Antireligious campaigns in China

Antireligious campaigns in the People's Republic of China are a series of policies and practices which have been carried out as part of the Chinese Communist Party's official promotion of state atheism, coupled with its persecution of people with spiritual or religious beliefs, in the People's Republic of China.

Well before the People's Republic of China, the Qing dynasty's 1898 edict confiscated folk religion temples that were not performing state sacrifices and turned them into schools; though these confiscations were reversed after a short time, they set a precedent for subsequent antireligious campaigns. In the Republic of China (ROC), both the Beiyang government and then the Nationalist government viewed the free exercise of "religion" as based on the Western model of institutionalized religions, and sought to eliminate folk religious practice through anti-superstition campaigns.

In 1945, in the Yan'an Soviet, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) implemented a campaign to eliminate shamanic practices, especially those deemed unhygienic. After the 1949 proclamation of the People's Republic of China, the government sought to suppress the new religious movements that had developed during the ROC era, deeming them reactionary secret societies.

Major campaigns sought to eliminate religion during the Cultural Revolution. Red Guards destroyed religious objects, texts, temples, and premises as part of the campaign against the "Four Olds." The first nationwide antireligious campaign of the Reform and Opening Up period was the 1983 suppression of The Shouters, a new religious movement. In the mid-1990s, government discourses changed from the Mao-era characterization of such movements as "reactionary secret societies" to using the terminology of "evil cults". Beginning in 1999 during Jiang Zemin's administration, the government sought to suppress Falun Gong and persecuted practitioners.

State campaigns against religion have escalated since Xi Jinping became CCP general secretary in 2012. For Christians in China, government decrees have mandated the widespread removal of crosses from churches, and in some cases, they have also mandated the destruction of houses of worship. Congregations of Mormons have been banned throughout the country and the small Kaifeng Jewish community has been suppressed. In Tibet, decrees have mandated the destruction of Tibetan Buddhist monastic centers, denied Tibetans' access to their cultural heritage, and led to ongoing persecution of high Buddhist lamas as well as Buddhist nuns and monks. In Xinjiang, the government has detained more than a million Uyghur Muslims in internment camps, destroyed or sinicized mosques, and suppressed Islamic religious practices such as fasting during Ramadan.