An official Chinese news network recently reported that General Secretary Xi Jinping of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee gave an address Sept. 29 calling for steps to be taken to further force religions in China to “adapt to socialist society.”
In the address, which took place during a group study session of the political bureau of Jinping’s committee, Jinping “emphasized the importance of ensuring that religions in China further adapt to the Chinese context,” calling for “providing active guidance to religions so that they can adapt to socialist society,” outlet Xinhua reported.
Xinhua reported that in his address, Jinping claimed that this adaptation of religions “is key to achieving religious harmony, ethnic unity, social harmony and long-term stability of the country.”
Bitter Winter, an online publication covering human rights and religious freedom, reports that the study session was on “Systematically Advancing the Sinicization of Religion in China” and shined a stark light on Jinping and the CCP’s long-term campaign to structurally enforce pro-socialist goals on religions.
Sinicization was “originally pitched as a cultural harmonization effort,” Bitter Winter author Kong Fa explained. However, it has since “evolved into a full-blown ideological retrofit. It’s not about making religion more Chinese; it’s about making it more compliant.”
In his address, Jinping also said steps must be taken to provide “guidance” to religious leaders and the faithful to help them “develop an accurate understanding of country, history, ethnicity, culture and religion,” according to Xinhua.
Elaborating on this point, Bitter Winter reports that Jinping said, “China is a socialist country under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party; actively guiding religion to adapt to socialist society is an inherent requirement. We must take the core socialist values as our guide, lead figures in the religious community and religious believers to firmly establish correct views of the nation, history, ethnicity, culture, and religion.”
Bitter Winter noted Jinping’s involvement in advancing Sinicization is no longer merely symbolic but structural, especially by promoting a systemic “rebranding” of what is sacred in religion.
“This is not the first time religion has been asked to bend the knee. But under Xi, the choreography is more precise, the expectations more rigid,” Kong Fa wrote. “Religious leaders are expected to be less shepherds of souls and more shepherds of slogans, guiding their flocks toward ‘core socialist values’ with the fervor of a Party cadre. The sacred is being rebranded, and the divine must now pass through the filter of political correctness — with Chinese characteristics, of course.”
In a recent step tightening control over religious activity in China, China’s National Religious Affairs Administration issued new restrictions on clergy’s online activity and social media, CatholicVote reported Sept. 22. The regulations prohibit clergy from using personal social media accounts, online meetings, and live streams for religious instructions, and only government-licensed religious groups may share religious information over the internet. Clergy are also prohibited from evangelizing to youth online. They could face criminal investigation for violation of the new regulations.