Christian Ethnic Minority in the Non-Christian States The Protestant Lahu in Thailand and China

It is not a happy thing for a group of people if their religion is different from the one that is dominant in the country they live in. Protestant Lahu in China and Thailand are the case. Based on the anthropological fieldwork, this paper reports the lives of Protestant Lahu in Yunnan, China in comparison with those in north Thailand. The Lahu is a highland-dwelling ethnic minority living in a mountainous area that includes southwest China, the eastern Shan State of Myanmar, and north Thailand. Their original home is Yunnan, China but they have been moving and spreading southwards due to incessant wars and the need to find new land for swidden cultivation. In China, Protestant Lahu finds themselves as marginal because the atheistic government shows hostile attitudes to Christianity as they regard it as a servant to Western imperialism that disturbs China’s national unity. In Thailand where Buddhism is the de-fact national religion, Protestant Lahu find themselves as an ethnic and religious minority. Both in China and Thailand, religion is thus not only a matter of belief but also related to ethnicity and nation-building. By reporting the present lives of Protestant Lahu in China and Thailand, this paper considers the implications that the two cases have on the problems of religion, ethnicity, and national integration.