The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has in the past few years attempted to legislate away religious freedom by passing laws forcing Sinicization and regulating religious leadership, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said in a report published on Monday last week.
Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), Beijing made use of an elaborate legal system to effectively control religious systems and leaders, the council wrote in its quarterly report on the situation in China.
The council in particular referenced two recent laws: the Measures for the Administration of Religious Personnel, which was implemented on May 1 and aims to more closely regulate religious clergy, and the Measures for the Administration of Religious Institutes, which goes into effect on Sept. 1.
The latter is an update of a previous law establishing religious institutes for the training of clergy and other religious professionals.
PARTY LOYALTY
Under this law, the heads of religious institutes would be required to support CCP leadership, while faculty and students must be educated in “socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new Xi Jinping era,” patriotism and Sinicization of religion.
Both laws complement Xi’s preference for legal administration and Sinicization by legislating religious leaders and institutes, the council said.
At the same time, the CCP has also continued persecuting religious devotees, the report added.
Last month, four Tibetan Buddhist monks were sentenced to five to 20 years in prison after a secret trial, it said.
Their crimes were reportedly contacting Tibetans in Nepal, donating money to help Tibetans in Nepal rebuild after the 2015 earthquake, and possessing images and documents relating to the Dalai Lama, it said.
This was in addition to the arrests of more than 20 Tibetans for celebrating the Dalai Lama’s birthday online, it added.
In Xinjiang, the CCP has continued placing Uighurs in re-education camps while denying its actions and fiercely attacking any detractors, the council said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Mei-hui (王美惠) also decried the CCP’s manipulation of religion.
Religion is meant to bring comfort and encourage goodness, but the CCP has been wielding it as a tool for political indoctrination by requiring clergy to study “Xi Jinping thought,” she said, calling the situation “extremely frightening.”
“China’s persecution of minorities in Xinjiang is an indisputable fact,” she said, adding that evidence of its human rights abuses cannot be washed away.
‘NO SECURITY RISK’: The Railway Bureau reassured the public that the technicians’ activities were limited to technical guidance and did not involve sensitive systems The Railway Bureau yesterday said it had invited eight Chinese technicians to assist with an airport MRT construction project. The bureau issued the confirmation after an Internet user said Chinese nationals had entered the construction zone of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s Terminal 3 project. They asked why “individuals from an enemy state” were allowed access to such a major national infrastructure project, which raised serious concerns over Taiwan’s industrial safety, sensitive systems and information security. The bureau’s Northern Region Engineering Branch Office said subcontractor Taiwan Handle Industrial Co (台灣手把工業) of the Taoyuan airport MRT’s “Contract No. CU05 Project A14 Station Civil, MEP &
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
NOT IMMEDIATE: Taiwan has a chance to appeal the proposed 10 percent tariff before it starts, while other countries face a 12.5 percent tariff from the trade office Taiwan is among 60 economies determined by the US to have failed to impose or enforce a ban on the importation of goods produced with forced labor, according to a notice released on Tuesday by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), which proposed imposing an additional 10 percent or more tariff on them. The USTR in a statement said that following an investigation, it had determined under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 that the failure of the 60 economies to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is
RSS