Incidents like the death of 96-year-old Uyghur Imam Abidin Damollam in custody or the abduction of the 11th Panchen Lama of Tibet when he was only six years old reveal the insecurity of Chinese communists with religion.
Religious beliefs continue to attract an increasing number of faithful in China. Unable to control the proliferation of monasteries, churches and mosques, Chinese Communist Party leaders are now trying to “Sinicize” religion; forcing religious precepts conform to their communist dogma. To make people abandon their beliefs and faiths, the Chinese authorities are resorting to gross violations of human rights.
The Imam was arrested in 2017 on the charge of promoting “religious extremism.” He was imparting religious instruction with government approval and was apparently arrested for doing his duty. He died in prison in February 2024. His body was not returned to the family and was buried by the police. Rushan Abbas wrote in X on March 15, 2024, that the death was “a cruel symbol of the lengths that the CCP will go to continue with Uyghur genocide.”
In May, 1995, the Chinese authorities abducted Gedhun Choeyki Nyima, the 11th Panchen Lama recognized by the Dalai Lama, when he was only six years old; never to be seen again. Beijing has appointed its own nominee as the Panchen, the second highest lama in the Tibetan Buddhist order.
The minority communities are the main target of religious suppression. They are branded as dissidents and potential threats to the communist rule in China. Leaders of the CCP want to establish Han dominance throughout China. The religious faiths of the minority communities have been targeted to subsume the identities of the different minority groups in the majority Han identity..
Xinjiang is the land of the Uyghur, the vast majority of whom practice Islam. The Tibetan people are all avowed followers of Tantric Buddhism. The authorities offer the excuse that these religious faiths are spreading “foreign influence” in China; to “undermine national interest” in Tibet and to “spread violence and terrorism” in Xinjiang.
Christianity, Taoism and folk religious practices like Falun Gong, the other predominant religious faiths in China, have also been suppressed. Believers are a potential threat to the communist rule. In China, they far outnumber non-believers with abiding faith in the communist dogma.
The State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) of China puts the figure for religious believers in the country at 200 million. The U.S. Government estimates that there are 657 million religious believers in China; among them 250 million Buddhists, 70 million Christians, 25 million Muslims, 10 million adherents of Taoism and 301 million observers of folk religion. As against this, the CCP has 99 million members. They have to declare themselves as atheists.
Unable to wean common Chinese people from the noble values of religion, mandarins of the CCP have taken recourse to the ignoble way of “Sinicizing” religion. Different religious groups are made to conform to the Chinese communist narrative and the political agenda of the CCP through the use of muscle power.
Through regulations and the promotion of state-controlled religious organizations, authorities incorporate CCP ideology into every facet of religious life for Buddhists, Catholic and Protestant Christians, Muslims and Taoists. Religious elements considered contrary to the ultranationalist overtones of the agenda of the CCP are eliminated forcibly.
A five-year “Sinicization Work Plan” has been introduced under which authorities commit gross violation of religious freedom against ethno-religious minorities, says the 2024 report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Chinese socialism, national unity and support for the CCP and its leadership underpin every major governmental regulation for religious organizations. The promotion of rabid Chinese nationalist ideas is a tool to extend the hegemony of China on a world scale.
In March 2024, CCP Secretary of Xinjiang Ma Xingrui insisted on Sinicizing Islam in that province. Religious occasions were turned into celebration of communism. Muslims were banned from breaking fasts collectively during Ramadan. Religious groups were asked to interpret religious teachings in line with “traditional Chinese culture” and China’s requirement for “development and progress.” Domes and minarets were removed from mosques for their perceived “cultural ties to the Arab world” and replaced with CCP-approved Chinese-style architecture.
In December last, SARA introduced new “Measures for the Administration of Tibetan Buddhist temples.” These bound Tibetan monasteries to the ideological framework of the CCP. “Temples and clergy should love the motherland, support the leadership of the CCP, support the socialist system, practice core socialist values, forge a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation, safeguard national unity and adhere to the direction of Sinicizing religion,” it said.
To Sinicize Tibetan Buddhism, monks and nuns have been subjected to political reeducation, CCP officials have been installed to run monastic affairs, Tibetan Buddhist religious imagery and texts have been removed from monasteries, religious activities have been prohibited during the holy month of Saga Dawa. One million Tibetan students have been severed from their families and cultural roots and placed in state-run boarding schools forcibly to assimilate them to Han Chinese culture. The reincarnation process of the Dalai Lama and other high lamas has been interfered with.
The Catholic clergy who have declined to join the state-controlled Catholic organization have been detained or abducted; similarly for Protestants. Church members have been harassed, detained, fined and imprisoned on fabricated charges of fraud and subversion. In January 2024, Protestant pastor Kan Xiaoyong was sentenced by a court for 14 years in prison on groundless allegations.
Teachers in Christian theological schools have been made to undergo a training course at the Central Institute of Socialism, made to learn the core Marxist principles and Xi Jinping thought on “new era of socialism.” In seminaries, 30 percent of the total curriculum must be on “ideological and political theory of Chinese culture and society, and Xi Jinping thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Marxist ideological purity rather than Biblical faithfulness is the standard to be used for hiring and firing of seminary teachers.
Practitioners of Falun Gong, Church of Almighty God and other unrecognized groups have been targeted. Thousands of them have been arrested, imprisoned. Many have died from abuse in custody.
So, why is the CCP afraid of religion? Why do they take it as a challenge? Insecure about their autocratic rule, of the specter of any alternative system of values and beliefs with a mass challenging the supremacy of the CCP haunts the rulers of China.