Integrity labels: OFFICIAL POLICY / OBSERVED CASE EVIDENCE / EXTERNAL ASSESSMENT / DOCUMENTED HISTORICAL FCM POSITION / CURRENT FCM GOVERNING ALTERNATIVE
Policy question
China’s revised Regulations on Religious Affairs took effect on February 1, 2018. The regulation states that citizens enjoy freedom of religious belief and that the state protects “normal” religious activities, while also requiring extensive state management, resistance to “infiltration,” and adaptation of religion to socialist society. The governance question is not whether a state may regulate fraud, violence, unsafe buildings, abuse or ordinary public order. It may. The harder question is whether peaceful worship and religious association should depend on political approval, ideological conformity or membership in a state-recognized religious structure.
What the policy gets right
A responsible government should prevent violent extremism, fraud, coercion and abuse; protect children; enforce fire and building codes; and ensure that religious and nonreligious organizations obey neutral laws. Those objectives should not be dismissed simply because they appear inside a restrictive regulatory framework.
What the evidence shows
The present system goes substantially further than neutral safety regulation. Human Rights Watch and USCIRF describe continued state control over recognized religious bodies and pressure on peaceful groups outside approved structures. FCM’s 2026 case archive separately documents house-church cases involving detention, criminal charges, lawyer access, health concerns and restrictions on congregation activity, including Kunming, Yueyang Panshi, Wenzhou/David Tang and Sun Chenghao. These cases do not prove that every enforcement action is identical or unlawful, but they show why the framework must be judged by actual treatment of peaceful believers as well as by its stated protections.
Historical FCM record
FCM records from 1999 already connected democratic rights with opposition to religious persecution and advocacy for prisoners. No verified 2018-era FCM statement specifically analyzing the revised Religious Affairs Regulations has yet been located, so this present governance proposal is not backdated.
FCM governing alternative
FCM supports religion-neutral enforcement of genuine safety, fraud, violence and abuse laws. A Third Republic framework should protect belief and nonbelief equally; permit peaceful worship without prior political authorization; make registration a simple legal-person option rather than a license to believe; apply ordinary safety, tax, charity and child-protection laws neutrally; require warrants and individualized evidence for searches and surveillance; guarantee prompt access to counsel and family when detention occurs; prohibit ideological loyalty tests; provide independent judicial review of closures, seizures and penalties; and publish annual enforcement data.
How to measure success
Track detentions and criminal charges arising from peaceful religious activity; closure and raid counts; successful appeals; time to register legal entities; complaints of discrimination; access to counsel and family; religious-property disputes; and documented violence, fraud or abuse prevented under neutral laws.
Sources
- Official Religious Affairs Regulations
- Human Rights Watch, World Report 2025 — China
- USCIRF — Religious Freedom in China
Related Governance sections: Historical Chinese Policy & Democratic Responses · International China Policy & Diplomacy · Policy Scorecard & Outcomes · Third Republic Governance Blueprints
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