China’s Public Security: To Protect Economy, Crack Down on Illegal Religion

Executive deputy minister Wang Xiaohong. From Weibo.

By Zeng Guanyu - Posted at Bitter Winter:

Top police bureaucrat explains why to implement the program of the Central Economic Work Conference controlling religion is essential.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is obsessed with the idea that religion should be kept under control. This idea is part and parcel of CCP ideology, but is reinforced by history textbooks telling Party bureaucrats that Communism in Eastern Europe fell because it did not crack down on time on civil society, leaving too much freedom to religion, particularly in countries such as Poland, Hungary, or Lithuania.

The Central Economic Work Conference is the most important yearly meeting organized by the CCP about economy. It discusses the achievement and problems of the past year, and produce, directives for the next year. The last such conference was held in Beijing on December 8–10, 2021. Not all its proceedings have been made public.

One would expect that, for once, the conference was not about religion. Except that it was, we are now told by one of the country’s top security bureaucrats. Wang Xiaohong is secretary of the CCP Committee of the Ministry of Public Security and the executive deputy minister in charge of daily work. His position is all-important in indicating priorities to public security.

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