China law to make Islam toe party line

BEIJING: China has firmed up an outline to “sinicise” Islam by 2022 in an effort to redefine the practise of the religion and align the beliefs of Muslims with the Communist Party of China’s policies and traditional Chinese culture.

The five-year plan (2018-2022) was discussed and agreed upon by eight Islamic associations and government officials at a conference held in Beijing on Saturday.

Sinicisation of religion could be defined as an effort to mould religious beliefs and doctrine to bring them compatible with CPC’S objectives and the culture of the majority Han community.

Details of the plan were not shared in a report on the conference in the nationalistic tabloid, Global Times; it only said the outline will soon be released.

President Xi Jinping in 2015 spoke about sinicising the five major religions practised in China: Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism and Daoism. The CPC’S focus has been on Islam in the remote Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region where, according to the United Nations, a million Uyghur Muslims are likely interred in ‘re-eduction camps’ to pledge first loyalty to the Party.

At Friday’s seminar, government-appointed Islamic officials and clerics agreed that “the outline is the basic policy for Islamic sinicisation covering the next five years,” the Chinese Islamic Association said on its website.