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Beijing, September 21: Chinese President Xi Jinping has tightened state control over religious affairs, forcing 60 Christians to seek asylum in the United States. The Christian group includes 29 adults and 31 children who fled from China in late 2019 and early 2020 and settled in Jeju Island, South Korea. According to JustEarth News, the members belonged to the Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church, also known as the Shenzhen Mayflower Church.
The group is seeking asylum from the UN refugee agency UNHCR in Bangkok. They recently travelled to Thailand on tourist visas after failing to obtain refugee status in South Korea. Later, according to JustEarth News, they decided to settle in the United States after multiple courts in South Korea rejected their asylum claims. Chinese President Xi Jinping has defended a crackdown on dissent on the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover.
Xi Jinping has long called for the “sinicization” of religions, repositioning them to operate under the direction of the Communist Party, which remains ideologically atheist. According to JustEarth News, the message is clear and unequivocal for ethnic minorities, including Christians and Muslims, as Xi wants to strengthen state control over religious affairs in the country.
It may be mentioned here that the white paper released by the Chinese government three years ago stated that there are about 200 million believers in China, most of whom are Buddhists in Tibet.
Others include 20 million Muslims, 38 million Protestant Christians and 6 million Catholic Christians; in addition to 140,000 places of worship. In November 2021, the United States designated China as a “country of special concern” for violating religious freedom.
According to JustEarth News, the Chinese Communist Party is concerned that Christianity could become a tool to overthrow it, as happened in Poland in 1989, where church movements played a major role in overthrowing Communist rule.
The Chinese government has long separated Catholics from Protestants, putting the number at between 23 million and 40 million in 2014. It counts the number of people attending religious services in government-sanctioned churches. A 2011 Pew survey found that about 5 percent of China’s population, or about 67 million, were Christians in 2010.
Beijing has kept a close eye on Christianity since the CCP adopted a conciliatory approach to religion 40 years ago. The development of Christianity in China began at the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) when all religions were suppressed, often brutally. According to JustEarth News, this coincides with economic reforms.
Watchdog group Open Doors USA’s 2020 World Watch List states that some 260 million Christians live in areas of high persecution — one in eight believers worldwide — a 10 percent increase compared to 2019.
The bipartisan grassroots group Open Doors USA has released a list of the 50 most dangerous countries for Christians. China is in the spotlight in 2020 as its forced labor camps and oppression of Uighur Muslims are expected to spread and worsen. In January 2020, a Chinese pastor described the fear and intimidation faced by believers under the Communist government.
“The Chinese government is now imposing severe restrictions and policies on house churches, requiring neighbors to monitor each other, forcing school teachers and university professors to betray and sign statements condemning their own beliefs and doing the same to students,” Zhu said. Pastor Jian said.
Mr. Zhu described the shocking actions taken by the Chinese government as persecution of Christians continues to spread around the world. In 2014, Zhejiang province carried out a high-profile crackdown. Zhejiang is the heartland of Christianity in China. Authorities removed crosses from nearly 2,000 churches, including government-registered churches, according to JustEarth News.
Christians are constantly being watched, not only in the streets, but their churches are demolished and holy books confiscated. Pastor Wang Yi was sentenced to nine years in prison for speaking out against the state.
This action, carried out in a ruthless violation of human rights, is part of President Xi Jinping’s determination to reinterpret Christianity and the Bible in light of socialist and communist values.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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