China Has “Declared War On Christianity”
by Tony Davenport | Wed, Feb 21 2024
The Church in China is undergoing its most severe persecution since the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s according to the local partners of persecution watchdog Release International. They report: The Communist Party is cracking down on the church across the board. It has declared war against Christianity. It has adopted an aggressive policy of social control and the securitisation of everything. Censorship is expected to tighten even further this year.
Christian rights advocates accuse the Communist Party of actively discouraging children to follow the Christian faith. Release International reports Chinese schoolchildren are being ordered to declare whether they are Christian. Those who admit their faith are required to sign a declaration that they will renounce Christianity.
Bob Fu who’s president and founder of ChinaAid told the Voice of the Martyrs Canada: “If parents and grandparents refuse to cooperate in making their children renounce their faith, then their job security is jeopardised. Cases show that grandparents can lose their public health and welfare if parents fail to dissuade their children from believing in Christianity”.
Mr. Fu who’s a prominent religious freedom campaigner, explained that a mother was teaching her five children at home about literature, maths and religion, when she found herself surrounded by police and arrested. “She learned that her husband had reported her faith. You can only imagine the kind of trauma this is causing right inside the family.’
Release International which is a partner of China Aid continues to name China as a country of particular concern in its 2024 Persecution Trends report. Charity spokesman Andrew Boyd told Premier Christian News the crackdown is extremely hard to navigate due to surveillance, censorship and control from the Chinese government:
The principal tool in China’s armoury is surveillance technology. According to ChinaAid, the population of 1.3 billion people is under constant surveillance by 2.5 billion face-recognition cameras. Bob Fu explains: ‘Every Chinese citizen is followed by at least two digital face recognition cameras every day, 24-hours-a-day, combined with big-data technology. The state is also remotely monitoring citizens’ phones. They know where you are going and where you are heading to on a Sunday. They can simply show up and get you arrested.
Andrew Boyd adds: “Our partners know that face recognition cameras are being put up in every pulpit and in the four corners of [State recognised] churches. It’s monitoring the congregations, and the reason it’s doing that is not only to track those who are turning up, but to dissuade people from turning up.”