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Though the draft rules affirm China’s dedication to respecting “the freedom of religious belief of foreigners,” the listing of potential new restrictions and necessities might make training that perception far harder.
In specific, the draft rules embrace an inventory of actions that foreigners shouldn’t conduct inside China, akin to “interfering with or dominating the affairs of Chinese religious groups,” advocating “extremist religious thoughts,” utilizing faith to conduct terrorist actions, or “interfering with the appointment or management of Chinese clergy members.”
“What Pope Francis said about the Uyghurs is totally groundless,” Chinese international ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian mentioned in a daily briefing Tuesday. “There are 56 ethnic groups in China, and the Uyghur ethnic group is an equal member of the big family of the Chinese nation.”
“The Chinese government has always treated the minority groups equally and protected their legitimate rights and interests,” Zhao added.
Rian Thum, an knowledgeable on Islam in China on the University of Nottingham, mentioned the rules replicate a “longstanding fear of foreign pollution, which has become more important in the current climate.”
“I was struck by the repeated use of the phrase ‘China’s religious independence,’ which points to the nationalist desire to purify religions of ‘foreign’ influences,” he mentioned. “The regulations look like an effort to seal off Chinese religious practitioners from their fellow believers outside the country. Even lectures by visiting religious figures would require a bureaucratic permissions process that would dissuade most visitors.”
For all the federal government’s discuss of sinicizing Islam, most Muslims in China follow a home model of the religion, mentioned Alkan Akad, a China researcher at Amnesty International, in mosques which are usually extra Chinese in fashion than Islamic. Those Muslims who do have contact with teams abroad usually face elevated scrutiny over this, and a few Uyghurs have ended up in reeducation camps after getting back from Hajj or journeys to Muslim international locations.
“The Chinese state has been quite concerned about the growing popularity of the Wahhabi ideology and close connections with Saudi Arabia, which has seemingly grown over the last decade or so,” Akad mentioned.
Darren Byler, a Xinjiang knowledgeable and post-doctoral analysis fellow on the University of Colorado, mentioned that “Islam itself is already more or less criminalized in Xinjiang so I would guess that (the new rules are) more likely aimed at Hui practice in Eastern China. They have long had more direct association with Saudi and global piety movements like Tabligh Jama’at.”
However, specialists who spoke to CNN agreed that the primary impact of the new rules will probably be on Christian teams, who, whereas by no means given free rein, have beforehand averted the kind of intense scrutiny Muslims are subjected to.
“I believe it’s reasonable to assume that it mainly targets Christians, which have been regarded as a means of foreign infiltration particularly since the Opium War,” Akad mentioned.
Previously there was broad tolerance for foreigners preaching to foreigners, supplied they’re formally licensed and guarantee no Chinese residents attend providers. Some Christian teams are much less scrupulous about this than others, and missionaries proceed to function illegally in China, Thum mentioned.
The new rules might additional tighten gray areas round international religious follow, issuing strict new necessities for making use of to maintain providers, together with describing the first religious texts used, itemizing the nationality and visa standing of all attendees, and acquiring a allow to use the constructing for such actions.
After receiving such an utility, the draft rules state, “the religious affairs department of the provincial people’s government shall solicit the religious affairs department of the county-level people’s government, the religious affairs department of the people’s government of the city divided into districts, and the province, autonomous region,” and shall decide “within 20 days.”
Such crimson tape, and the potential punishments for avoiding it, might make it far harder for foreigners to maintain providers, and push them to use authorised Bibles or Korans relatively than international revealed texts.
While particular punishments should not listed within the new proposal, there’s a suggestion they might be extreme, with discuss of invoking “counter espionage” legal guidelines and different state safety rules in opposition to infractors.
“The way the rules are written, and the way that Chinese laws tend to be interpreted by the security services, suggests that foreigners who engage in religious activities alongside Chinese citizens or even do research on those activities could be detained or harassed,” Thum mentioned.
CNN’s Ben Westcott contributed reporting.
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