Reaffirming Faith under Xi Jinping

At the 18th Party Congress in 2012, Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, stressed the importance of faith. “First of all, we must strengthen ideals and beliefs and hold fast to the spiritual aspirations of a communist. The faith in Marxism and belief in socialism and communism are the political soul of a communist; they are the spiritual mainstay that a communist relies on through every ordeal.”² By choosing these words, Hu clearly signaled his deference to the new leader. Xi Jinping had written extensively about faith as early as 2011. His book The Power of Faith (Xinyang de liliang), summarized in an award-winning student essay, identified faith as the secret of earlier generations of revolutionaries, as the essence of all previous leaders’ ideological contributions, and as distinctly wavering or lacking in many contemporary cadres, some of whom had started to believe in spirits and gods instead of Marxism.³ Xi called for an unavoidable focus on faith, as nothing would be achieved without it. Starting at the individual level, the future of the country and its people depended on steadfast faith.⁴

Xi’s first major policy declaration in 2013 reiterated this emphasis “Faith, belief, confidence, and real action are the guarantee for the success of our undertakings” (Xinyang, xinnian, xinxin he shigan shi women shiye chenggong de baozheng).⁵ Hence, from the very start of Xi’s rule, xinyang was a key term in his rhetoric and defined as a necessary core quality of the Chinese people, and in particular the Party’s cadres. The phrase “If people have faith, the nation has hope, and the country is strong” (Renmin you xinyang, minzu you xiwang, guojia you liliang)—while associated with the spirit of the Long March but now always linked to Xi himself—became a key slogan, plastered across billboards in China’s major cities.

The importance of faith is one of six main ideological points associated with Xi Jinping, but the one that is considered fundamental to all other endeavors. Xi calls faith the “calcium of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] spirit,” a source of strength to combat the “spiritual rickets,” which he diagnosed in one of his early speeches when he assumed China’s leadership.⁶ In addition to strengthening the spiritual backbone, faith also builds a people’s and a country’s immunity and resistance to negative influences, according to Xi. Conversely, the danger of lacking faith lies in having nothing to rely on to resist the onslaught of capitalism or to ward off “evil winds and noxious influences.”⁷ Lack of faith apparently leads to two-facedness by individuals—a charge routinely leveled at Uyghurs (see Musapir’s chapter in this volume)—who may make all the right noises in public but in private believe in “spirits and gods.”⁸ Crucially, faith cannot just be a slogan but must translate into actions people can see and experience through exemplary leadership by Party cadres (see Cheek, this volume).⁹

Generally speaking, Xi’s speeches around faith, which were steeped in uncompromising, steely language—“We must cast steadfast faith like walls of bronze and iron”—stood in contrast to the mood of the multimedia campaign to promote faith among the wider population.¹⁰ “The Chinese People Have Faith” (Zhongguo renmin you xinyang) is a popular song, released in November 2017, with lyrics that praise Chinese socialist core values:

Core values are our faith,

core values are our new practice,

core values we commit to our heart,

core values we sing out loud!

If people have faith,

the country has strength;

extraordinary among the ordinary,

our common ancestors are Yan and Huang;

if people have faith,

the China Dream has hope,

with shared prosperity we speed toward a “moderately prosperous society [xiaokang]”!¹¹

In this song (which features a rap segment), as in the associated visual campaigns, faith is closely linked to socialist core values (shehui zhuyi hexin jiazhiguan).¹²

The steadfast faith of early revolutionary heroes as expounded in Xi’s book was also incorporated into a three-part documentary film titled Xinyang and broadcast in 2012 by CCTV1, the Party’s main propaganda channel. The film was a three-hour lesson in CCP history and its heroes, with part 1 dedicated to the years 1921–49, part 2 to the 1950s, and part 3 to the contemporary period (leaving out a rather large chunk of time in between). The film established the orthodoxy of the CCP’s version of historical events and enshrined CCP history with its holy places, and its saints, evoking a history and spirit of sacrifice and dedication. The word xinyang was repeated frequently throughout the three parts, which culminated in an emotional finale around the historic significance of faith to ensure the success of future endeavors.¹³

Why this sudden emphasis on faith? The use of spiritual language in Party discourse in itself is not new. However, the ascendance of the term faith and Xi’s personal emphasis of it need to be understood in a wider discursive context. In understanding Chinese political discourse and key terms within it, I subscribe to Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s notion that discourse is an attempt to fix a web of meaning within a particular domain and that the constitution of discourse never happens in isolation and is always contested.¹⁴ Despite regular hegemonic interventions, the domination of a particular discourse is never complete. In the case of faith, I argue that Xi’s conscious intervention, which simultaneously identified a lack of faith and firmly defined faith within the parameters of Marxism and the Party, constituted an attempt to stabilize its meaning within a web of diverse uses of the term, but also constituted an acknowledgment of its importance and significance in counter-hegemonic and popular discourses and practices.

The significance of xinyang as a spiritual and motivational force to ensure the success of China’s endeavors was already debated in republican times owing to multicultural influences ranging from Chinese morality books to Christian writings.¹⁵ But we can also clearly trace a recurrence of the term in the writings of dissidents and religious scholars since the 1990s, with a more pronounced resurgence in the 2000s. It is this latter context that is more relevant for Xi’s reiteration of faith in Party discourse.¹⁶

The growth of religion and the ambivalent view the Party held of some religions, notably Christianity, in the early parts of the millennium have been well documented, and the nexus between popular civil rights activists and lawyers and the Christian faith has also attracted considerable academic attention.¹⁷ While the relationship between activism and religious faith is complex, some of the most influential individuals have openly stated their admiration for certain religions while not necessarily being believers. Liu Xiaobo, for example, who read and wrote about Christianity during his prison sentence in the 1990s, spoke of the importance of faith even earlier: “Among people’s rights and liberties, spiritual liberties [xinling de ziyou] are the most important—freedom of thought, expression, and faith.… It is a freedom that transcends utility. This is what Chinese intellectuals are missing. The result of this is not just material poverty of the nation, but an even starker national spiritual withering.”¹⁸ Liu’s acerbic criticism of his fellow intellectuals finds echoes in Xi’s lamentation of his fellow cadres’ “spiritual rickets” twenty years later, at the end of a decade of rights activism led by a new type of intellectual whose approach to making a difference had been based on a very simple concept: to take one’s rights and duties as citizens seriously. One of the most prominent individuals involved in these activities was Xu Zhiyong, who was detained in August 2013 and sentenced to four years in prison in January 2014.¹⁹ In his closing statement to the court following his trial, Xu made repeated reference to faith.

I believe in the power of faith, and in the power of the truth, compassion, and beauty that exists in the depths of the human soul, just as I believe human civilization is advancing mightily like a tide.²⁰ … I urge everyone to maintain their faith in freedom, justice, and love.… Remain steadfast in your faith in justice, always stay true to your heart, and never compromise your principles in pursuit of your goal.… Adhere to faith in love, because this nation has too many dark, bitter, and poisoned souls in need of redemption.… Our faith in the idea of building a better China, one of democracy, rule of law, freedom, justice and love, is unwavering.²¹

Zhou Guoping, a philosopher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and scholar of Friedrich Nietzsche, also considered faith vital; it is one of the core messages of his book What Are the Chinese People Missing? (Zhongguoren queshao shenme?). The title of the book took inspiration from a chapter in Nietzsche’s Götzen-Däemmerung titled “Was den Deutschen abgeht” (1888).²² While Nietzsche bemoaned the German people’s lack of thinking as reason for its malaise, according to Zhou the lack of both faith and the rule of law were at the heart of China’s problems. In Zhou’s view, the main weakness of Chinese cultural tradition lies in its emphasis on practical values and its neglect of spiritual values. To Zhou, the lack of engagement with questions of a transcendental nature was a great shortcoming in Chinese culture, as those who lacked a belief in the holy would be apathetic to their own meaning of life and unable to feel real empathy toward others and hence true social responsibility.²³ Ideologically at a far distance from Xi Jinping, both Liu Xiaobo and Xu Zhiyong were seen by many as models of the moral strength Xi wished to re-instill in his Party cadres and had found inspiration (and inspired others) through their spiritual (if not outright religious) approach.

But the importance of faith has also been expounded by mainstream scholars. In 2013, Zhuo Xinping, director of the Institute for the Study of World Religions within the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a scholar of Christianity, and a member of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, argued that the members of the Communist Party and the Chinese nation needed faith; without faith, there was no future for the country or the Party; without faith, social morality became “like a river without a source, a tree without roots.”²⁴ Zhuo maintained that the realization of the China Dream required unity via a culture of faith. One year earlier, the chairman of the Association for the Promotion of Chinese Culture, Gao Zhanxiang, had argued: “Belief is the soul of a nation. A firm belief is … a spur for a state, a political party, or an individual to proceed on his or its way forward. It is a determining factor … as regards the flourishing or the decline, the success or the failure … of states, parties, and individuals.”²⁵

In a more eclectic take on the subject, Yuan Youjun, a professor at the Guangdong Party School and Guangdong’s College of Administration, advocated the establishment of a Chinese national faith fit for the age of globalization. In his book Seeking a Faith for Our Times (Xunzhao shidai de xinyang), he envisaged a Chinese national faith not solely around the Party, but one that emerged from a mix of various faiths, with the following ingredients: Confucian ethics; ancestor worship, including the worship of the Yellow Emperor and Count Gong; Sinicized Christianity; socialized Taoism; globalized Buddhism; and Mao Zedong worship. Among these, Confucian ethics were supposed to take the leading role. In Yuan’s view, China’s history of multiple faiths provided the perfect starting point for such an amalgamated faith, a model he potentially did not see confined to China, but a suitable form of cultural globalization in times of economic globalization.²⁶

The aforementioned individuals were associated with the “religious ecology” school of thought, which argued that due to foreign religious influences (notably Christianity), China’s religious ecological system had been disturbed and needed to be rebalanced. Yuan Youjun’s ingredients for his proposed national faith illustrate clearly how this balance should be achieved. According to one critic, Zhuo Xinping’s personal views about the dangers posed by Christianity ended up as national strategy and laid the foundation for the requirement of the “Sinicization” (Zhongguohua) of religion, that is, the need for all religions to recognize Chinese politics, to adapt to Chinese society, and to express Chinese culture.²⁷ Whatever Zhuo’s personal role, the term Sinicization was officially introduced at the Central United Front Conference held in 2015, the United Front Department being one of three separate administrative units concerned with the management of religion (the other two units being the State Administration of Religious Affairs and the patriotic organizations governing China’s five officially recognized religions).

Clearly, debates around the meaning and significance of faith predated Xi Jinping’s use and emphasis of the term and have continued in rather diverse ways even within the Party. All of these discourses saw faith as fundamentally positive but profoundly absent in contemporary China, yet essential for the success of one’s endeavors. There was also agreement that faith was built on shared values and constituted an important motivational force that could lead to social and political transformation, that faith could be a moral and spiritual unifier, whether for smaller groups or the nation at large. There was also agreement that ritual and action were requisite to fulfilling these transformative functions. All discourses related to faith, including those of the Communist Party, placed emphasis on the salience of spiritual matters; science and faith were not contradictory pursuits.²⁸

We can therefore argue that xinyang had become part of “common sense” in a Gramscian understanding. As Michael Gow in his analysis of socialist core values puts it, “Common sense is a canon of knowledge that frames our understanding of society, is shared intersubjectively across disparate communities, social groups and the general population, and exists at such depth that questioning it does not occur.”²⁹ And further, “Rhetoric is a key strategic weapon in the reproduction and transformation of common sense over time and is crucial to the mobilization of common sense in the service of state interests.”³⁰ Success in shaping common sense on the part of the hegemon is therefore crucial for the maintenance of consensus. At the point of Xi’s intervention into the faith discourse, the commonsense understanding of faith was controlled not by the hegemon, that is, the Party, but by rhetoric emanating from a range of counter-hegemonic, including religious, voices. These voices had public influence and relevance, potentially undermining the secularistic certainty—also held by Marxism—that religion would disappear as a consequence of modernization.³¹

The link between modernization and secularization was built on three assumptions, according to Habermas: that a belief in the progress of science and technology promoted an anthropocentric understanding of the “disenchanted” world, which includes a belief in empiricism; that religious congregations would restrict their function to the administering of salvation, hence that religion was a private matter and had no control over law, politics, public welfare, education, and science; and that an increase in existential security would lead to a drop in personal need for religion to cope with uncontrolled contingencies through faith in a higher or cosmic power.³² Habermas further argues that post 9/11 this link between modernization and secularization no longer held and that the world had moved into a post-secular phase, where religious voices were “translated” in a process through which contributions “pass from the confused din of voices in the public sphere into the formal agendas of state institutions.”³³

The centrality of xinyang in the political discourse employed by Xi came at a very particular moment in time and showed a clear awareness of the centrality of the term in counter-hegemonic discourses. Xi’s emphasis on xinyang constituted an effort to shape common sense through rhetoric that recognized the significance of xinyang but imbued it with values at whose heart lay the Party and all it stands for. The adoption of xinyang as a concept whose commonsense understanding thus had come to be shaped by religious voices (rather than the hegemon) constituted a “translation” of said voices into the formal agenda of China’s state institutions and became part of the new orthodoxy concerning the meaning and function of faith under Xi Jinping.

With doctrinal orthodoxy thus reaffirmed, reviewing the management of faith practice on the ground was the logical next step, for, as Cheek (this volume) reminds us, “a reforming pope requires … obedient service.”

Xi’s Management of Religion in a Post-Secular Context

Describing modern societies as post-secular signals a change in consciousness, which Habermas predominantly attributes to three phenomena.³⁴ First, in post-secular societies religion is gaining influence within public spheres through “communities of interpretation” who voice a collective view on a range of social and political issues and often emanate from communities belonging to “rival faiths” to the one considered indigenous. Second, global conflicts have undermined the secularistic belief in the foreseeable disappearance of religion; living in a secular society is no longer bound up with the certainty that cultural and social modernization can only advance at the expense of religion. Third, post-secular societies may contain “semantically sealed off units” with “traditional cultural backgrounds” often around immigrant guest workers (as in Germany, for example).³⁵ These points provide a good starting point for an analysis of Xi Jinping’s policies on religious management.

When Xi Jinping took power in 2012, “rival faiths” had not only voiced repeated commentary on China’s social and political issues but had also gained a moral credibility sorely lacking in the Party’s own leadership. As I outlined earlier, some of the new “communities of interpretation” had gained influence in China’s equivalent of a public sphere. The politically most influential, through public political statements, actions, and personal conduct, were Christians or individuals and groups influenced (by their own acknowledgment) by Christian writings. For many, they had become the voice of morality in the face of widespread corruption, vice, and abuses around the one-child policy, to mention just the most obvious issues. This view became embodied in human rights lawyers’ actions, a disproportionate number of whom were Christians. Christianity was certainly a rival faith to Communism, which, however, had strong appeal even for nonbelievers and displayed a degree of familiarity in regard to certain practices (such as doctrinal study groups); in fact, many house church leaders used to be Party members. While the CCP used to tarnish Christianity as something foreign, Yuan Youjun’s book Seeking a Faith for Our Times is a sign that views on this were changing and that those arguing for Christianity to be recognized as part of Chinese cultural tradition had had an impact, not to speak of the inspirational “spiritual backbone” so forcefully promoted by Xi Jinping today.³⁶

There is a traditional affinity between Christianity and socialism, and Christianity has had powerful advocates in China’s research and state institutions.³⁷ One additional aspect that had worked in Christianity’s favor, which is rarely discussed, is the fact that most of China’s Christians belong to the Han ethnic group and that the demographic profile of Christians has changed from being predominantly female, uneducated, and rural (the “typical” Christian profile in the 1980s) to being urban, educated, professional and with male leadership (while retaining a majority female congregation). Contemporary Chinese Christianity arguably presents a profile of, to the CCP, largely reasonable and compatible values argued from a shared cultural and—this is crucial—a common ethnic base. The political challenges that emanate from a very small number of house churches notwithstanding, where Christianity is presented as a “rational” faith (not steeped in mysticism), values and “religious utterances” were able to travel and be accommodated into the state’s political discourse.³⁸

By the time Xi Jinping came to power, the Marxist assumption of the foreseeable disappearance for the need of religion no longer carried much weight. There were openly Christian Party members (for example, Zhao Xiao), and both Buddhism and Taoism grew in appeal across the whole population, including cadres.³⁹ The inclusion of a wide range of faiths into a potential national faith as suggested by Yuan Youjun and the discussion over China’s religious ecology—even one that may need rebalancing—were clear evidence of the acceptance of a limited pluralistic religious landscape at the time of Xi’s ascension to power. Under Xi, the Party swiftly returned to its stance—somewhat eroded under the previous leadership—that all Party members must be atheists, an expectation that has since also been extended to family members of Party members.⁴⁰

In Xi Jinping’s early days, commentators were uncertain whether Xi was good or bad news for religion in China. The passing of new regulations on religion in 2015 was greeted with the usual concern by Christian groups overseas, but more sympathetic or objective commentators interpreted the new regulations as an adaptation to new realities rather than a significant stepping up of control.⁴¹ China had updated its religious regulations several times since Document 19 was published in 1982. Since then, these regulations had constituted a balancing act of acknowledging the importance of religions, on the one hand, while trying to control their activities within a realm acceptable to the Party, on the other, reflecting the uneasy relationship between the Party and China’s religious believers. In 1982, when the country emerged from fierce religious repression under the Cultural Revolution, the aspect of acknowledgment was a welcome surprise. In the social and political realities of Xi Jinping’s China, it is the controlling aspect of the relationship that is dominant.

In April 2016, Xi Jinping attended the National Religious Work Conference—in itself unusual for the highest leader to attend such a meeting—emphasizing the need to “build a socialist theory of religion with Chinese characteristics” and insisting that “religions must adhere to the direction of Sinicization, interpreting values and dogmas in a way that corresponds to the needs of China.”⁴² This need for “Sinicization” is not confined to belief systems that have historically been considered foreign, such as Christianity and Islam, or indeed Marxism. Even Chinese religions need to “Sinicize” in order to follow up the developments of China in the New Era and to dig into religious elements in line with core socialist values. The Central Institute of Socialism, headed by Ye Xiaowen, who from 1995 to 2009 led China’s State Administration of Religious Affairs (in itself a telling career trajectory), provides lectures on religious “Sinicization” and has issued five-year plans—associated with a centrally planned economy, but here indicative of China’s religious central planning—for all major religions, setting out planned developments from 2018 to 2022. For Islam, for example, this included the so-called four entries: entry into mosques of the national flag, the Chinese Constitution, love of socialist values, and the teaching of traditional classical literature. For Christianity, this meant promoting a “Chinese Christianity” and plans for a retranslation and annotation of the Bible to find commonalities with socialism and a “correct understanding” of the text.⁴³

One of the early violent manifestations of this new direction was the destruction of churches and the taking down of conspicuous religious symbols (for example, large neon crosses on churches) in southeast China.⁴⁴ From 2017 onward, thus in Xi Jinping’s second term in office, one could start to observe a strategic and systematic attack on religion through the invocation of “laws.”⁴⁵ For all religions, this meant, among other things, the removal and destruction of places of worship or at least externally visible religious symbols; the destruction of religious statues; surveillance of even legal religious activity by a Party member, sometimes involving taking over the part of the officiator or clergy (see Musapir, this volume); the banning of under-eighteens from all religious activities, including events such as summer camps; the erasure of any “gray” areas for unregistered religious groups; the replacement of religious songs such as hymns with communist songs; the vetting of sermons; the cancellation of Tibetan language classes (vital for the practice of Tibetan Buddhism) in monasteries, and the list goes on.⁴⁶ These developments took place in parallel with the propagation of ideas of a national faith and the promotion of faith as a core ingredient to ensure the success of all endeavors, be they at the individual or national level.

These strict controls of all religion were taken even further where both an ethnic and geopolitical dimension come into play. The government’s systematic campaign to control and “reeducate” Muslim Uyghurs in large-scale detention camps is the most extreme example of this control (see Musapir’s chapter). While there are no sizable immigrant communities in China (as in Habermas’s Germany), the Party’s declared aim to reinforce ethnic unity has, in reality, heightened awareness of ethnic differences, especially where these are underpinned by significant linguistic and religious differences to Han culture.

In China under Xi Jinping, Christians are not perceived to be “semantically sealed off units,” as their ethnic identity and daily practices, including religious practices, are compatible with a Han identity and some of the core values now promoted by the Chinese state. However, the state feels very differently about Islam and Muslim identities, which it considers traditional, backward, to an extent incompatible with modernized sensibilities of the Han Party-state, and even dangerous, in particular where minority ethnic groups are concerned.⁴⁷ Observing one’s religion and displaying visible signs of one’s belief (for example, a beard) are considered proof of backwardness and resistance to modernization; breaking such habits and assimilating to the Han majority through invasive and both physically and psychologically violent means are the most extreme manifestation of the Party’s implementation of national “unity.”

The Party’s Answer to a Multicultural, Post-Secular Society: Forced Ethnic and Cultural Unification

With fifty-six officially recognized ethnic groups and five recognized religions, China is officially a multicultural and multifaith society. Integration into the international world order through globalization and open borders has meant that members of China’s ethnic and religious minorities have once again become part of cross-border family connections and diaspora, interest groups, and networks.⁴⁸ The fact that many of China’s ethnic minorities with languages, religions, and cultures distinctly different from the Han majority live in geopolitically strategic areas of China has heightened the Party-state’s anxieties over national integrity and unity. China has thus experienced the key challenges posed by multicultural societies, which, to return to Habermas, is the tension between the need to protect cultural identities, on the one hand, and the need to enforce a shared sense of citizenship, on the other.⁴⁹

In the context of faith and religion, Xi Jinping chose to respond to the challenge of multiculturalism and a plurality of values (something the Party prefers to present as a lack of values) in both the ideological and the policy realm through a process of “counter-reformation,” in which United Front work played a key role. A key ingredient of the Party’s ideological work and early rectification campaigns, United Front work was stepped up again under Xi Jinping, who held one of the most significant United Front conferences in three decades in 2015.⁵⁰ Religion is, of course, a central aspect of United Front work; having been introduced at the United Front conference in 2015, the requirement for the Sinicization of religion was declared national policy in the following year.

Reestablishing a strict orthodoxy in relation to the role and function of faith was an important aspect of Xi’s renewed emphasis on ideological governance, as outlined by Cheek (this volume). Expected adherence to this new orthodoxy extended well beyond the confines of the Party and into the wider population, reaching levels of an inquisition in parts of the country. In this process, rather than combating the potential ill effects of renewed religious influence through dialogue, the state has instead entered the religious arena by forcing itself onto believers and demanding spiritual allegiance through a strictly regulated set of rituals and practice. Thus, China under Xi Jinping has become a quasi-religious fundamentalist power, displaying all the signs that characterize the resurgence rather than the disappearance of religion, including fundamental radicalism, and the political instrumentalization of violence.⁵¹

The political instrumentalization of the potential for violence innate to religious zeal was evident in China’s Cultural Revolution (a period notably missing in the CCP’s orthodox version of its own history) and can still be observed today. Although rhetorical emphasis is put on process and harmony—despite the metallurgic references in Xi’s own pronouncements on faith—the potential and actual violence of the state is visible and present on a daily basis. It forms a vital ingredient in what the political scientist Stein Ringen refers to as China’s “controlocracy” and is vividly described in Xu Zhiyong’s memoir.⁵² In relation to the CCP’s attempts to build a faith, one can at the very least see evidence of the political instrumentalization of the people’s continued need for faith. Rather than affording religious voices validity—the only way to resolve the challenges of a multicultural society, according to Habermas—the Party’s strategy is to break up and forcibly assimilate.⁵³ The systematic detention and attempted destruction of Chinese Muslim, in particular Uyghur and Kazakh, identity together with systematic physical and psychological violence against people and cultural artifacts is a technologically sophisticated act of violence based on a zealous belief in the state project led by the Party-state along ethnic lines.⁵⁴

In the face of the continuing need for religion/faith in the post-secular context, the Party now presents itself and all that it stands for as the only appropriate and permissible object of faith. This is evident in the way it forces people to direct religious feelings toward the Party, but also in an increasing personality cult around Xi Jinping himself. In southeast China, Christians were told to get rid of pictures of Jesus and replace them with portraits of Xi Jinping; there were accounts of reverent gatherings around a tree Xi planted in 2009 in Henan Province; and in Shenyang the Party installed red “confession boxes” in the streets (somewhat reminiscent of red telephone boxes in Britain), where people are encouraged to speak their innermost thoughts to the Party.⁵⁵ In Xinjiang, as Musapir recounts in this volume, Xi Jinping is now venerated and his image enshrined in place of anything with religious symbolism or ancestral presence in Uyghur homes. Public prayers are no longer permitted, and detainees in Xinjiang’s “reeducation camps” were required to worship Xi by reciting his thought, chanting, and singing political songs.

Conclusion

According to the scholar Benoît Vermander, the Party had acted as regulator rather than purveyor of sacredness between 1980 and 2012, but in the Xi era a new regime of sacredness was put into place to redirect the flow of social and symbolic resources toward the state-sponsored channels of sacrality.⁵⁶ In Vermander’s view, the “Party inspires both love and fear, functions as a church, and unites under the same ideology.”⁵⁷ Under the five-year plans for the Sinicization of religion, the Party entered places of worship with the effect not of the secularization of the religious faiths whose places of worship it penetrates, but of a sacralization of the Party itself, which dresses up in religious garb, officiates at rituals, and presents itself as purveyor of a super faith at the core of which stands a spiritual Han ethnic identity based on Chinese socialist core values. These values are presented as universally shared by all Chinese; in fact, sharing and propagating these values has become a definition—and a condition—of being Chinese.

The Party responded to the continued need for religion in modern society by using spiritual language and by creating corresponding spiritual practices centered around the Party. It accepts that religious traditions and the need for interiority continues and signals this by adopting a spiritual discourse and practice of faith built around the figure of Xi Jinping and his ideology. The fierce crackdown on religions during Xi’s second term in office was built on the foundations of a renewed orthodoxy on faith established during his first term that positioned the Party and its ideology as a super faith under which all religious activity needed to be subsumed. In the process, some religious utterances and values found their way from religious discourses (or discourses informed by religious values) into state discourse. This happened where the Party considered these utterances to be made from a shared ethnic and cultural base. At the same time, the recognition of the continued need for religion also led to a sacralization of the Party itself together with its increasing penetration of all parts of society, from religious places of worship to universities and privately owned companies, all the way into people’s homes, as is the case in Xinjiang. Rather than leading to a secularization and decreased influence of faith, all these developments have resulted in a lack of clear distinction between religion and the state in China today, as was the case in imperial China. At the same time, the long-term consequences of these developments—in addition to the devastating effects for individuals and their families—may be similar to those of the Cultural Revolution: the long-term trauma of the separation of children from their families; the indoctrination of the young generation about the alleged ill effects of religion; the permanent destruction of cultural artifacts; and the loss of languages and cultural knowledge.

China under Xi Jinping responded to the challenges of a post-secular, multicultural, and multifaith society by attempting to create and enforce its own centralized, orthodox faith. As a result, China under Xi Jinping bears the characteristics of a political-religious fundamentalist state power built on ethnic supremacy. This “fundamentalism with Chinese characteristics” is a significant “Xi Jinping effect” with long-term domestic and international implications and an important aspect of his leadership to watch for new developments during his third and possibly subsequent terms in office.

Notes

1. 1. On discourse formation, see Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, 2nd ed. (London: Verso, 2001).

2. 2. Hu Jintao, “Jianchi bu yi yanzhe zhongguo tese shehui zhuyi daolu qianjin” (Progress by steadily following the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics), China.com, November 8, 2012, http://news.china.com.cn/politics/2012-11/20/content_27165856.htm, quoted in Giorgio Strafella, ‘“Marxism’ as Tradition in CCP Discourse,” Asiatische Studien / Études Asiatiques 69, no. 1 (2015): 246.

3. 3. The essay was by Hu Bao, “Xinyang shi shenme? Xi Jinping ‘liuzhong yishi’ zhong Xinyang” (What is faith? Xi Jinping’s “six types of consciousness” stress faith), People.com, November 29, 2011, http://book.people.com.cn/GB/69839/217128/217129/15534097.html.

4. 4. Bao, “Xinyang shi shenme?”

5. 5. “‘Eight Musts’ Coalesce into Consensus,” China Copyright and Media (blog), January 17, 2013, http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/eight-musts-coalesce-into-consensus.

6. 6. “Xi Jinping tan xinyang xinnian” (Xi Jinping on faith), People’s Daily, June 7, 2017, http://cpc.people.com.cn/n1/2017/0607/c64094-29322419.html.

7. 7. Speech made in 2015 in commemoration of Chen Yun, as quoted in “Xi Jinping tan xinyang xinnian.”

8. 8. Speech made on January 12, 2016, as quoted in “Xi Jinping tan xinyang xinnian.”

9. 9. There is a wealth of articles available on Xi Jinping’s pronunciations on faith. They all make the same points, and the source “Xi Jinping tan xinyang xinnian” (cited above) constitutes a collection of the main quotations on faith in various speeches over the years while also bringing out the main points. Additional useful expositions on the subject can be found in Cary Huang, “Xi Calls for ‘Staunch’ Belief in Communism to Ensure National Rejuvenation as China Marks 80th Anniversary of Long March,” South China Morning Post, October 21, 2016, http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2039017/xi-calls-staunch-belief-communism-ensure-national; and “Xi Jinping: Renmin you xinyang, minzu you xiwang, guojia you liliang” (Xi Jinping: When the people have faith, the nation has hope, and the state is powerful), Xinhua Net, February 28, 2015, http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2015-02/28/c_1114474084.htm.

10. 10. Speech made in 2015 in commemoration of Chen Yun, as quoted in “Xi Jinping tan xinyang xinnian.”

11. 11. The tune is available from “Shehui zhuyi hexin jiazhiguan gequ zhanbo: ‘Zhongguo renmin you xinyang’” (A musical broadcast of the Chinese socialist core values song: “The Chinese People Have Faith”), YouTube, accessed January 5, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7esCE7w13g. The lyrics are available from “Changxiang zhuxuanlü xiying shijiuda. Shehui zhuyi hexin jiazhiguan gequ ‘Renmin you xinyang’” (Singing the main tunes, happily greeting the 19th Party Congress. The socialist core values song “The Chinese People Have Faith”), accessed January 5, 2024, http://ent.cnr.cn/ylzt/gqzj/gqsp/20171001/t20171001_523973654.shtml.

12. 12. Jiang Chang and Cai Mengxue, “‘Dangdai zhongguo jiazhiguan’ gainiande tichu, neihan yu yiyi” (The proposal, content, and meaning of the concept “contemporary Chinese values”), Journal of Hubei University (Philosophy and Social Science), no. 4 (2016): 1–7 and 160.

13. 13. Xinyang. Women de gushi (Faith. Our story), three-part miniseries, CCTV1, 2012, http://tv.cntv.cn/video/C38054/4ef120914f8f48b2ba89845c27ff86e1.

14. 14. Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.

15. 15. Thoralf Klein, “‘Our Believing in the Three People’s Principles Requires a Religious Spirit’: Xin(yang) 信仰 and the Political Religion of the Guomindang, 1925–1949,” 461–96, and Chloë Starr, “From Missionary Doctrine to Chinese Theology: Developing xin 信 in the Protestant Church and Creeds of Zhao Zichen,” 340–59, both in From Trustworthiness to Secular Beliefs: Changing Concepts of xin 信 from Traditional to Modern Chinese, ed. Christian Meyer and Philip Clart (Leiden: Brill, 2023).

16. 16. For an in-depth Sinological engagement with the meaning and significance of xin or xinyang from ancient to contemporary times, see Christian Meyer and Philip Clart, eds., From Trustworthiness to Secular Beliefs: Changing Concepts of xin 信 from Traditional to Modern Chinese (Leiden: Brill, 2023).

17. 17. On religion and the Party, see Vincent Goossaert and David Palmer, eds., The Religious Question in Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010); Gerda Wielander, Christian Values in Communist China (London: Routledge, 2013). On political activism and the Christian faith, see Wielander, Christian Values in Communist China; Terence C. Halliday, “Under Siege: China’s Christian Human Rights Lawyers,” 2014, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-fXAjByWUI; Sida Liu and Terence C. Halliday, Criminal Defense in China: The Politics of Lawyers at Work, Cambridge Studies in Law and Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

18. 18. Liu Xiaobo, Zhongguo dangdai zhengzhi yu zhongguo zhishifenzi (Chinese contemporary politics and Chinese intellectuals) (1990; repr., Taipei: Tonsan Publications, 2010), 107, translation in Gerda Wielander, “What China Is Missing—Faith in Political Discourse,” in From Trustworthiness to Secular Beliefs: Changing Concepts of xin 信 from Traditional to Modern Chinese, ed. Christian Meyer and Philip Clart (Leiden: Brill, 2023), 602.

19. 19. Xu’s arrest was followed, in June 2015, by the start of a systematic crackdown on human rights (weiquan) lawyers, which has affected more than three hundred individuals and includes criminal detention, house arrest, and residential surveillance. He was detained again in February 2020. For a chronology on the crackdown on human rights lawyers, see Human Rights in China, “Mass Crackdown on Chinese Lawyers, Defenders and International Reactions: A Brief Chronology,” 2017, https://www.hrichina.org/en/mass-crackdown-chinese-lawyers-defenders-and-international-reactions-brief-chronology.

20. 20. The Chinese expression “truth, compassion, and beauty” (zhen, shan, mei 真善美) was originally employed by Mao, then reinterpreted in counter-discourse and featuring prominently in Xi’s policies. See Michel Hockx, “Truth, Goodness, and Beauty: Literary Policy in Xi Jinping’s China,” Law & Literature 35, no. 3 (2023): 515–31, https://doi.org/10.1080/1535685X.2022.2026039.

21. 21. Xu Zhiyong, To Build a Free China: A Citizen’s Journey (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2017), 281–82, quoted in Wielander, “What China Is Missing,” 601.

22. 22. A German version is available at Projekt Gutenberg–DE, accessed February 1, 2018, http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/-6185/10.

23. 23. Zhou Guoping, Zhongguoren queshao shenme? Xifang zhexue jieshou shishang liangge anlie zhi yanjiu (What are the Chinese people missing? Research into two historical cases of acceptance of Western philosophy) (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 2017), 344.

24. 24. Zhuo Xinping, Zhongguo zongjiao yu wenhua zhanlue (The religions in China and the strategy of culture) (Beijing: Shehui Kexue Wenxian Chubanshe, 2013), quoted in Monika Gaenssbauer, Popular Belief in Contemporary China: A Discourse Analysis (Freiburg: Projekt Verlag, 2015), 49, cited in Wielander, “What China Is Missing,” 589.

25. 25. Gao Zhanxiang, Xinyangli (The power of faith) (Beijing: Beijing Daxue Chubanshe, 2012), quoted in Gaenssbauer, Popular Belief, 49; cited in Wielander, “What China Is Missing,” 589.

26. 26. Yuan Youjun, Xunzhao shidai de xinyang: Dangdai zhongguo guomin xinyang yanjiu (Searching for a faith of our times: Research into contemporary Chinese citizens’ faith) (Guangzhou: Guangdong Renmin Chubanshe, 2014), 4–5.

27. 27. Statement by the former director of the religious division of the Guizhou Provincial Civil Religious Affairs Bureau as broadcast at a panel discussion on the Sinicization of religion. Christian Solidarity Worldwide, United Kingdom (CSW UK), “Sinicizing Religion in China: A Panel Discussion,” organized by the CSW and the International Campaign for Tibet as a side event to the forty-seventh session of the Human Rights Council, chaired by Sophie Richardson, with Timothy Grose, Kiri Kankhwende, and Tenzin Palmo, July 15, 2021, educational video, YouTube, 1:15:19, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgGmb8i2Syo.

28. 28. Wielander, “What China Is Missing,” 603.

29. 29. Michael Gow, “The Core Socialist Values of the Chinese Dream: Towards a Chinese Integral State,” Critical Asian Studies 49, no. 1 (2017): 95.

30. 30. Gow, “The Core Socialist Values,” 95.

31. 31. Habermas distinguishes between the terms secular and secularistic; he uses secular as a neutral term to describe the separation of church/religion and state and uses secularistic to describe a strong belief and political position that is characterized by denying religion a place in public life and state agendas.

32. 32. Jürgen Habermas, “Notes on a Post-Secular Society,” Signandsight, June 18, 2008, http://www.signandsight.com/features/1714.html.

33. 33. Habermas, “Notes on a Post-Secular Society.”

34. 34. Habermas, “Notes on a Post-Secular Society.”

35. 35. Habermas presents the three points in a different order. See Habermas, “Notes on a Post-Secular Society.”

36. 36. For an in-depth analysis of Christianity and China’s moral reconstruction, see Wielander, Christian Values in Communist China, chap. 2.

37. 37. On Christianity and socialism, see Wielander, Christian Values in Communist China; Gerda Wielander, “Translating Protestant Christianity into China—Questions of Indigenization and Sinification in a Globalised World,” in Translating Values: Evaluative Concepts in Translation, ed. Piotr Blumczynski and John Gillespie (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 213–36.

38. 38. On religious utterances, see Habermas, “Notes on a Post-Secular Society.”

39. 39. Ian Johnson, The Souls of China: The Return of Religion after Mao (New York: Pantheon Books, 2017).

40. 40. Grose, in CSW UK, “Sinicizing Religion in China.”

41. 41. Ian Johnson, “China Seeks Tighter Grip in Wake of a Religious Revival,” New York Times, October 7, 2016; Gerda Wielander, “China’s New Religions Regulations: An Ever-Tighter Embrace,” Asia & the Pacific Policy Society, Policy Forum, November 1, 2016, https://www.policyforum.net/chinas-new-religious-regulations.

42. 42. For a close analysis of United Front work and Sinicization of religion under Xi, see Kuei-Min Chang, “New Wine in Old Bottles. Sinicisation and State Regulation of Religion in China,” China Perspectives, no. 1–2 (2018): 37-44. For an English translation of the full report on the plan, see Union of Catholic Asian News, “Protestant Five-Year Plan for Christianity,” April 20, 2018, https://www.ucanews.com/news/protestant-five-year-plan-for-chinese-christianity/82107.

43. 43. Lily Kuo, “In China, They Are Closing Churches, Jailing Pastors—and Even Rewriting the Scriptures,” Guardian, January 13, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/china-christians-religious-persecution-translation-bible.

44. 44. See, for example, Union of Catholic Asia News, “Cross Burns as Chinese Officials Remove It from Church,” September 27, 2017, https://www.ucanews.com/news/cross-burns-as-chinese-officials-remove-it-from-church/80327.

45. 45. “China Passes Law to Make Islam ‘Compatible with Socialism,’” Al Jazeera, January 5, 2019, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/1/5/china-passes-law-to-make-islam-compatible-with-socialism.

46. 46. See, for example, Anyang Wang, “Buddhist Statues Disappearing throughout China,” Bitter Winter, February 20, 2019, https://bitterwinter.org/buddhist-statues-disappearing-throughout-china; CSW UK, “Sinicizing Religion in China.”

47. 47. There is some evidence that the treatment of Hui Muslims is nowhere near as severe as that of Uyghur and Kazakh minorities and that Hui Muslim communities have seen a revival. See, for example, Alexander Stewart, “Faith in the Future/Practices of the Past: A Sinicized Islamic Revival among the Hui of Xining,” in The Sinicization of Religion: From Above and Below, ed. Richard Madsen (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 130–47.

48. 48. For the historical roots of these networks, see Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (London: Bloomsbury, 2015).

49. 49. Habermas, “Notes on a Post-Secular Society.”

50. 50. Kuei-Min Chang, “New Wine in Old Bottles: Sinicisation and State Regulation of Religion in China,” China Perspectives, no. 1–2 (2018): 37.

51. 51. Habermas, “Notes on a Post-Secular Society.”

52. 52. Stein Ringen, The Perfect Dictatorship: China in the 21st Century (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016); Xu, To Build a Free China.

53. 53. On the Party’s assimilationist policies, see James Leibold, “Xinjiang Work Forum Marks New Policy of ‘Ethnic Mingling,’” China Brief 14, no. 12 (2014): 1–12; Gerald Roche and James Leibold, “China’s Second-Generation Ethnic Policies Are Already Here,” Made in China Journal 5, no. 2 (2020): 31–35, https://madeinchinajournal.com/2020/09/07/chinas-second-generation-ethnic-policies-are-already-here.

54. 54. There is now a substantial body of evidence and scholarship on the Party’s actions in Xinjiang. It builds on the work of Adrian Zenz and James Leibold, which has now been supplemented by significant firsthand reporting from a range of credible international media outlets. The following piece includes links to some of the most important sources that brought awareness to this issue. See James Leibold, “Time to Denounce China’s Muslim Gulag,” Lowy Institute, June 19, 2018, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/time-denounce-china-s-muslim-gulag. For a theorization of the contemporary Chinese colonization of Uyghur Muslims, see Darren Byler, Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2022).

55. 55. On hanging Xi’s portrait, see Tom Phillips, “Believe in Socialism Not Sorcery, China Tells Party Members,” Guardian, November 16, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/16/chinese-officials-believe-in-sorcery-not-socialism-says-senior-minister. On the Xi tree, see Tom Phillips, “‘Enormous and Leafy’: Chinese Officials Flock to Tree Planted by Xi Jinping,” Guardian, November 13, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/13/officials-tree-planted-xi-jinping-chinese-paulownia-henan. On confession boxes, see, for example, “Shenyang jingxian hongse liushengting xiang dang jiaoxin” (A red phonographic booth suddenly appeared in Shenyang for confession to the Party), New Tang Dynasty Television, September 26, 2017, http://www.ntdtv.com/xtr/gb/2017/09/26/a1343878.html; see also Wielander, “What China Is Missing,” 594.

56. 56. Benoît Vermander, “Sinicizing Religion, Sinicizing Religious Studies,” Religions 10, no. 2 (2019): 4, https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10020137.

57. 57. Vermander, “Sinicizing Religion,” 18.