(TibetanReview.net, Mar08’25) – The fourth most senior official in China’s ruling Communist Party, who oversees the country’s national political advisory body, has called for efforts to “ensure law-based management of religious affairs” to make sure that religious activities are “legal, safe and orderly”, reported the scmp.com Mar 7. It said Premier Li Qiang also stressed the need to “strengthen the rule of law in the governance of religious affairs”, a theme that did not appear in last year’s report.
While these remarks sound innocuous enough, the nub lies in what those laws are, what the Communist Party of China-state considers “safe and orderly” activities, and what “strengthen the rule of law in the governance of religious affairs” really means especially in the case of China’s so-called policy for Sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism.
Citing China’s official Xinhua news agency, the report said Wang Huning, chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), made the remarks on Mar 6 during group discussions with the CPPCC’s religious leaders.
China’s laws criminalize any form of criticism or opposition to its religious policies, including one which arrogates to the atheist Communist Party of China the right to decide who the reincarnation of Tibet’s top religious figures, including the Dalai Lama, should be. It also criminalizes any form of patriotism education in monasteries, or any violation of its rules for the enrolment of monks and nuns in religious schools, or the ceilings set by the party-sate on the number of resident monks and nuns in any Tibetan Buddhist religious centre.
“[We must] ensure law-based management of religious affairs, and guide religious leaders and believers to enhance their national and civic consciousness, and awareness of the rule of law,” he was quoted as saying.
“Guide” carries the implication of criminal persecution for disobedience, including for alleged separatism, in the case of Tibetan Buddhists.
These are the weights carried by Wang’s reported remark, “[We must also] ensure that religious activities are legal, safe, and orderly.”
Also, in a government work report delivered on Mar 5, Premier Li Qiang also stressed the need to “strengthen the rule of law in the governance of religious affairs”, a theme that did not appear in last year’s report, the report noted.
Obviously Li wants to see a stricter implementation of President Xi Jinping’s Signature policy for the Sinicization of Tibetan Buddhism as a part of his call for an overall Sinicization of all ethnic minority regions, including Tibet, under the rubric of the campaign to promote a sense of community of the Chinese nation.
In keeping with it, the report noted that for years, regions with large communities of ethnic minorities have been churning out a series of stricter rules to regulate religious affairs.
In the case of Tibet, it noted that in In Dec 2024, the State Administration for Religious Affairs – the government body that regulates all recognised religions in China – issued revisions to the “Measures for the Administration of Tibetan Buddhist Temples”, expanding state control over Tibetan religious practices by embedding political mandates into Tibetan religious administration.
The report also said that On Mar 5, Losang Jamcan, vice-chairman of the NPC Standing Committee and chairman of the Tibet autonomous region’s legislative body, said that maintaining stability was the “overriding priority” for Tibet this year, citing minutes made available to the media.