In 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a notable speech advocating for the ‘Sinicisation’ of religions in China, essentially demanding that religious leaders and institutions strictly conform to state or party ideology—namely, socialism. Since then, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has implemented a wide array of legislative, bureaucratic, ideological, and technological measures to ensure that all forms of religious expression fall under its political control. Those failing to comply have faced persecution and prosecution.
Recently, the CCP introduced regulations, effective from 1 May, which bar foreign missionaries from preaching or establishing religious organisations without explicit party approval. This development is part of a broader trend in Chinese governance, wherein any foreign involvement in religious matters—or domestic religious activities not aligned with party ideology—is framed as a national security threat, thereby leveraging nationalism to justify religious repression.
According to an official white paper published in 2019, China had approximately 200 million religious adherents. The majority were Tibetan Buddhists, with 20 million Muslims, 38 million Protestant Christians, and 6 million Catholic Christians. The CCP’s repressive policies towards Tibetan Buddhists and Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang are extensively documented, with some United Nations member states describing the latter as ‘crimes against humanity’.
The People’s Republic of China’s pervasive surveillance, the imposition of forced labour camps and ideological indoctrination centres disguised as ‘vocational training schools’, widespread imprisonment and torture, demographic manipulation, destruction of religious sites, and systematic cultural erasure have all attracted significant international criticism. Nevertheless, what is often overlooked by global human rights organisations is the more subtle deployment of legal mechanisms by the state to undermine and criminalise independent religious practices, all under the pretext of nationalist rhetoric.
Article 36 of China’s constitution guarantees citizens the right to freedom of religious belief, yet it tempers this by specifying that the state will safeguard only ‘normal religious activities’ and will not permit ‘foreign forces’ to exert influence over religious affairs. In 2015, the government enacted the National Security Law (NSL), similarly ambiguous in its language, which covered a broad spectrum of areas and required officials, corporations, organisations, and private individuals to collaborate with the CCP on ‘national security’ issues. The suite of legislation under this framework redefined national security to encompass not just military concerns but also economic, social, and cultural dimensions.
