Why is China’s government confiscating coffins?
WANG TINGYU points sadly towards the space above her bed where her coffin used to lie. It was one of a pair she and her husband bought 20 years ago, when the couple entered their 60s. After he died, hers remained stored in the eaves of their sooty cottage—ready for the day her own body would be buried on a nearby hillside. But a few months ago officials entered the home of the 81-year-old and took the casket away.
Mao’s successors inherited his misgivings about burial. They had another fear, too: that the practice could result in arable land becoming even more scarce and thus impair China’s ability to feed its rapidly growing population. The one-child-per-couple policy, introduced in 1979, aimed to reduce the burden of sustaining so many people by curbing the number entering the world.
Since Xi Jinping took over as China’s leader in 2012, officials have stepped up their anti-burial efforts. In 2014 the government said it wanted the cremation rate to grow by up to 1% annually for the rest of the decade, with “close to 100%” cremation in selected areas. It has been trying harder to promote “ecoburials”. These can involve ashes being packed into tall columbaria, buried in flower beds or sprinkled into the sea.
In the past three years there has been a slight uptick in the cremation rate. But anti-burial campaigns have had grim side-effects. In 2014 several pensioners in Anhui province were reported by state media to have killed themselves shortly before a no-burial policy was due to take effect. They wanted to ensure that their remains would not be cremated—keeping the body intact is considered by some Chinese to be a sign of respect for one’s ancestors.
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