10 Facts About Ye Xiaowen

Ye Xiaowen is a Chinese politician who held various top posts relating to state regulation of religion in China from 1995 to 2009.

In 1998, the Bureau of Religious Affairs was renamed the State Administration for Religious Affairs, while Ye Xiaowen remained its director.

Ye Xiaowen 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.

Ye Xiaowen was born in 1950 to a teachers' family in Ningxiang County, Henan, although he grew up in Guizhou.

Ye Xiaowen joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1975.

Ye Xiaowen insisted that the government had to act against Falun Gong on behalf of science, civilization, and human rights, although he promised that the police would not persecute people who practiced alone in their homes.

Ye Xiaowen was received with hostility, but was said to have answered questions "like a tire salesman".

Ye Xiaowen said that the Protestant population in China has grown from 10 million in 1999, to 15 million in 2003 and further to 16 million in 2009.

Ye Xiaowen met with Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky, ambassador for religious freedom John Hanford, and retired Archbishop of Washington Theodore McCarrick.

Ye Xiaowen said that China respects religious belief, criticized the US State Department's last annual report on religious freedom, and explained the muted response over the Dalai Lama's Congressional Gold Medal.