'Ten years on, Beijing is accelerating its efforts to ‘Sinicize’ religions', Benedict Rogers

Pope Leo must condemn the CCP's efforts to co-opt China’s religions to its goals

A decade ago this month, China’s dictator Xi Jinping launched a new campaign of “Sinicization” of religion. It was announced as official policy at a pivotal National Conference on Religious Work, convened by the avowedly atheist Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at the highest levels.

But as has become clear over the past decade, Sinicization, in Xi’s mind, does not simply mean the cultural acclimatization or adaptation of religion, but rather the assertion of CCP control over all forms of religion.

It means — in Xi’s own words — that religions must “adapt themselves to socialist society.”

It is an ideological campaign of coercion, co-option, control, and ultimately corruption of religion towards the CCP’s political ends.

Ten years on, what is the result?

An intensification of Sinicization everywhere.

Last month, I described China’s new “ethnic unity” law as a “cookie-cutter” approach to shape China’s citizens in the CCP’s own image. Now that is being rolled out on steroids.

On the Tibetan Plateau, the CCP is tightening its grip. The past year has been a celebration of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday, which was on July 6, 2025. Tibetans have dedicated the entire twelve months as a “Year of Compassion.”

Yet Beijing is showing no sign of compassion, and instead is accelerating its efforts to “Sinicize” Tibetan Buddhists.

Last August, Xi made a rare visit to Tibet, not to celebrate the Dalai Lama’s birthday but to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region, symbolizing Beijing’s grip on Tibet.

Just two weeks before his visit, Karma Tsering, chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region, confirmed that from this year, the Tibetan language will no longer be a compulsory subject in the national college entrance examination in Tibet.

Xi himself further emphasized: “We must systematically promote the Sinicization of religion, strengthen legal governance of religious affairs, and guide Tibetan Buddhism to adapt to socialist society.”

The campaign has been turbo-charged by renewed efforts in the first few months of this year to ensure that Buddhist monks in Tibet are taught the CCP’s vision of “patriotism” and learn Mandarin Chinese, rather than the Tibetan language and Tibetan Buddhist religious texts. It has been accompanied by the resettlement of large numbers of ethnic Han Chinese to the region, to dilute the Tibetan nature of society.

Heightened surveillance, indoctrination, and propaganda continue, as does the enforced separation of more than a million Tibetan children in colonial boarding schools, where they are banned from speaking their Tibetan language, celebrating Tibetan culture, or practising Tibetan Buddhism.

Three years ago, this cultural genocide was reported by major media, including TIMEmagazine and the New York Times, as well as by United Nations special rapporteurs. This is forced assimilation on a genocidal scale, and it continues to this day.

Even an ordinary — though courageous — 22-year-old Chinese student, Zhang Yadi, has been jailed, simply for promoting understanding of Tibetan culture among her fellow Han Chinese. The international community must step up efforts to demand her release.

A similar, even more severe campaign of repression and assimilation is underway against the predominantly Muslim Uyghur people in China’s Xinjiang region. In effect, China has declared war on the practice of Islam in the country.

Seven years ago, hundreds of leaked CCP papers revealed the regime’s intentions to show “absolutely no mercy” to Uyghurs, and — in the words of one CCP official — to “break their lineage, break their roots.”

For years, Uyghur Muslims who observe basic Islamic religious practices, such as fasting during Ramadan, abstaining from pork and alcohol, growing a beard or wearing a hijab, reading the Qur’an, or going to the mosque to pray, have faced severe persecution as a result.

Human rights groups have documented how over a million Uyghurs have been detained and sent to re-education camps, and hundreds of thousands are believed to remain in detention or are unaccounted for, victims of enforced disappearances.

Survivor testimonies further underscore the severity of these policies. Former detainees describe forced political indoctrination, torture, and being compelled to denounce religion. Some were punished for speaking the Uyghur language, while others have reported sexual violence inside the camps.

One survivor recalled guards mocking her during abuse, telling her to “call your Allah to save you now,” highlighting the deliberate targeting of both faith and identity.

Their plight has been recognized as a genocide by recent US administrations, multiple legislatures around the world, and the independent Uyghur Tribunal chaired by British barrister Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, who once prosecuted Slobodan Milosevic, and who is a member of the Leadership Council at Fortify Rights.

As rare testimony that emerged this week from a former Chinese police officer this week indicates, the campaign is continuing.

Zhang Yabo, a former police officer stationed in Hotan, Xinjiang, has fled the region and is now providing testimony about what he witnessed in the region’s prison camps. He reveals that although the regime appears to have moved away from highly visible mass internment, that does not mean the repression has eased. On the contrary, the strategy now is to intensify repression but in a more concealed way.

Evidence Zhang shared with Uyghur scholar Adrian Zenz confirms that detentions and forced labor continue. Zhang also claims Uyghur culture is almost extinct. The Uyghur language is prohibited in schools, and mosques are closed or guarded around the clock. Zhang estimates that a quarter of the adult population in his village alone was interned in re-education camps between 2017 and 2019.

And in the latest development, this week, Human Rights Watch has released a report detailing the escalation in persecution of China’s Catholics, driven by the CCP regime’s Sinicization campaign.

HRW research found that Catholic communities across China “face tightened ideological control, strict surveillance, and travel restrictions” and argues that the 2018 agreement between the Holy See and China on the appointment of bishops has only helped the Beijing regime intensify pressure on underground, unregistered Catholics to join the state-controlled church.

China’s approximately 12 million Catholics have not been helped by the Vatican’s soft stance towards Beijing, and have certainly been failed — arguably, betrayed — by the Sino-Vatican agreement.

Pope Leo XIV has much on his plate at the moment. But as he prays for peace in the Middle East and rightly calls out some of President Donald Trump’s remarks and actions, he must show some consistency.

He should speak out for Tibetan Buddhists and Uyghur Muslims.

He should urge Xi Jinping to release jailed Protestant and Catholic clergy.

The pope recently responded to attacks from the Trump administration over his criticism of the war in Iran, saying that he had “no fear” of the Trump administration, and would continue to speak out “loudly about the message of the Gospel.” Neither should he fear China, for there are few places on earth that require the Pope to speak out “loudly” about the repression of Christians more than China.

He should pray publicly for the release of Hong Kong’s most prominent Catholic, Jimmy Lai — whose wife and daughter, to his credit, he received last year at a General Audience in St Peter’s Square.

He should condemn the CCP’s efforts to co-opt China’s religions to its goals as much as he rightly calls out the politicization of the Gospel in Western democracies.

And he should urgently review the Sino-Vatican agreement, exposing Beijing’s repeated violations of the deal and setting clear criteria that must be met if it is to be renewed again.

A decade on, it is abundantly clear that Xi’s campaign of Sinicization of religion is not a process of religious acculturation.

After all, each of China’s religions is well-adapted to China’s culture and language. Even the religions considered foreign imports have been around in China for centuries.

Buddhism was introduced in the first century, under the Han dynasty.

Christianity was first brought to China around 635 AD, during the Tang dynasty.

Islam arrived in China around the same time, perhaps two decades later.

Which is the late arrival?

Marxism-Leninism, which Xi loves so much. It has only been in China for the past century, amassing a stunning record of mass killings and repressive policies in its short history.

So arguably, the ideology most at odds with Chinese culture, most in need of ‘Sinicization,’ is Communism. Presumably, that’s why Deng Xiaoping coined the phrase “Communism with Chinese characteristics.”

Xi would do well to let the Tibetan Buddhists, Uyghur Muslims, Christians of all traditions, and people of all ethnicities, faiths, and beliefs across China live with their own characteristics without having to conform to the CCP or his genocidal death cult.

This article was published in UCA News on 17 April 2026.

Photo: John Devine on Pexel