Trying to tear down the facade of religious freedom in a place where the churches are subject to tight governmental supervision requires courage as well as tact. To his credit, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has done just that without openly offending his host.

Rounding up a two-week visit to China that took him to five cities, the head of the Anglican Church paid tribute to a "growing spirit of openness" on the mainland. But in his valedictory sermon, he also stressed a need for mainland Christians to develop "a freedom that allows them to see the truth about themselves and their society".

The subtext of his message cannot be clearer - despite the greater freedom that mainland Christians have been allowed, enabling them to practise their faith, they are not really free to articulate their religious values in public discourse.

In recent years, Beijing has done a lot to rectify the excesses of past suppression of Christianity and other religions. Churches and temples damaged during the Cultural Revolution have been restored and seminaries reopened to train a new generation of religious leaders. The Bible and other religious materials can now be published and distributed reasonably freely.

But in a country where the governing ideology is communism, which extols atheism, the State Administration for Religious Affairs still exercises tight control over all religious organisations. Intermittent harassment of underground churches shows that Beijing is serious about maintaining a firm grip over religion, as it does over other areas of civil society. While mainland followers of various religions can now openly practise their faith, they are conspicuously absent in campaigns for social justice, unlike their counterparts in other parts of the world.

A touch of utilitarianism can be discerned in state leaders' recent utterances about religion. In his meeting with Archbishop Williams, for example, Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference chairman Jia Qinglin said he saw closer ties between the Anglican Church and mainland Christian churches as part of multi-layered exchanges between China and Britain that also encompassed their governments, parliaments and political parties. He told the visitor that China was trying to build a harmonious society and that religion could play a positive role in fostering social harmony.

In other words, religion is not being recognised for its intrinsic worth in meeting the spiritual needs of the people. It is a tool to be harnessed by the authorities to achieve social harmony. What would happen, however, if the churches dared to rally their followers to speak up on social issues such as the environment and death penalty, as Archbishop Williams suggested? Would they be tolerated, silenced or encouraged? Judging from the authorities' harsh response to such deeds by other groups, the churches are unlikely to be handled differently, which is a shame.

Sociologists have referred to a confidence crisis that permeates the mainland, where people's traditional values of right and wrong have been wrecked, first by the Cultural Revolution and then by the penchant for material wealth. Under the circumstances, personal distress caused by the huge social and economic changes that have engulfed the mainland is driving increasing numbers of mainlanders to seek comfort in religion.

The leadership has wisely recognised the growing demand for religion and allowed mainstream religions to flourish without too much interference. But its refusal to re-establish official relations with the Vatican shows that it remains deeply sceptical of foreign interference in the operation of mainland churches. It is also evidently worried that religion could provide an alternative source of authority to the Communist Party. But a country that truly respects freedom of religion should impose no restrictions on what its people choose to believe in. Genuine social harmony lies in not just tolerating, but respecting, diversity - in religion as well in other areas of human life.

Taiwan was plunged into chaos last week - but not by the national pastime of political demonstrations. Rather, it was an unexpected five-day holiday: the government suddenly extended the Mid-Autumn Festival to include Friday and Tuesday.

With no time to make new plans, most Taipei residents celebrated this ancient harvest festival as usual - with the modern rituals of barbecuing and going for road trips. Every year at this time, disgruntled cultural conservatives write in to major daily newspapers complaining that the festival's true spirit has been replaced by mindless consumption. No longer do multi-generational families gather in the courtyards of traditional houses to make offerings to ancestors and eat a family meal bathed in moonlight.

Gone are quaint - but often idealised - customs like sharing mooncakes or hunting for grasshoppers. They've been replaced with a nationwide party on city streets and country roads. Massive quantities of meat and seafood are grilled, then washed down with prodigious quantities of the island's beloved Taiwan Beer or Hey Song sarsaparilla.

To get an idea of the scale of this party, consider the case of the mainland fishing trawler interdicted by Taiwan's coastguard just days before the Mid-Autumn Festival two years ago. In the hold were 3 tonnes of smuggled chicken tail bones - a fatty delicacy for meat skewers. A Tainan-based wholesaler at a traditional market explained that this supply would meet the holiday demand in southern Taiwan for barely one day. Normally, it would be enough for two weeks.

This year, Taipei officially opened its new riverside parks on Friday evening to city residents for barbecuing. Unfortunately, the smoke from thousands of fires in the parks and throughout the city sent so much particulate matter into the air that health warnings were issued for the elderly and those with respiratory problems.

Then Saturday morning dawned. Satiated - and in many cases hungover - Taipei dads packed their families and friends into their shiny new sports utility vehicles and took to the road. The past 10 years of road building have given Taiwan an impressive network of freeways and expressways. Even so, they were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of vehicles. In the north, traffic jams stretched for 20km as travellers tried to use the new 12.9km Hsuehshan Tunnel. In the far south, 100,000 visitors turned the tropical resort of Kenting into a massive parking lot late on Saturday afternoon.

Even so, most people seemed to enjoy themselves thoroughly. Taiwanese have found new ways to celebrate this most traditional of holidays. But their love for the buzzing excitement of the crowd - while surrounded by an inner circle of family and friends - remains entirely undiminished.

"It was one of the most touching things I have seen in 25 years of Christian ministry."

A recent Pentagon briefing paper titled, "Motivations of Muslim Suicide Bombers," points to the Koran as the source of the motivation of Islamist bombers, according to an article today in WorldNetDaily.com. This runs quite contrary to the usual U.S. government approach, which insists on seeing suicide terrorists as heretics who follow a perverted form of Islam. A White House report released just this month, for example, the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism," asserts that "The terrorists distort the idea of jihad into a call for violence and murder against those they regard as apostates or unbelievers."

The Pentagon study suggests that intelligence analysts think otherwise, concluding that Muslim suicide bombers are usually students of the Koran motivated by its commands, and acting, by their lights, rationally. Here is a key passage from the WorldNetDaily.com account:

In Islam, it is not how one lives one's life that guarantees spiritual salvation, but how one dies, according to the briefings. There are great advantages to becoming a martyr. Dying while fighting the infidels in the cause of Allah reserves a special place and honor in Paradise. And it earns special favor with Allah. "Suicide in defense of Islam is permitted, and the Islamic suicide bomber is, in the main, a rational actor," concludes a recent Pentagon briefing paper titled, "Motivations of Muslim Suicide Bombers."

"His actions provide a win-win scenario for himself, his family, his faith and his God," the document explains. "The bomber secures salvation and the pleasures of Paradise. He earns a degree of financial security and a place for his family in Paradise. He defends his faith and takes his place in a long line of martyrs to be memorialized as a valorous fighter. And finally, because of the manner of his death, he is assured that he will find favor with Allah," the briefing adds. "Against these considerations, the selfless sacrifice by the individual Muslim to destroy Islam's enemies becomes a suitable, feasible and acceptable course of action."

The briefing – produced by a little-known Pentagon intelligence unit called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA – cites a number of passages from the Quran dealing with jihad, or "holy" warfare, martyrdom and Paradise, where "beautiful mansions" and "maidens" await martyr heroes. In preparation for attacks, suicide terrorists typically recite passages from six surahs, or chapters, of the Quran: Baqura (Surah 2), Al Imran (3), Anfal (8), Tawba (9), Rahman (55) and Asr (103).