TWH – The Chinese government has released new rules promoting “advanced socialist culture” that restricts religion and targets criminalized religious movements that include the practices of folk religion.
As The Wild Hunt reported previously, over the past few years, Chinese authorities have been purging the influence of folk religion, which it refers to as xié jiào, sometimes translated as “evil cults” or “destructive cults.” The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) solely determines which religious organizations and practices constitute xié jiào, often subsequently dehumanizing a religious group’s followers. The CCP has noted in its slogan that the followers must be “totally eradicated like tumors.”
Headquarters of the Islamic Association of China, the state-controlled organization that controls the practice of Islam in China [Wwbread, Wikimedia Commons, CC 3.0]
Earlier this year, the CCP opportunistically used a Dragon Boat Festival celebration to warn elderly residents about the dangers of illegal religious activity and other factions infiltrating their “folk religion” into Chinese society.
In late July, the Chinese government appended its list of xié jiào with a document titled “alert! alert! alert! These are cults →.” The list includes Christian and Buddhist organizations, as well as those that use the practice of Qigong and “organizations that falsely use the name of Buddhism, namely ‘Guanyin Dharma,’ ‘Lingxian Zhen Buddhist Sect,’ ‘Yuandun Dharma,’ and ‘Hua Zang Sect.'”
Qigong or “life-energy cultivation” is a spiritual-physical practice to coordinate the flow of energy through the body and promote balance.
The Guanyin Dharma Method promotes a stance that “vegetarian food saves the Earth” and furthermore claims that, as of the end of 2007, “due to the warming of the earth and the rise of poisonous gas in the seabed, two-thirds of the world’s people must eat vegetarian food to save the Earth.”
Early last month the CCP published its final draft version of “Provisions on the Administration of the Production and Operation of Radio, Television and Online Audio-Visual Programs” for public comment. The law addresses all programming “of radio, television and online audio-visual programs,” which Chinese President Xi Jinping has called “chaotic” and not fully controlled by the CCP.
The new provisions will “promote the prosperity and development of the radio and television and online audio-visual program production industry, and meet the spiritual and cultural needs of the people.”
The new law re-asserts a bright line about the practice of religion in China, which had been relatively laissez-faire until 2016, when President Xi outlined a vision of the “management” of religion and what he called for the “Sinicization” of religious practice. President Xi called on CCP members to be atheists and “love the country, uphold the CCP’s leadership, uphold the socialist system, abide by the Constitution, laws, regulations and statutes, practice the socialist core values, support China’s religious principle of independence and self-determination, support China’s policy of Sinification of religion, support national unification, ethnic solidarity, and religious harmony and social stability.”
The “Sinicization” of religious practice can include not only doctrinal and practice modifications but also redesigning of physical structures. Just this week, several reports indicated that Arabic-style mosques throughout China were being or had already been altered by the Office of the Leading Group for the Rectification of the Arabic-style Mosques. Sinicization involves removing features such as domes and Moorish arches as well as re-aligning Muslim holidays to portray “Happy Uyghurs” as they did on Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan.
The new law contains a sizable list of forbidden content:
(A) violating the basic principles established by the Constitution, inciting resistance to or undermining the implementation of the Constitution, laws, and regulations, distorting and negating advanced socialist culture;
(B) endangering national unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, revealing state secrets, endangering national security, undermining national dignity, honor, and interests, promoting terrorism, extremism, nihilism;
(C) denigrating the excellent Chinese traditional culture, inciting ethnic hatred, ethnic discrimination, infringement of national customs and practices, distorting national history or national historical figures, hurting national feelings, and undermining national unity;
(D) distorting, slandering, desecrating, or denying the revolutionary culture, or the deeds and spirit of the heroic martyrs;
(E) being contrary to national religious policy, or promoting xie jiao and superstition;
(F) endangering social morality, disturbing social order, undermining social stability”
The law also prevents foreigners from producing content for broadcast in China as well as limiting the development of broadcast content to an authorized minority of companies.
The magazine Bitter Winter further notes that “the usual formula excludes religion, since it refers to the ‘national religious policy’ which prohibits religious activities and information through any media, unless specifically authorized, while any non-negative reference to groups banned as xie jiao or to the very broad field of ‘superstition’ is prohibited.”
The veneration of ancestors and the presence of home temples to Chinese deities and emperors have great significance in parts of China. It remains unclear how the new law will impact these representations of daily life in Chinese media.
What is clear is that the final element of the new law that forbids “endangering social morality, disturbing social order, undermining social stability” is broadly crafted to inhibit dissent and criticism of the existing political power structure within China.
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