At the session, Xi Jinping declared that all religions must be reshaped to fit Chinese culture and Communist ideology, leaving no space for non-Han traditions or independent faiths beyond Party control.
By Tahir Imin Uyghurian
September 30, 2025
Beijing – Chinese leader Xi Jinping has once again underscored the Communist Party’s determination to “Sinicize” religion, reinforcing Beijing’s long-standing assimilationist policies that critics say are erasing the cultural, linguistic, and spiritual identities of non-Han peoples such as Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Mongols.
Speaking at the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo’s 22nd collective study session on September 29, Xi declared that “only by constantly advancing the Sinicization of religion can harmony and stability be maintained.” His remarks, delivered through state-run Xinhua, outlined plans to strengthen institutional control, rewrite religious practices in line with “stated that only by remaining rooted in Chinese soil and imbued with Chinese culture can religions in China be passed down in a healthy way. He emphasized the need to root them in China’s 5,000-year-old civilization, to promote the integration of religion with China’s outstanding traditional culture, and to guide religious figures and believers to strengthen their sense of identification with Chinese culture.”
Assimilation Under the Banner of “Sinicization”
While framed as fostering “harmony,” Beijing’s policy is widely condemned as a coercive campaign to strip religions and ethnic groups of their independence. For Uyghur, this has meant criminalizing core Islamic practices—from fasting during Ramadan to teaching the Qur’an to children. Tibetan Buddhists have faced forced displacement of monks and Party-led control over monasteries, while Mongols continue to resist the dismantling of their language education system in favor of Mandarin Chinese.
The official rhetoric that faith must “adapt to socialism” is, in practice, a sweeping rejection of religious freedom. Beijing’s emphasis on “legal governance of religion” has given cover to mass surveillance, criminalization of independent worship, and the imprisonment of clerics, pastors, and imams who refuse to submit to Party directives.
A Broader Pattern of Racism and Control
Xinhua reports:”Xi Jinping emphasized that China is a socialist country under the leadership of the Communist Party, and it is a necessary requirement to actively guide religions to adapt to socialist society. He stressed the need to uphold socialist core values as the guiding principle, to lead religious figures and believers to firmly establish the correct outlook on the state, history, nation, culture, and religion, to continuously strengthen the “five identifications,” and to consciously devote themselves to building Chinese-style modernization.”
CCP Pushes One of Its Most Racist Slogans: “Sinicize Religion”
The Party’s insistence on “five identifications”—with the Chinese state, history, nation, culture, and religion—leaves little space for communities whose cultural and spiritual identities are distinct from Han Chinese norms. For many, the phrase “religion with Chinese characteristics” is little more than a euphemism for the erasure of Uyghur Islam, Tibetan Buddhism, and other non-Han traditions.
Xi’s speech comes against the backdrop of years of policies that critics describe as racist and culturally imperialist. From “re-education” camps in Uyghur homeland, to Tibet’s coerced boarding schools, to campaigns to curtail Mongolian-language education, Beijing’s push to force all non-Han peoples into a homogenized “Chinese identity” reflects a systematic attempt to erase difference.
A report released yesterday by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) also highlighted China’s ongoing persecution of religious leaders. The findings reaffirm that the Chinese government—an avowedly atheist and anti-religious political party—has openly vowed to combat faith traditions and eradicate any religious practices that do not conform to its political agenda.
