The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Friday imposed a new law called the Administrative Measures for Religious Activity Venues that requires all houses of worship to “support the leadership of the CCP, support the socialist system, and thoroughly implement Xi Jinping’s new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
Human rights magazine Bitter Winter produced an English translation of the new law when it was first announced in early August. The final version was “even worse” than the oppressive draft version published in April.
As Bitter Winter noted, the Chinese Communist regime normally goes through a hollow exercise of posting new laws for “review” and “comment,” but then resolutely ignores all comments and doing whatever the Party wanted to do all along. This time, some of the comments came from Chinese agencies that wanted the anti-religious freedom law to be even tougher – and the drafters complied.
The final version of the law, which took effect on Friday, September 1, 2023, required that “religious activity venues should actively broadcast CCP propaganda, or face liquidation.”
The final draft also contained strict rules for inserting Communist propaganda into sermons, forcing religious congregations to study Communist Party documents, and preventing either religious venues or individual citizens from building “large open-air religious statues” that might distract from dictator Xi Jinping’s cult of personality.
The state-controlled “Three-Self Church” promised last week that it would enthusiastically enforce the new regulations in every place of worship. Three-Self Church leaders actually pledged allegiance to the rules, as though they were holy scripture, and then read the entire dreary document to their congregations.
Voice of America News (VOA) on Thursday noted that China was already among the world’s worst violators of religious freedom, according to the U.S. State Department. The new law makes the situation even worse, as the handful of state-approved religions will be required to spend more time dispensing state ideology and less time discussing religion.
Chinese human rights lawyer Chen Jiangang said the new law represents the first time houses of worship have been forced to teach “Xi Jinping Thought,” the dictator’s political tract, as though it were equal or greater in stature to their sacred texts.
“The recent religious regulations issued by the CCP have almost deprived us of all freedom in the religious field,” Chen said.
Chen noted the new laws are very aggressive about treating “house churches,” small gatherings that are not registered with the Chinese government and sometimes have mobile venues for worship, as “illegal.”
“The places are banned and closed, and the personnel are punished, arrested, and sentenced. For property, it is basically confiscated,” he said.
Chinese Catholic worshippers kneel and pray during Palm Sunday Mass during the Easter Holy Week at an “underground” or “unofficial” church on April 9, 2017, near Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, China. (Kevin Frayer/Getty)
China has been steadily tightening controls on religion since 2018, to say nothing of its genocidal treatment of the Uyghur Muslims of East Turkistan. Xi appears to be more worried than previous leaders about religion challenging the authority of his regime. The Uyghurs are treated like prisoners even when they aren’t herded into camps, but all religions are under increasingly heavy surveillance.
A security guard watches from a tower around a detention facility in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region on March 21, 2021. (Ng Han Guan, File/AP)
During a visit this week to East Turkistan, which his government refers to as Xinjiang province, Xi ordered his underlings to “more deeply promote the Sinicization of Islam and effectively control illegal religious activities.”
“In the process of Chinese-style modernization, we will better build a beautiful Xinjiang that is united and harmonious, wealthy and prosperous,” Xi said. Human rights activists said he was merely whitewashing crimes against humanity, and “Sinicization” – which hollows out religions and turns them into vehicles for Communist Party propaganda – is itself a human rights atrocity.