatio-temporal Analysis……………………………………………………... 66 VI. CONCLUSIONS/SUMMARY………………………………………………………... 73 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………………….... 79 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Geographic Setting of Zhejiang Province………………………………………… 5 Figure 2 Zhejiang Province City-level Population Distribution – 5th Chinese National Census (2000)…………………………………………………………………………………………. 8 Figure 3. Types of Spatial Diffusion………………………………………………………... 12 Figure 4. Digitized Geographic Data of Zhejiang Province & Historical Data of Religious Establishments………………………………………………………………………………… 21 Figure 5. Non-reciprocal Nearest Neighboring Relationship……………………………….. 26 Figure 6. Regression Curve Estimation Result of Buddhism Establishments………………. 33 Figure 7. Regression Curve Estimation Result of Christianity Establishments…………….... 34 Figure 8. Regression Curve Estimation Result of Daoism Establishments………………….. 35 Figure 9. Temporal Evolution of Buddhism Institutions in Zhejiang Province (1949-2004) ... 38 Figure 10. Temporal Evolution of Daoism Institutions in Zhejiang Province (1949-2004)….. 39 Figure 11. Temporal Evolution of Christianity Institutions in Zhejiang Province (1949-2004). 40 Figure 12. Zhejiang Province 2000 City-level Census Data with All Religious Establishments (1949-2004)……………………………………………………………………………………... 43 Figure 13. Zhejiang Province 2010 City-level Census Data with All Religious Establishments (1949-2004)……………………………………………………………………………………... 44 Figure 14. Linear Relationship Between the County/Sub-urban-level Population Data and the Corresponding Number of Religious Establishments…………………………………………... 48 Figure 15. Linear Relationship Between the County/Sub-urban-level GDP Data (2004) and the Corresponding Number of Religious Establishments…………………………………………... 49 Figure 16. Linear Relationship Between the City-level Population Data and the Corresponding Number of Religious Establishments…………………………………………………………... 50 Figure 17. The Three Counties that Exhibit Significant Institutional agglomerations of the Three Religions………………………………………………………………………………………... 53 Figure 18. Temporal Trends Wave Chart of Christianity Establishments in Zhejiang Province………………………………………………………………………………………… 57 v Figure 19. Temporal Trends Wave Chart of Buddhism Establishments in Zhejiang Province………………………………………………………………………………………… 62 Figure 20. Temporal Trends Wave Chart of Daoism Establishments in Zhejiang Province… 62 Figure 21. Visualization of SatScan Result of Daoism Establishments in Zhejiang Province.. 69 Figure 22. Visualization of SatScan Result of Christianity Establishments in Zhejiang Province………………………………………………………………………………………… 70 Figure 23. Visualization of SatScan Result of Buddhism Establishments in Zhejiang Province………………………………………………………………………………………… 72 Figure 24. Visualization of the Unique Cluster via Google Earth …………………………….. 72 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Structure and Attributes of the Religious Establishment Data – Extracted Sample of the Buddhism Establishments ……………………………………………………………………….21 Table 2. Attributes of the Data used in this Study……………………………………………….22 Table 3. The Eleven Models of Non-linear Regression Estimation……………………………..29 Table 4. SPSS Results of Buddhism Establishments…………………………………………….30 Table 5. SPSS Results of Christianity Establishments…………………………………………. 31 Table 6. SPSS Results of Daoism Establishments……………………………………………….32 Table 7. Extracted Sample of the Comprehensive Religious Establishments Data……………..45 Table 8. The Three Counties Hosting Significant Agglomeration of Religious Establishments..52 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor Dr. Jay Lee for his continuous support of my graduate study and related research, for his patience, motivation, and immense knowledge. His guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of this thesis, my thesis work would have been a frustrating and overwhelming pursuit without it. Besides my advisor, I would like to thank the rest of my thesis committee: Dr. Xinyue Ye and Dr. James Tyner, for their insightful comments and encouragement, but also for the hard question which incented me to widen my research from various perspectives. My sincere thanks also go to my fellow graduate students at the Department of Geography at Kent State University. Special thanks go to my lab-mates who helped me throughout my academic exploration. Last but not the least; I would like to thank my family: my parents and my wife for their unconditional love and support during the past two years. I would not have been able to complete this thesis without their continuous encouragement. viii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Religion plays an important role in all human societies. Fundamentally, a religion provides people with means to believe in and reasons for both spontaneous and routine individual/social activities. Aiming at achieving an overall harmony, it also promotes values of goodness, regulates both individual and social behaviors. However, religions can also be used as a basis for extremism. Such extreme beliefs may create conflicts among people of different belief systems. Nevertheless, all of the major religions in the world share common beliefs of self-sufficiency, discourage selfishness, and advocate both individual practices and achievements. Currently, many religions co-exist in mainland China. Among them, there are three major religions. They are Buddhism, Daoism and Christianity. The history of Buddhism in China can be traced back to ancient times. After centuries of dissemination since introduced to China, Buddhism was localized and transformed into Chinese Buddhism, which emphasized on both pure Buddhism principles and the traditional values of the Chinese culture. Daoism, on the other hand, was originated from within China as a philosophical tradition at first. Daoism was heavily influenced by Chinese mythology, culture, and mysterious practices such as alchemy, geomancy, among others. Finally, Christianity was introduced to China from the late 1700s, while received hostile feedbacks from the civilians throughout its history in China, it managed to stabilize by the early 1900s. It became one of the mainstream religions since the republican period of China around 1949. This paralleled with the thriving westernization movement in China at the time. 1 The development of religious institutions at specific locations can be influenced by many factors. The most significant and influential ones could be the need for religious beliefs during difficult times when economic fluctuations and social unrests occurred. Specifically in China, religious callings were the most appealing with the influences of foreign activities/events as well as the comforting supports by local religious institutions during the times of significant historical events or economic downturns. Throughout the long history of development of the three major religions (i.e., Buddhism, Daoism, and Christianity) in coastal regions of eastern China, the influence of governmental regulations over religions was kept to a minimum by the policy makers until the founding of the People‟s Republic of China (PRC). One of the major reasons for the fewer political interventions until then was due to the democratic principles practiced by the republican government. The educational reforms during this republican period, on the other hand, allowed Chinese citizens to study in multiple foreign countries. These foreign educated Chinese usually took influential positions after returning to China, which inevitably