Faith Under Siege: The Chinese Government’s Global Assault on Religion

Statement of Annie Wilcox Boyajian

President, Freedom House in Lithuania

U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Hearing

Hearing: State-Controlled Religion in China

October 16, 2025

Chairman, Commissioners, and distinguished guests, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am honored to appear before you on behalf of Freedom House to address the grave state of religious freedom in the People’s Republic of China and the far-reaching consequences of Beijing’s repressive policies. 

China’s Regulation of Religion 

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) operates one of the most systematic and technologically sophisticated apparatuses of religious control in the world. The state of officially recognizes only  five faiths—Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, Protestant Christianity, and Taoism—and all must submit to a rigorous certification process. Groups that refuse are labeled illegal and persecuted. Thousands of Buddhist, Taoist, and folk-religion temples, along with countless “house churches,” have been demolished or shut down by authorities. 

Under Xi Jinping, controls have intensified through the policy of “Sinicization,” which seeks to reshape religions to align with Party ideology and foster loyalty to the CCP and Xi himself. New laws require groups to register all personnel, keep records of foreign contacts, and align doctrine with socialist principles. In February 2024, Beijing imposed further regulations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR): religious groups must “practice the core values of socialism,” religious structures must “reflect Chinese characteristics,” and unauthorized groups are barred from offering religious education. CCP cadres are empowered to monitor compliance, and surveillance cameras have been installed in churches, mosques, and temples. 

Certain communities—Tibetan Buddhists, Muslim groups, Falun Gong practitioners, and Christian house churches—face the harshest persecution. In Xinjiang, peaceful practices are routinely punished as “religious extremism,” resulting in detention, prison sentences, and indoctrination for Uyghur, Kazakh, and Hui Muslims. Authorities have interrogated residents for storing Quranic text on their phones, separated children from their parents to attend state-run boarding schools, and coerced minority workers into labor transfers under the guise of “poverty alleviation.” These policies have been accompanied by forced sterilizations and other abuses that may amount to crimes against humanity. 

The repression is not absolute: it is met with quiet resistance. Since 2022, Freedom House’s China Dissent Monitor has documented over 400 instances of religious dissent—acts of worship, teaching, or protest carried out despite overwhelming risks. According to our data, these acts of dissent are much more likely to be met with repression than non-religious protests. With this data in hand, we must recognize the resilience of people in China to protect their beliefs and free expression. 

Crackdown on Unrecognized Religious Groups

Unrecognized groups such as Falun Gong are subject to severe persecution. Practitioners have faced decades of arbitrary detention, forced disappearance, and reports of torture and organ harvesting. Authorities surveil their movements, interfere in their media and cultural organizations abroad, and harass anyone who dares expose these abuses. Christian house church leaders are imprisoned on fabricated charges of “illegal business operations,” often for activities as simple as running a Bible school or distributing religious literature. 

Freedom House has supported numerous such cases—covering legal fees, facilitating prison visits, and assisting relocation for persecuted practitioners. These cases underscore the staggering personal cost of faith in China and the determination of individuals to resist despite the risks. 

Emerging Issues in Hong Kong 

For many years, religious freedom in Hong Kong was strong, especially when compared with mainland China. Under the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law – which served as Hong Kong’s constitution – Hong Kong was supposed to enjoy “a high degree of autonomy,” despite having been turned over by the British government to the Chinese government in 1997.  Beijing violated these laws by implementing a brutal crackdown and imposing severe restrictions on fundamental freedoms following protests that began in 2019. Today, the National Security Law and Beijing’s broader policy of “Sinicization” have sharply eroded those freedoms. Churches are pressured to self-censor; sermons increasingly avoid political themes; and religious schools are mandated to teach a curriculum framework that emphasizes the protection of national security, similar to China’s patriotic education law. The Catholic Diocese no longer holds masses commemorating the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. Falun Gong practitioners who once gathered openly in Hong Kong now face harassment from groups with ties to the CCP, and some churches have quietly conformed to Sinicization directives to avoid reprisal. 

Transnational Repression

China’s campaign of transnational repression (TNR) represents the most sophisticated and far-reaching in the world. Between 2014 and 2024, Freedom House documented 272 direct, physical incidents—22 percent of all global cases in the database we maintain of public incidents. These include unlawful deportations, assaults, and harassment in 30 countries. Thailand, and other neighboring Southeast Asian countries, are particular hotspots for incidents perpetrated by China. 

Religious and ethnic minorities are prime targets: 225 out of 272 incidents that Freedom House documented were identity-based, directed against Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Falun Gong practitioners. This 225 number includes the more than 100 Uyghur men deported from Thailand to China in 2015, as well as the approximately 40 men who were returned to China from Thailand in February 2025—despite clear risk of torture.  

Members of these minority groups face a full range of tactics of transnational repression, including: surveillance, intimidation, harassment, assault, coercion of family members, mobility controls, detention, Interpol abuse, and unlawful deportation. Our data has found that members of religious minority groups often do not even have to engage in activism to be targeted; they are vulnerable solely because of their identity. Uyghurs are most vulnerable, often accused of terrorism or extremism under the “People’s War on Terror.” 

Beyond deportations, China mobilizes diaspora networks to harass believers abroad. For example, Tibetan activists have been attacked at peaceful demonstrations, Chinese students’ associations have been mobilized to suppress campus events, and dissidents’ family members in China are regularly threatened with imprisonment if their relatives abroad attend protests or celebrate the Dalai Lama’s birthday. Reprisals are also common for those who speak at the UN and other international bodies. Beijing’s campaign extends to organized crime networks, cultural associations, and business coercion, creating a suffocating environment of fear that stifles assembly and association rights worldwide. 

Policy Recommendations

China’s repression of religious freedom has serious implications not only for religious believers and freedom in China, but for the world. It is vitally important that the United States prioritize this issue in conversations with Beijing as a core human rights and national security priority. First and foremost, we agree with this Commission in recommending that the U.S. Department of State continue to redesignate China as a “Country of Particular Concern,” or CPC, for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.  

Freedom House also recommends the following:

1. Enforce accountability by imposing targeted sanctions on of officials and entities responsible for severe religious persecution. The International Religious Freedom Act and the Global Magnitsky Act provide the ability to do so.
2. Protect vulnerable communities by strengthening asylum programs and humanitarian pathways for Uyghurs, Tibetans, Christians, and Falun Gong practitioners at risk, while funding legal and psychosocial support for survivors.
3. Expose transnational repression by coordinating with allies to monitor, document, and counter China’s unlawful deportations, harassment of diaspora communities, and abuse of Interpol red notices.
4. Support civil society resilience by funding documentation, independent media, and diaspora organizations that provide lifelines to persecuted religious groups.
5. Integrate religious freedom into all U.S.-China bilateral and multilateral dialogues, ensuring it is never sidelined in pursuit of economic or security cooperation. 

Conclusion

China’s authoritarian project seeks to maintain power by erasing religious diversity, crushing dissent, and extending repression far beyond its borders. Yet millions of believers continue to practice their faith, often at immense personal risk. Their resilience reminds us that religious freedom is not a secondary concern—it is central to human dignity, to civil society, and to the defense of democracy worldwide. 

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your questions.