Establishment of party-state supervision and control over recruitment of clergy and other personnel
Another specific measure implemented in the plan is a prohibition on the "generalization" of halal. Not only does the CIA’s dictate limit the application of halal to labels regarding foodstuffs, but it further mandates that halal must only apply to animal products. Moreover, the plan specifically calls for increased training on the proper applications of halal to be undertaken by the CIA. In practice, these measures severely limit believers’ ability to observe halal standards and override scriptural authorities’ definitions of halal to insert a state-sponsored one instead. In this way, the CIA uses regulatory power to police daily habits of practice.
A final provision empowers the CIA to police "foreign" influence on Islam. The plan specifically names the Tablighi Jamaat as an illegal foreign extremist organization. Further, the plan stipulates that donations to mosques must be scrutinized for ties to foreign extremist groups. The CIA also mandates the strict prohibition of "materials containing extremist ideology" and foreign teachers. These mandates effectively label any version of Islam from outside China, and any religious texts not produced by the CIA, to be illegal and extremist. The latter of these provisions suggests that the CIA has been vested with the formal authority to enact book bans in mosque spaces.
Taken together, these calls to increase regulation empower the CIA and constrain Islamic ritual and lifestyle practices to only those party-state-approved forms. In mandating a central role for the CIA in the appointment of mosque personnel and the enforcement of regulations on halal labeling, the educational system, financial donations, and contact with foreign Islamic communities, the Five-Year Plan seeks to eliminate any avenues for independent religious association and effect the centralization of religious authority under the umbrella of party-state oversight.
Strengthening of "Chinese" elements in Islamic culture
After outlining methods by which to increase regulation and oversight of religious practice, the CIA’s Five-Year Plan puts forward directives for actively promoting Chinese cultural elements within Islam. The document contends that the overarching goal of cultural improvement is to foreground "Chinese aesthetics and Chinese elements" in Islamic culture within China. Taking such actions, the CIA contends, is necessary for the improvement of the "cultural self-confidence" of China’s Muslims. In contrast to previous sections that focus on theological, ritual, or ideological concerns, these measures target material practices and aesthetics in architecture and dress. Within these provisions, the CIA gives instruction about how these measures ought to be publicized to larger audiences, including those in Muslim-majority countries beyond China.
As in previous sections, the CIA prescribes increased study under party-state supervision in order to inculcate the "correct" attitudes toward traditional Chinese culture. Specifically, clergy are instructed to incorporate lessons about "exceptional Chinese traditional culture" into mosque educational programming, training of imams, and communications to lay believers. Specifically, the plan flags the 2017 report issued by the Central Committee and the State Council entitled "Opinions on the Implementation of the Development Project to Promote Exceptional Traditional Chinese Culture" (于实施中华优秀传统文化传承发展工程的意见) as necessary for religious communities to study.
The plan devotes a significant portion of text to discussing specifics related to the integration of Chinese cultural elements into mosque construction and other architectural forms. Regarding the issue of mosque architecture, the report dictates that communities ought to familiarize themselves with the "Conference Minutes on Mosque Architectural Style" (清真寺建筑风格研讨会纪要). The report stipulates that renovation of existing mosques as well as any construction of new ones must follow legal stipulations on aesthetics and be "suited to China’s characteristics and highlight Chinese elements." In addition, the plan charges that mosque construction must observe norms related to frugality and modesty and should not "chase after large and exotic features, nor should they take foreign architectural styles as their standard."
By mandating that mosques should emphasize "Chinese elements," the CIA has delimited the permissible forms of architectural expression. The plan not only deems "foreign" styles inappropriate for construction but also establishes them as "exotic" and inconsistent with the principle of frugality. These designations enable the CIA to alter mosques on the grounds that they are misusing funding on ornate and non-native elements. Non-Chinese style mosques are not only out of line with the cultural imperatives of the Sinicization campaign but also scrutinized for crimes related to financial misuse.
Beyond the regulations imposed on mosque construction, the plan intends to standardize other elements of Islamic culture—namely dress and language. Firstly, the report dictates that religious dress for the purposes of ritual, including the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, should "reflect Chinese styles." The report continues to stress the importance of maintaining Sinicized standards of dress in the face of pressures to adopt non-native habits. It mandates that clergy should "correct those people who deliberately uphold the incorrect practice of imitating foreign styles of dress." These declarations empower the CIA to ban religious garments, particularly hijabs. A final measure demands that Islamic communities must conduct religious affairs (specifically "preaching and evangelism") in standard Mandarin. This provision is yet another means of establishing the linguistic hegemony of Chinese and displacing Arabic from use in Muslim communities.
Combined, these measures have produced the most visible evidence of the Sinicization campaign. The CIA, through the provisions made in these sections, has the authority to enact measures that force the renovation of "foreign" or "Arabic-style" mosques and place limitations on the wearing of "foreign" religious dress. These sections entrench Chinese aesthetic styles as the standard for Islamic communities and specifically designate elements that might be considered "foreign" as suspect. The designation of these styles as not just "incorrect" for the Chinese context but as extravagant and wasteful makes them more than mere aesthetic choices. Instead, wearing "foreign" clothes or building "foreign" buildings is rendered a marker of extremist intent.
Having established the criteria for what might be considered "Chinese elements" of Islamic culture to be promoted, the CIA’s Five-Year Plan further stipulates that Islamic communities must be active promoters of the narratives connected to the Sinicization Campaign. The plan urges the promotion of official publications from the Association, namely the magazine Chinese Muslim (中国穆斯林), as critical for disseminating positive messaging about the campaign. Moreover, the plan recommends the use of the app Chinese Muslim Portal (华伊之窗) for broadcasting success stories and "telling the story of Sinicization well." Implicit in this mandate is the narrative foregrounding of Sinicized mosques as well as the integration of Chinese culture or philosophical teachings into mosque curricula.
This focus on outward-facing publicity also extends to international exchanges with majority-Islamic states. The plan urges continued cooperation on joint efforts, particularly those connected to curbing "extremism." As such, the CIA stresses the need to continue to build relationships with the Islamic world, even as Islamic practices seen as "foreign" to China are tagged as a sign of potential danger.
These dictates to "strengthen cultural construction" place a central aesthetic, linguistic, and theological emphasis on "Chinese" elements as the core of Islam in China. By characterizing "foreign" aesthetics as wasteful spending of public resources and marks of latent extremism, the Five-Year Plan ties Sinicization efforts to party-state objectives related to both poverty alleviation and anti-corruption. In citing the need to promote "traditional" styles of art, architecture, and scriptural interpretation, the Five-Year Plan places Sinicization under the umbrella of policies related to heritage preservation.
5. Linkage of religious communities to state-supported poverty alleviation campaigns
The CIA deepens its commitments to party-state objectives by declaring that Sinicization plays a key role in the ‘Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation’. In accordance with such directives, the CIA Five-Year Plan stresses the need for Islamic communities to participate in “developing charitable activities to serve the public good.” These initiatives are directly linked to the party-state’s larger narratives on poverty alleviation and China’s overall developmental goals.
The Five-Year Plan states that Islamic charitable organizations will “be active participants in the mission for poverty alleviation,” and specifically will “implement precise support for poverty alleviation targets.” Further, the plan specifies that these poverty-alleviation efforts will work in coordination with the UFWD, and its designated areas for poverty relief. These passages directly link Sinicization to the state’s program of developmental aid.
Additionally, the plan outlines ways in which religious charity will be aligned with state-based initiatives, remarking how the CIA may expand “public interest” charitable campaigns connected to the observation of Ramadan. These charitable drives are directly linked to party-state-backed initiatives. The section closes by compelling local branches to use mosque-centered events like the celebration of Eid al-Fitr or Eid al-Adha to conduct “public interest charity” aimed at poverty reduction.
These dictates from the CIA serve to justify Sinicizing interventions as necessary for the reduction of poverty in rural communities. Combined with the previous sections concerning prohibitions on “exotic” mosque construction, the CIA casts “foreign” aesthetics in architecture or decoration as antithetical to the party-state’s drive to eliminate poverty. In imploring mosque communities to take a role in “public interest charity” for the purpose of poverty relief, the Five-Year Plan enables the CIA to play a supervisory role in how mosque finances are conducted, and where resources for mosque communities are allocated.
6. Establishment of party-state supervision and control over recruitment of clergy and other personnel
The final set of directives covered in the Five-Year Plan concern recruitment and training of religious clergy and mosque staff. The CIA specifies that training programs for clergy must be set up to be “suitable for our country.” Further, the plan stipulates that personnel trained to be Islamic clergy will be relied upon to provide support for the Sinicization of Islam, and thus aspects of the program must be included in training. Among the primary objectives of the curricular reform is to increase oversight over the China Islamic Institute, which is chosen by the plan to become “the pinnacle for cultivating Islamic talent in China” as well as “the base for training patriotic Islamic personnel.”
To accomplish these objectives, the plan designates broad authority to the CIA to compile and supervise the establishment of a common curriculum. This mandate places all regional Islamic Institutes under the CIA’s management and names the CIA as responsible for producing a common set of teaching materials to reflect the overarching goal of Sinicization. As in previous sections, the plan mandates that these course materials should “use the common national language and minority languages,” as primary modes of instruction. These designations reinforce the linguistic supremacy of the Chinese language and simultaneously marginalize the study of texts written in Persian and Arabic. Further, the plan decrees that the curriculum of Islamic Institutes should “increase the number of courses about the classic works of Chinese Islam, and add strength to courses about Chinese history and culture, contemporary Chinese society, and the general situation of religion in China.”
The plan also makes similar declarations regarding the status of “mosque education,” and aims to increase the CIA’s ability to supervise the training of imams outside of Islamic Institutes. Like the provisions made for standardization of education at the Islamic Institutes, the plan mandates that mosques conducting clerical education adopt a standardized curriculum built around patriotic education, and include instruction in Chinese culture, history, geography, and the core socialist values. Importantly, the plan specifies that the handbook, “Methods for Supervising Islamic Mosque Education” (《伊斯兰教经堂教育管理办法》) be used as a common resource for the oversight of such programs.
A final provision empowers the CIA to police "foreign" influence on Islam. The plan specifically names the Tablighi Jamaat as an illegal foreign extremist organization. Further, the plan stipulates that donations to mosques must be scrutinized for ties to foreign extremist groups. The CIA also mandates the strict prohibition of "materials containing extremist ideology" and foreign teachers. These mandates effectively label any version of Islam from outside China, and any religious texts not produced by the CIA, to be illegal and extremist. The latter of these provisions suggests that the CIA has been vested with the formal authority to enact book bans in mosque spaces.
Taken together, these calls to increase regulation empower the CIA and constrain Islamic ritual and lifestyle practices to only those party-state-approved forms. In mandating a central role for the CIA in the appointment of mosque personnel and the enforcement of regulations on halal labeling, the educational system, financial donations, and contact with foreign Islamic communities, the Five-Year Plan seeks to eliminate any avenues for independent religious association and effect the centralization of religious authority under the umbrella of party-state oversight.
Strengthening of "Chinese" elements in Islamic culture
After outlining methods by which to increase regulation and oversight of religious practice, the CIA’s Five-Year Plan puts forward directives for actively promoting Chinese cultural elements within Islam. The document contends that the overarching goal of cultural improvement is to foreground "Chinese aesthetics and Chinese elements" in Islamic culture within China. Taking such actions, the CIA contends, is necessary for the improvement of the "cultural self-confidence" of China’s Muslims. In contrast to previous sections that focus on theological, ritual, or ideological concerns, these measures target material practices and aesthetics in architecture and dress. Within these provisions, the CIA gives instruction about how these measures ought to be publicized to larger audiences, including those in Muslim-majority countries beyond China.
As in previous sections, the CIA prescribes increased study under party-state supervision in order to inculcate the "correct" attitudes toward traditional Chinese culture. Specifically, clergy are instructed to incorporate lessons about "exceptional Chinese traditional culture" into mosque educational programming, training of imams, and communications to lay believers. Specifically, the plan flags the 2017 report issued by the Central Committee and the State Council entitled "Opinions on the Implementation of the Development Project to Promote Exceptional Traditional Chinese Culture" (于实施中华优秀传统文化传承发展工程的意见) as necessary for religious communities to study.
The plan devotes a significant portion of text to discussing specifics related to the integration of Chinese cultural elements into mosque construction and other architectural forms. Regarding the issue of mosque architecture, the report dictates that communities ought to familiarize themselves with the "Conference Minutes on Mosque Architectural Style" (清真寺建筑风格研讨会纪要). The report stipulates that renovation of existing mosques as well as any construction of new ones must follow legal stipulations on aesthetics and be "suited to China’s characteristics and highlight Chinese elements." In addition, the plan charges that mosque construction must observe norms related to frugality and modesty and should not "chase after large and exotic features, nor should they take foreign architectural styles as their standard."
By mandating that mosques should emphasize "Chinese elements," the CIA has delimited the permissible forms of architectural expression. The plan not only deems "foreign" styles inappropriate for construction but also establishes them as "exotic" and inconsistent with the principle of frugality. These designations enable the CIA to alter mosques on the grounds that they are misusing funding on ornate and non-native elements. Non-Chinese style mosques are not only out of line with the cultural imperatives of the Sinicization campaign but also scrutinized for crimes related to financial misuse.
Beyond the regulations imposed on mosque construction, the plan intends to standardize other elements of Islamic culture—namely dress and language. Firstly, the report dictates that religious dress for the purposes of ritual, including the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, should "reflect Chinese styles." The report continues to stress the importance of maintaining Sinicized standards of dress in the face of pressures to adopt non-native habits. It mandates that clergy should "correct those people who deliberately uphold the incorrect practice of imitating foreign styles of dress." These declarations empower the CIA to ban religious garments, particularly hijabs. A final measure demands that Islamic communities must conduct religious affairs (specifically "preaching and evangelism") in standard Mandarin. This provision is yet another means of establishing the linguistic hegemony of Chinese and displacing Arabic from use in Muslim communities.
Combined, these measures have produced the most visible evidence of the Sinicization campaign. The CIA, through the provisions made in these sections, has the authority to enact measures that force the renovation of "foreign" or "Arabic-style" mosques and place limitations on the wearing of "foreign" religious dress. These sections entrench Chinese aesthetic styles as the standard for Islamic communities and specifically designate elements that might be considered "foreign" as suspect. The designation of these styles as not just "incorrect" for the Chinese context but as extravagant and wasteful makes them more than mere aesthetic choices. Instead, wearing "foreign" clothes or building "foreign" buildings is rendered a marker of extremist intent.
Having established the criteria for what might be considered "Chinese elements" of Islamic culture to be promoted, the CIA’s Five-Year Plan further stipulates that Islamic communities must be active promoters of the narratives connected to the Sinicization Campaign. The plan urges the promotion of official publications from the Association, namely the magazine Chinese Muslim (中国穆斯林), as critical for disseminating positive messaging about the campaign. Moreover, the plan recommends the use of the app Chinese Muslim Portal (华伊之窗) for broadcasting success stories and "telling the story of Sinicization well." Implicit in this mandate is the narrative foregrounding of Sinicized mosques as well as the integration of Chinese culture or philosophical teachings into mosque curricula.
This focus on outward-facing publicity also extends to international exchanges with majority-Islamic states. The plan urges continued cooperation on joint efforts, particularly those connected to curbing "extremism." As such, the CIA stresses the need to continue to build relationships with the Islamic world, even as Islamic practices seen as "foreign" to China are tagged as a sign of potential danger.
These dictates to "strengthen cultural construction" place a central aesthetic, linguistic, and theological emphasis on "Chinese" elements as the core of Islam in China. By characterizing "foreign" aesthetics as wasteful spending of public resources and marks of latent extremism, the Five-Year Plan ties Sinicization efforts to party-state objectives related to both poverty alleviation and anti-corruption. In citing the need to promote "traditional" styles of art, architecture, and scriptural interpretation, the Five-Year Plan places Sinicization under the umbrella of policies related to heritage preservation.
5. Linkage of religious communities to state-supported poverty alleviation campaigns
The CIA deepens its commitments to party-state objectives by declaring that Sinicization plays a key role in the ‘Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation’. In accordance with such directives, the CIA Five-Year Plan stresses the need for Islamic communities to participate in “developing charitable activities to serve the public good.” These initiatives are directly linked to the party-state’s larger narratives on poverty alleviation and China’s overall developmental goals.
The Five-Year Plan states that Islamic charitable organizations will “be active participants in the mission for poverty alleviation,” and specifically will “implement precise support for poverty alleviation targets.” Further, the plan specifies that these poverty-alleviation efforts will work in coordination with the UFWD, and its designated areas for poverty relief. These passages directly link Sinicization to the state’s program of developmental aid.
Additionally, the plan outlines ways in which religious charity will be aligned with state-based initiatives, remarking how the CIA may expand “public interest” charitable campaigns connected to the observation of Ramadan. These charitable drives are directly linked to party-state-backed initiatives. The section closes by compelling local branches to use mosque-centered events like the celebration of Eid al-Fitr or Eid al-Adha to conduct “public interest charity” aimed at poverty reduction.
These dictates from the CIA serve to justify Sinicizing interventions as necessary for the reduction of poverty in rural communities. Combined with the previous sections concerning prohibitions on “exotic” mosque construction, the CIA casts “foreign” aesthetics in architecture or decoration as antithetical to the party-state’s drive to eliminate poverty. In imploring mosque communities to take a role in “public interest charity” for the purpose of poverty relief, the Five-Year Plan enables the CIA to play a supervisory role in how mosque finances are conducted, and where resources for mosque communities are allocated.
6. Establishment of party-state supervision and control over recruitment of clergy and other personnel
The final set of directives covered in the Five-Year Plan concern recruitment and training of religious clergy and mosque staff. The CIA specifies that training programs for clergy must be set up to be “suitable for our country.” Further, the plan stipulates that personnel trained to be Islamic clergy will be relied upon to provide support for the Sinicization of Islam, and thus aspects of the program must be included in training. Among the primary objectives of the curricular reform is to increase oversight over the China Islamic Institute, which is chosen by the plan to become “the pinnacle for cultivating Islamic talent in China” as well as “the base for training patriotic Islamic personnel.”
To accomplish these objectives, the plan designates broad authority to the CIA to compile and supervise the establishment of a common curriculum. This mandate places all regional Islamic Institutes under the CIA’s management and names the CIA as responsible for producing a common set of teaching materials to reflect the overarching goal of Sinicization. As in previous sections, the plan mandates that these course materials should “use the common national language and minority languages,” as primary modes of instruction. These designations reinforce the linguistic supremacy of the Chinese language and simultaneously marginalize the study of texts written in Persian and Arabic. Further, the plan decrees that the curriculum of Islamic Institutes should “increase the number of courses about the classic works of Chinese Islam, and add strength to courses about Chinese history and culture, contemporary Chinese society, and the general situation of religion in China.”
The plan also makes similar declarations regarding the status of “mosque education,” and aims to increase the CIA’s ability to supervise the training of imams outside of Islamic Institutes. Like the provisions made for standardization of education at the Islamic Institutes, the plan mandates that mosques conducting clerical education adopt a standardized curriculum built around patriotic education, and include instruction in Chinese culture, history, geography, and the core socialist values. Importantly, the plan specifies that the handbook, “Methods for Supervising Islamic Mosque Education” (《伊斯兰教经堂教育管理办法》) be used as a common resource for the oversight of such programs.
