China Tightens Digital Grip On Religion With Sweeping Rules For Clergy
In an escalation of its already tight grip on religious freedom, China introduced a sweeping set of regulations that strictly control how clergy of officially recognized religions can operate online.
The new rules – released by the State Administration for Religious Affairs on Sept, 15 – are a continuation of Beijing's long-term campaign to control religious practices in an effort to reshape faith so it aligns with the Chinese Communist Party.
The 18-article document, titled “Code of Conduct for Religious Clergy on the Internet,” outlines what religious leaders in China are allowed to do in the digital space. More significantly, it focuses on what they are forbidden from doing.
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The rules apply to clergy of all five officially recognized religions — Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism — allowed to practice within China.
China’s policy of “sinicizing” is an effort by the CCP to control and assimilate ethnic and religious groups into a state-approved — and largely Han Chinese — identity.
Since President Xi Jinping introduced the policy in 2016, it has intensified state control over all facets of society, including religion, to suppress other ideologies and reinforce government authority. As a result, only three percent of people in China said religion is “very important” to them.
Bitter Winter, a religious freedom and human rights magazine, reported that religious expression in China “must be patriotic, party-friendly, and culturally sanitized. … It effectively criminalizes spontaneous religious expression online, isolates clergy from global religious discourse, and places sacred speech under the watchful eye of state censors.”
The CCP has long maintained that religion must serve national interests and promote social harmony, as defined by the state. This latest move shows that the party is increasingly unwilling to tolerate any religious activity — digital or otherwise — that exists outside its direct control.
Among the most restrictive elements is a widespread ban on religious leaders acting as online influencers. It criminalizes clergy who engage in livestreams, host religious discussions in chat groups, publish sermons in short-video form or post to social media channels in order to promote or raise money, including for the construction of places of worship.
Such activities — once a rare avenue for religious outreach and building community — are now off-limits unless conducted through government-approved platforms.
The government claims the new restrictions are meant to “maintain order in the religious sphere” and prevent the spread of what they deem “illegal religious content.”
The rules also prohibit clergy from using AI tools for religious purposes. This includes using AI to preach, publish or produce content — a move that closes another potential loophole where digital tools might have allowed some limited autonomy in expression and outreach.
Reacting to the regulations, clerics in China told The Pillar, a Catholic news website, that the new code was a “natural development of the sinicization policy.”
“Religion is fine, so long as it is under the control of the state,” one mainland cleric told the website.
One of the most significant aspects of the new code is its specific prohibition against targeting minors with religious content. In fact, the rules say clergy must not “induce minors to believe in religion via the Internet” or organize online activities for children, such as religious education, camps or youth prayer meetings.
While restrictions on minors attending religious services are not new in China, the digital crackdown signals an intensified effort to prevent the transmission of faith to the next generation.
The crackdown also warned against what the CCP called “collusion with foreign forces” and strictly forbids participation in “foreign religious infiltration activities.” This language reflects Beijing’s ongoing paranoia about external influence — particularly from the Vatican, Islamic nations and Christian missionary organizations abroad — which it perceives as threats to the state and ideological unity.
The rules extend past mainland China to religious figures from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, as well as any foreign clergy conducting online religious activities that reach audiences within China.
The clergy crackdown should come as no surprise. In its 2024 annual report, the USCIRF recommended that the U.S. State Department redesignate China as a “country of particular concern” for engaging in what it called “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom.”
Clemente Lisi is executive editor at Religion Unplugged.