China Aid Association releases its annual persecution report for 2025. Its reports remain among the most authoritative and comprehensive overviews of religious persecution across China, with cases verified through exclusive sources. This year’s report primarily draws from cases documented by the association and information published on official Chinese Communist Party websites on religious affairs. It concludes that in 2025, the Chinese government’s governance of religious affairs exhibited a clear pattern of institutional restructuring.
The Chinese government’s governance of religious affairs has undergone a pronounced structural shift. Religious policy is no longer aimed merely at “maintaining stability” or carrying out periodic rectification campaigns; instead, through a combination of legal, administrative, technological, and ideological measures, the state is systematically reshaping the modes of religious existence, organizational forms, and social functions.
Based on the overall condition of religious freedom in China in 2025, the report focuses on the promulgation and implementation of relevant laws and regulations, the interaction mechanisms between central and local policies, and the profound impact of these changes on religious groups—especially Christianity (both Catholicism and Protestantism)—supplemented by observations of ethnic minority religious communities and several representative cases.
The research finds that China’s governance of religious affairs has formed a highly institutionalized and technologized system of repression. Through legal instruments such as the Regulations on Religious Affairs, the Measures for the Administration of Internet Religious Information Services, and the Counter-espionage Law, the state has redefined a large number of otherwise normal religious activities as “illegal,” “unlawful gatherings,” or acts that “endanger national security,” placing religious practice procedurally into a state of “illegality under the guise of legality.” Law here no longer serves as a boundary safeguarding religious freedom, but instead becomes a governing tool for redefining, restricting, and even depriving religious rights.
At the level of policy ideology, the concept of “Sinicization of religion” has in practice shifted toward the “Party-ization of religion.” The state not only requires religion to adapt to society and culture, but also directly intervenes in doctrinal interpretation, organizational structure, personnel appointments, and venue management, compelling faith communities to maintain a high degree of alignment with the Party in political stance, ideology, and modes of operation. Any religious group that seeks to preserve doctrinal independence or organizational autonomy faces the risk of being banned, merged, rectified, or subjected to ongoing suppression.
At the same time, technology has become a core pillar of religious control. Real-name registration systems, platform approval mechanisms, content censorship, facial recognition, and big-data tracking are widely applied to both offline and online religious activities. Believers’ gatherings, dissemination of faith, offerings, and even personal interactions are all subject to surveillance and traceability. This technology-driven governance not only significantly compresses the space for religious activity but also systematically erodes believers’ rights to privacy and freedom of association.
In terms of concrete impact, the religious ecosystem is undergoing profound and destructive restructuring. House churches find it difficult to obtain legal status and are forced underground, dissolved, or compelled to affiliate with official “Three-Self Patriotic Churches.” The episcopal system and traditional diocesan structures of underground Catholic churches continue to be weakened and absorbed into the official framework. Within official churches, politicalizing ideologies is becoming more intense, with pulpits and theological education increasingly replaced by administrative directives and political tasks. Lay persons face real-life pressures such as job loss, obstacles to educational advancement, and social stigmatization due to participation in religious activities, while collective religious life increasingly shifts toward fragmentation and concealment.
In addition, under the pretext of preventing “hostile foreign anti-China forces,” Chinese authorities have systematically severed ties between religious groups and the international community. Transnational religious exchanges, the sharing of theological resources, and channels for external support have been comprehensively blocked, leaving religious communities in China isolated in terms of information, resources, and international support, further weakening their social resilience and capacity for public expression.
In 2025, China’s model of religious governance has shifted from high-pressure control toward institutional restructuring. This model does not aim to eradicate religion entirely, but rather, through “legalized” forms of governance, to strip religion of its independence, public nature, and spiritual autonomy, transforming it into an object to be managed and domesticated within the Party-state system. “Party manages religion” has evolved from a political slogan into a comprehensive system of rule integrating administrative mechanisms, technological tools, and cultural engineering. Its core characteristic lies in masking systemic oppression with procedural legitimacy and implementing deep intervention through legal forms.
ChinaAid’s report seeks to expose the operating logic and consequences of this structure and to provide an analytical foundation for continued attention and response by the international community, policymakers, and faith groups.
Read the full report in English and Chinese, and stay tuned for more updates from persecuted Christians by joining ChinaAid’s weekly newsletter.
