Episode Details

For decades, China’s leaders have wrestled with how to manage a faith they have long regarded as foreign—and since 2015, that struggle has taken a new form in Xi Jinping’s campaign to “sinify” Christianity. In this episode, we examine how five-year plans now seek to reshape Christian belief and practice around socialist ideology and “core socialist values,” affecting tens of millions of believers across the country. From a cautious accommodation with the Vatican to an ongoing crackdown on independent Protestant house churches, the story traces the limits of state control over belief. And yet, as churches adapt, migrate online, and continue to grow, the campaign reveals a deeper tension: whether a government can fully domesticate a faith whose followers insist they are both genuinely Christian and unmistakably Chinese.

https://www.economist.com/china/2021/03/31/china-wants-to-make-its-christians-more-chinese