I find this hilarious. From now on you advertise the religious nature of a building by hanging a huge flag. Does hanging a flag make you legal as well?
Perhaps Falun Gong can practice their public exercises by also mounting a giant flag. The spectacle of government enforcers tearing down a flag will do wonders for party credibility.
This can only bring attention to a religious movement and whatever else they attempt to impose, the public will merely ignore. All this will trigger organized passive resistance.
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China Forces All Religious Buildings to Fly Communist Flag
China’s state-run newspaper Global Times derided
critics in the West Thursday for condemning a new initiative forcing all
religious buildings to fly China’s red flag as a means to “enhance the
concept of nation.”
The newspaper claimed the move was necessary because, without
imposing the government’s wishes on individual religions, the nation
could “lurch toward war.”
Requiring religious institutions to fly the national flag, a symbol
of the nation’s embrace of communism in 1949, is necessary because
“religions are exclusive” and the government has a responsibility to
work on “strengthening people’s national and civic consciousness,” the Global Times argued.
According to the state newspaper, the proposal to make all buildings
fly the flag came from “the country’s major religious associations.”
China recognizes only five religions legally—Protestant Christianity,
Catholic Christianity, Islam, Taoism, and Buddhism—and has established
government-recognized “patriotic” institutions that govern each. Chinese
citizens who wish to worship outside of government institutions are
considered criminals. Beijing has increased its persecution of
unofficial “house” churches and home worship under Communist Party
leader Xi Jinping.
“The country’s major religious associations on Tuesday proposed an
initiative demanding that all religious venues raise China’s national
flag to strengthen awareness of respect for the flag and preserve the
flag’s dignity,” the Times noted, adding that “some Western media outlets” condemned the move as stifling religious expression.
“A national flag is a symbol of the country that should be respected by all citizens,” the Global Times
insisted. “The display of national flags is not only recognition of
national sovereignty, but also a manifestation of love for the country.”
The propaganda outlet argued that, without “national identity,” allowing religious freedom leads to war.
The Global Times announced
the initiative on Tuesday, citing Chinese “experts” who applauded the
move “for seeking to assimilate religion into a socialist society and as
progress for religious development.” At the time, the newspaper once
again expressed the belief that Beijing has a responsibility to teach
religious people to “better practice socialist core values.”
The move follows orders from the government leaders of the five
religions to local churches, temples, and mosques, to “Sinicize” the
religion fully—to make each religion more “Chinese.” To do so, according
to a white paper
the government released titled “China’s Policies and Practices on
Protecting Freedom of Religious Belief,” religious leaders “must conduct
religious activities in the Chinese context, practice core socialist
values, carry forward the fine traditions of the Chinese nation, and
actively explore religious thought which conforms to the reality in
China.
The Chinese Communist Party has expressed particular concern
regarding the activities of Christians around the country who do not
attend government-organized services, Uighur Muslims in western Xinjiang
province, and Tibetan Buddhists following the Dalai Lama in Tibet. Part
of the campaign to “Sinicize” religion involved banning children from
religious services. Most recently, the government decreed that children
in Tibet are not allowed to participate in any religious activities
during the summer. Parents of children in the province were forced to sign documents promising not to expose their children to religion. A similar decree was passed in Xinjiang months earlier.
According to the U.S. State Department’s annual International
Religious Freedom Report, Xinjiang is experiencing some of the most
brutal religious repression in the world. The Chinese government is forcing
hundreds of thousands of Muslims into “political re-education camps,”
where they are often tortured and forced to violate their beliefs,
sometimes by being forced to eat pork. The Chinese government does not
deny that it is “re-educating” Muslims in the region—the Global Times boasted of
the program promoting “the correct political stance and excellent moral
traits” this month. It has nonetheless dismissed criticism from the
rest of the world, particularly the United States.
“We call on the United States to respect the facts, mind its own
business, and stop using the religion issue to intervene in other
countries’ internal affairs,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua
Chunying told reporters following the publication of the 2017 State Department International Religious Freedom Report.
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