02/05/2025
Most of the vast Tibetan plateau is not accessible for foreigners without a guided tour. We can not cycle in the core land of former Tibet, but large parts of it have been incorporated into the neighbouring Chinese provinces, Yunnan, Sichuan and Qinghai. Here we can cycle without a personal guide and we were surprised about seeing many religious houses of worship, all with new and shiny Chinese-style roofs. Sometimes they look a bit artificial and they usually don’t have a lot of life in it.
Since the forceful destruction of religion had not worked in the past Xi’s CCP adopted a strategy of Sinicisation instead.
Religious Sinicisation (or „Chinafication“) requires patriotic re-education and public displays of loyalty to the CCP in churches, mosques, and temples. The religious leaders have to adjust their teachings and customs in line with „Chinese traditions“ and “pledge loyalty” to the state. So, rather than adapting religion to Chinese culture it is about making religions subservient to CCP ideology. In the past countless temples and monasteries have been shut down violently. After decades of destruction for religious people in today’s China there is only obedience left. In many ways that is true for all Chinese.
