Since his appointment as CCP general secretary in 2012, Xi Jinping
has continued his predecessors’ campaign to transform the hearts
and minds of religious believers as well as followers of heterodox
religious movements like the Falungong (FLG) using incarceration,
reeducation through labor, and sometimes death. Xi has imposed
sinicization on China’s religious institutions, which has resulted in
the dynamiting of newly built churches, the dismantling of mosques,
and the plowing under of religious graveyards as well as the removal
of Christian crosses and Islamic star-and-crescent symbols from
religious buildings. Xi’s most draconian actions have taken place in
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China’s northwest autonomous region of Xinjiang, where the party
state has established political and religious reeducation camps for the
Turkic Uighur minorities.
This chapter analyzes the formation, adaptation, and enforcement of
the Stalinist bureaucratic religious paradigm since 1949. It argues that
the CCP has placed its highest priority on controlling and minimizing
domestic and foreign religious movements to avoid internal threats
to its vibrant economy and national defense while guaranteeing the
party’s hegemony over the state
