CHINA TIER 1 | USCIRF-RECOMMENDED COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN (CPC) KEY FINDINGS During 2016, as China’s President Xi Jinping further consoli- include their children in religious activities. Authorities evicted dated power, conditions for freedom of religion or belief and thousands of monks and nuns from the Larung Gar Buddhist related human rights continued to decline. Authorities target Institute in Tibet before demolishing their homes. The gov- anyone considered a threat to the state, including religious ernment continued to detain, imprison, and torture countless believers, human rights lawyers, and other members of civil religious freedom advocates, human rights defenders, and society. In 2016, the Chinese government regularly empha- religious believers, including highly persecuted Falun Gong sized the “sinicization” of religion and circulated revised practitioners. Based on China’s longstanding and continuing regulations governing religion, including new penalties for record of severe religious freedom violations, USCIRF again activities considered “illegal” and additional crackdowns finds that China merits designation in 2017 as a “country of on Christian house churches. The government continued to particular concern,” or CPC, under the International Religious suppress Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, including through new Freedom Act (IRFA). The State Department has designated regional government regulations that limit parents’ rights to China as a CPC since 1999, most recently in October 2016. RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT • Continue to designate China as a CPC • Press for at the highest levels and work freedom, at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing under IRFA; to secure the unconditional release of and U.S. consulates in China, including • Continue to raise consistently religious prisoners of conscience and religious by gathering the names of specific offi- freedom concerns at the Strategic and freedom advocates, and press the cials and state agencies who perpetrate Economic Dialogue and other high-level Chinese government to treat prisoners religious freedom abuses; bilateral meetings with Chinese leaders, humanely and allow them access to • Use targeted tools against specific and at every appropriate opportunity family, human rights monitors, ade- officials and agencies identified encourage Chinese authorities to quate medical care, and lawyers and as having participated in or being refrain from imposing restrictive and the ability to practice their faith; responsible for human rights abuses, discriminatory policies on individuals • Press the Chinese government to abide including particularly severe viola- conducting peaceful religious activ- by its commitments under the Conven- tions of religious freedom; these tools ity, including activities the Chinese tion against Torture and Other Cruel, include the “specially designated government conflates with terrorism or Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or nationals” list maintained by the Trea- perceives as threats to state security; Punishment, and also independently sury Department’s Office of Foreign • Coordinate with other diplomatic investigate reports of torture among Assets Control, visa denials under missions and foreign delegations, individuals detained or imprisoned, section 604(a) of IRFA and the Global including the United Nations (UN) and including reports of organ harvesting; Magnitsky Human Rights Accountabil- European Union, about human rights • Initiate a “whole-of-government” ity Act, and asset freezes under the advocacy in meetings with Chinese approach to human rights diplomacy Global Magnitsky Act; and officials and during visits to China, with China in which the State Depart- • Press China to uphold its international and encourage such visits to areas ment and National Security Council obligations to protect North Korean deeply impacted by the government’s staff develop a human rights action asylum seekers crossing its borders, religious freedom abuses, such as plan for implementation across all U.S. including by allowing the UN High Xinjiang, Tibet, and Zhejiang Province; government agencies and entities, Commissioner for Refugees and inter- • Ensure that the U.S. Embassy and U.S. including providing support for all U.S. national humanitarian organizations to consulates, including at the ambas- delegations visiting China; assist them, and by ending repatria- sadorial and consuls general level, • Increase staff attention to U.S. human tions, which are in violation of the 1951 maintain active contacts with human rights diplomacy and the rule of law, Refugee Convention and Protocol and/ rights activists and religious leaders; including the promotion of religious or the Convention Against Torture. U.S. COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM | ANNUAL REPORT 2017 www.USCIRF.gov | [email protected] | @USCIRF TIER 1 TIER CHINA BACKGROUND expressed concern about how the law will impact their The year 2016 marked 50 years since the Cultural charity and aid work in China. Revolution, some of the darkest days for China’s reli- During 2016, the Chinese government reinforced its gious and faith believers. Five decades later, Chinese crackdown on lawyers and other human rights defend- government repression under President Xi increas- ers. At the time of this writing, human rights lawyer and ingly threatens human rights, including freedom of advocate Jiang Tianyong remained in detention at an religion or belief. For example, in 2016 China revised unknown location after Chinese authorities detained and enhanced its Regulations on Religious Affairs that him in November 2016 on suspicion of alleged “state limit the right to religious practice. New restrictions subversion.” In December 2016, a group of UN experts include tighter government control over religious called on the Chinese government to investigate Jiang’s education and clergy, and heavy fines for any religious whereabouts and expressed concern that his human activities considered “illegal,” as well as new language rights work—including representing Tibetans, Falun formally forbidding Gong practitioners, and religion from harming others—puts him at risk for beatings and torture by “national security” con- New restrictions include tighter police. Longtime human cerns. Earlier in the year, government control over rights activist, lawyer, and President Xi convened religious education and clergy, and political prisoner Peng a National Conference heavy fines for any religious activities Meng died in prison in late on Religious Work considered “illegal”. where he stressed the 2016. His family requested importance of making an autopsy, but according religions more Chinese, to reports, Chinese author- in part by disconnecting them from foreign “infiltra- ities removed some of his organs and cremated his body, tion” and influence. These actions coincided with the ignoring the family’s wishes. Nobel Peace Prize laureate release of China’s National Human Rights Action Plan and democracy advocate Liu Xiaobo remains in prison (2016–2020), which includes a section on “freedom of after being sentenced in December 2009 to 11 years in religious belief” with undertones of restrictive govern- prison; his wife, Liu Xia, is under strict house arrest. ment management of religion. Through five state-sanctioned “patriotic religious January 1, 2017, marked the effective date of a new associations,” China recognizes five religions: Buddhism, Chinese law regulating foreign nonprofit and nongov- Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism. The ernmental organizations (NGOs). Under the law, NGOs Chinese Communist Party officially is atheist, and more must obtain sponsorship from state bodies that will act than half the country’s nearly 1.4 billion population is as “supervisors,” register with the police, and report unaffiliated with any religion or belief. Nearly 300 million their activities to the government. Some religious NGOs people practice some form of folk religion, approximately U.S. COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM | ANNUAL REPORT 2017 www.USCIRF.gov | [email protected] | @USCIRF TIER 1 TIER CHINA 250 million are Buddhist, about 70 million Christian, at their neighbors who may be involved in government-pro- least 25 million Muslim, and smaller numbers practice hibited activities. Taoism, Hinduism, Judaism, or some other faith. Authorities continue to restrict men from wear- ing beards and women from wearing headscarves and RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS face-covering veils. According to reports, in 2016 the 2016–2017 Chinese government destroyed thousands of mosques in Uighur Muslims Xinjiang, purportedly because the buildings were con- In 2016, the Chinese government continued to suppress sidered a threat to public safety. USCIRF received reports Uighur Muslims, often under the rubric of countering that Uighur Muslims must register to attend mosques— what it alleges to be religious and other violent extrem- which often are surveilled by authorities—and must ism. An estimated 10 million Uighur Muslims reside in obtain permission to travel between villages. the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in northwest Uighur Muslim prisoners commonly receive unfair China where the government presumes their guilt if they trials and are harshly treated in prison. Well-known are found practicing “illegal” religious activities, includ- Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti is currently serving a life sen- ing praying or possessing religious materials in their tence after being found guilty in 2014 of “separatism” in a own homes.