4.2 Arabic Script

Bans on the use of Arabic script in public places reflect the principles contained in Document 10 that Arabic should not be considered an ethnic minority language, and that the use of Arabic is itself a sign of the recent ‘Saudization’ and ‘Arabization’. By extension, the party-state offers no formal legal protection for Arabic language education for Muslim minorities (see 5.3 Removal of Arabic Provision and 5.4 Control of Publishing), nor for the usage of Arabic calligraphic inscriptions as a distinctive marker of Hui culture.

As with other measures, removals of Arabic signage followed province-by-province implementation and were unevenly enforced. ‘Halal’ signs in Arabic were removed from shops and restaurants in Ningxia beginning in March 2018, in the wake of similar measures applied to businesses in Xinjiang. Such removals often took place overnight, with previous decor clumsily painted over. Arabic halal signs were replaced with a simple government-issued logo (see 4.3 Pan-Halalification). Following this initial implementation in Ningxia, mandates to remove Arabic signage were slowly enacted across the rest of China, with the majority coming into effect across 2019-2020.

The severity of the bans on Arabic language has varied. In some places, removals have extended to blacking out Arabic script on vases inside mosques. Elsewhere, Arabic calligraphy displayed in the interior of mosques in other locations has remained untouched. In some regions, the directives against halal signage and Arabic script have broadened to encompass businesses with Islamic-sounding Chinese names, forcing them to rebrand.

Almost 1000 signs in Linxia, Gansu, were replaced in 2018, in addition to further bans on halal labeling. In 2020, residents in Hebei and Shandong were required to cover the du’a plaques that decorate gateways to private homes. In 2018 in Pingliang, Gansu, famous for its Muslim-Chinese calligraphers and where hanging du’a is a prized local tradition, party-state officials reportedly threatened locals, stating that their doors and gates would be “broken” if they did not cover them.

Such variation in the standards for when Arabic script should be considered acceptable is further complicated by pressure from Islamophobic activists who circulate guides online detailing how to employ government tiplines to spur further crackdowns from local government. One such guide published on the question-and-answer website Zhuanlan Zhihu (roughly similar to Quora), details how in 2018, an activist used a hotline to the mayor of Ordos, Inner Mongolia, to report a signboard outside the Dongsheng Mosque in that city for containing content that “greatly overstepped the confines of religious activities” (for further details of this case, see 6.0 Surveillance and Monitoring). The signboard outside the mosque was removed as a result, and the activist’s report led to a further investigation that forced the removal of Arabic calligraphic decorations and Islamic symbols inside the mosque premises. Intervention by activists effectively ensured the local authorities had to take action that exceeded the original targets of the Sinicization campaign. Similarly, in May 2023, Islamophobic netizens reported a restaurant in Beijing for hanging a Chinese-language plaque reading “the Lord grant peace” (主赐平安). Although the sign was in Chinese, the ensuing investigation nevertheless ordered the restaurant to take their plaque down.



4.3 Pan-Halalification

Official discourse from the party-state has decried the use of halal labeling as a brand, arguing that the designation of a diverse range of products as halal in search of profit carries negative consequences for China’s economy as well as its national security. In 2016, the Party Secretary of Ningxia, Li Jianhua, denounced the overuse of halal labeling as a distortion of the market and as a danger to national security: “As expanded use of halal labeling, with products such as halal water, halal paper, halal toothpaste, and halal makeup, from the perspective of national security, we must increase our vigilance. We must recognize the slightest signs, prevent the smallest mistakes, and establish dialectical thinking, whilst also fully respecting ethnic minority customs and habits. We must work to prevent the generalization of halal labeling, seek advantage and evade harm, and provide scientific leadership.” Halal labeling has been a particular lightning rod for online Islamophobic activists, who view any use of halal labeling as a sign of spreading Islamism and de-Sinicization.

Restrictions on halal labeling began to be enforced from mid-2016, with systematic bans and regulation in place from 2018 onwards. Store owners stocking items labeled as halal outside the party-state’s narrow definition of the term have been forced to return stock to sellers or had their items confiscated and, in some instances, destroyed. In March 2017, Ningxia announced steps to remove ‘wrongly labeled’ halal products (i.e., goods labeled ‘halal’ that did not contain meat products) from markets. In early 2018, Ningxia issued new regulations on halal signage, including a standardized halal sign for businesses to display. In addition to banning the usage of any halal signage beyond the official approved provincial design, the regulations also stipulated that names, signs, and trademarks for businesses could not contain the term ‘qingzhen’ (halal) or any other words with Islamic connotations. According to the regulations, violators of halal labeling rules will receive a warning first, and will then be fined if they do not change their labels. Businesses have been threatened with removal of their business licenses or closure orders for non-compliance.

State agencies (i.e., the Food and Drug Administration, often in cooperation with local security forces or Religious and Ethnic Affairs), police businesses through frequent and far-ranging inspections to identify signs with unauthorized halal branding and stocks of products with inappropriate halal labeling. Companies found to violate these restrictions have been forced to remove halal labeling from their packaging. Indicative of the scale of such oversight, Huiji district in Zhengzhou, Henan, reported that they had conducted 25 inspections of halal produce and shopkeepers within a six-month period, and distributed over 3000 pamphlets and awareness-raising items to grassroots-level cadres and large merchants.

Inspections are sweeping in scope and can intrude significantly into business operations and space. For instance, in a neighborhood inspection conducted in 2021 in Lanzhou by the Gaolan Street Office, local businesses were reminded that halal signage must be used only on products “within the scope of halal food,” and signage at the entrances to halal restaurants must be restricted to the Chinese characters ‘qingzhen’ (清真). Display of halal signage in pinyin, English, Arabic, or Uyghur is forbidden, as is the use of Islamic symbols such as the crescent moon or a dome. Businesses were further instructed to close any prayer spaces for employees. Such measures produce substantial consequences for Muslim consumers. A lack of proper signage and branding further complicates the practice of procuring halal meat — a process already riven with ambiguities due to the lack of a nationwide standard process of certification and the proliferation of impostor halal vendors.

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As detailed in Part I above, Sinicization is a sprawling project, with implications that touch all aspects of life in affected communities. In Part II of this report, we explore how Sinicization policy has been implemented and discuss its impact on China’s Muslim communities. To do so, we divide Sinicization policy into five main areas of implementation, namely 1) organization, 2) aesthetics, 3) scripture, language, and education, 4) surveillance and monitoring, and 5) mosque mergers. These categories are loose and do not represent policy domains as defined in state documents. Moreover, these domains should not be understood as isolated from each other – rather, actions clustered in each domain work to bolster other areas of impact. Additionally, certain measures (notably the expansion of rural surveillance and tightening of control over Party committees) act to reinforce the implementation of Sinicization policy, but are themselves part of wider authoritarian policy implementation in the contemporary PRC.

To analyze these processes, we have collated a database of items dealing with the implementation of Sinicization policy. The sources collected vary widely, from China Islamic Association briefings and reports, local government policy reports, and local United Front branch updates to social media posts written by individuals with interest in the implementation of Sinicization policy. While in most instances links to the original evidence are provided, in limited instances the authors have elected to provide a code in place of the original reference for social media posts made by private individuals to protect their identities. Further information is available on request from the researchers. Much information around the Sinicization of Islam is suppressed, and affected communities are discouraged from talking publicly about measures they have experienced. As a result, although we attempt to present as full and comprehensive a picture as possible to understand Sinicization in action, inevitably there is more information available on certain aspects and on certain locations. This report should be taken as a preliminary survey of these domains.

3.0 Organization

Control of religious organizations is understood as a precondition for the implementation of religious work policies. This has entailed a tightening of policies on four fronts, namely 1) an emphasis on the behavior and responsibilities of grassroots cadres, 2) tightening control over the China Islamic Association (CIA), 3) mosque committees, and 4) mosque personnel.

3.1 Policing Cadre Behavior

Across the PRC, disciplinary inspections of cadres form a key backdrop to the implementation of Sinicization policy. Performance of atheism has always been an expectation for high-ranking party officials. However, in practice, it was often tacitly accepted that village-level officials were also sometimes religiously active. Indeed, the party-state has a long, sometimes complicated history of working with and in religious communities, creating a “middle ground” in which space is made for Islamic community, in practice and law. While increased attention to grassroots cadre behavior and campaigns for ensuring moral probity among officials have been a feature of the Xi years more broadly, measures for the Sinicization of religion have been accompanied by tightening of religious discipline for cadres across the board. The religious attitudes of local officials were identified as a key barrier to the achievement of Party policy objectives, and hence, reform of grassroots cadre behavior has been prioritized as necessary for achieving the broader policy aims of the Sinicization campaign.

Such emphasis on religious discipline is most clearly seen in the 2018 revision to the Regulations on Discipline and Punishment for Chinese Communist Party, which added a clause (Article 62) specifically stating that Party members who hold religious faith themselves should be provided with “thought education.” If, following intervention, there is no change observed in their beliefs, they should be persuaded to give up their membership or stripped of it. Those who participate in activities which “use religion as incitement” are also to be expelled. The Regulations represent the most concrete instantiation of earlier commitments to atheism as a key aspect of cadre discipline found in resolutions such as the “Certain Principles for Political Life within the Party Under the New Situation” (关于新形势下党内政治生活的若干准则), passed at the sixth Plenary Session of the 18th National Congress.

A 2018 inspection tour of Ningxia conducted under the auspices of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection found that Ningxia party organizations had ‘serious shortcomings’ in the leadership of religious work. In response, the Ningxia Party Committee launched a series of activities, intended to reassert the “Marxist view of ethnicity and religion” to cadres at all levels within the provincial system. The measures also note refinements to working practices and functional positioning for cadres dealing with ethnic and religious work. These emphasize oversight of cadres involved in such work, noting that cadres found to have taken ‘inappropriate actions’ in handling religious affairs will be strictly dealt with.

The impact of the updated Regulations can be seen across China, and especially in areas with concentrations of Islamic population. In Linxia, 4,557 cadres and party members were required to sign formal commitments of atheism. Section-level cadres were required to attend training on the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the CPC in order that they could better guide those under their supervision to realize their previously pledged commitment to atheism. Inspections were launched of all cadres found to have worn religious garments, with further monitoring of behavior following thereafter. Retired cadres in the area were also required to attend training to reassert the primacy of the Party, in a move that echoes reports from Qinghai and Ningxia that retired cadres have been banned from performing the Hajj.

In 2019, Aksai Kazakh Prefecture in Gansu reported that – in response to the issue of “Party members and public officials participating in the Hajj,” which had been raised as an issue by an earlier disciplinary inspection – the prefectural government had banned all Party members from religious belief and initiated investigations into Party members found to have previously performed the Hajj. Several were subjected to intensive personalized interventions intended to transform their thinking following these investigations, although the outcome of such interventions remains unclear from the available reports. Zhangjiachuan, Gansu, conducted similar inspections and mass training on party-state religious policies and atheism for cadres across 2020, with a particular focus on village-level cadres and on ensuring that cadres were banned from performing the Hajj. Zhangjiachuan reported improvement of pre-appointment approval mechanisms to ensure that religious believers and clergy could not serve as village cadres. The area also reported reforms to reporting procedures to ensure that responsibility for religious work could not be evaded to guarantee the implementation of religious policy at the local level.

Reassertion of the importance of cadres holding the ‘correct’ attitude to religion has functioned both as a statement of the priority that religious work has under the current regime, a rationale for the removal of cadres at the grassroots, and a tool for checking enforcement. Disciplinary oversight has further aided the development of new working methods at the grassroots level. These changes are seen most noticeably in Ningxia, which – following a 2018 disciplinary inspection – instituted a series of training for cadres on Xi Jinping Thought and approaches to religious work, as well as a series of reforms to working practices to ensure that grassroots-level officials were held accountable for fulfilling their duties in religious work. These reforms created cross-department working groups, thereby strengthening Party groups at the lowest level. These groups have allowed extensive coordination between local cadres, United Front, PSB, and other relevant organizations, effectively combating the fragmented authoritarianism that often characterizes PRC governance at the lowest level. Disciplinary inspections continue to be utilized as a method for inspecting religious work across key areas, as in the September 2023 inspection of religious work in Pingliang in Gansu.
 

Scrutinizing cadres suspected to hold religious beliefs through training and investigations – and threatening disciplinary measures for those found to be ‘two-faced’ – ensured that when instructions like those given in “Document 10” were circulated, local governments rushed to show that they were implementing them accordingly. For example, in Linxia from 2017 onwards, a number of departments that seemingly had little to do with Islamic work held meetings to study the spirit of Xi Jinping’s instructions, including Linxia Archives and the Environmental Bureau. Following its study meeting, the Environmental Bureau determined that its own remit included tackling the use of loudspeakers in mosques to broadcast the call to prayer under regulations on noise pollution. In 2018, Linxia convened an all-prefecture conference to study the spirit of Xi Jinping’s instructions on Islamic work. Later that month, local county leaders down to the township level in Hezheng County, Linxia were required to sign commitments to Sinicization and resisting the Three Transformations. In effect, the scope of religious work was expanded to all areas of government, leaving officials to determine the scope of implementation within their own domains.

The impact of these measures to police cadres’ behavior has been far-reaching. In areas where village cadres are now also expected to lead mosque management committees as part of further organizational changes, the presence of an official who cannot participate in the life of the community is an interruption to the normal conduct of religious affairs. In a recent case in Yunnan, Party members were explicitly banned from fasting during Ramadan, in contrast to previous years when this had been tolerated. The threat of being labelled a “two-faced official” has made that designation into a self-fulfilling prophecy: cadres who never previously saw any inherent antagonism between being a part of the party and being a member of the religious community now find themselves having to navigate complicated tensions between their professional and social worlds. Pressure to enforce the party-state’s bans by reporting those who violate them places these ‘unofficially’ religious cadres under tremendous strain.


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Following this period of policy formulation, the party-state began the process of localized implementation of Sinicisation policies. This implementation period allowed party-state actors on subnational (and in many cases subprovincial) levels to refine tactics related to policy implementation and messaging surrounding the campaign. The localized rollout of these policies resulted in a few locations—namely, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and southern Gansu province—serving as early test cases for working out best practices related to policy implementation. Lessons learned from the implementation of policies in these initial locations were quickly applied to Islamic communities throughout the rest of China. By late 2019, Sinicisation policies were underway in provinces in East China. In the summer of 2021, processes of Sinicisation were being undertaken in Qinghai province. By mid-2023, these measures were being implemented in holdouts in conservative Hui communities like Najiaying and Shadian in southeastern Yunnan.

The processes of standardization and ideological management undertaken in this initial phase of Sinicisation served as a precursor for the implementation of the next stage of the campaign, where the party-state turned its focus to reducing the density of mosques and gaining control over personnel management. These policies intended to deepen Sinicisation, achieve consolidation of party-state control, and compel the transformation of religious communities.

To enforce and implement these policies, the party-state has utilized a number of legal instruments. The party-state often cites statutes concerning building registration and planning. Concerns for proper maintenance of registration have also been used to justify the party-state’s involvement in the policing of religious clergy and mosque personnel. In some instances, the party-state has justified interventions on economic or financial grounds. Preservation of cultural heritage stands as yet another justification for alterations to mosque architecture. Most of these justifications align with broad goals of national security and counterterrorism. At each stage of the project, the party-state’s interventions have been accompanied by targeted surveillance to monitor implementation. The surveillance undertaken as part of the Sinicisation campaign has employed both high-tech digital infrastructure as well as on-the-ground human intelligence.

Better understanding the various parameters and directives that the campaign of Sinicisation encompasses requires an overview of the two key documents—the CIA’s Five-Year Plan and Document 10 of the Xinjiang Papers—which provide instruction on how the campaign ought to be implemented and detailed discussions of the broad objectives and basic functions of the campaign. In the following section, we provide an outline of these key documents and their implications for how Sinicisation has been pursued.

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1.2 Policy Development

The current system of Sinicization policies has roots in a cohort of scholars and policymakers within the party-state bureaucracy and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ advocacy for a so-called ‘second-generation’ of minzu policies.27 These proposed policies called for the abandonment of minzu identification altogether and pressed for the adoption of a system that prioritized “contact, communication and fusion.”28
Often, these calls for reform were justified as necessary for the preservation of societal stability under the party-state’s rule. The 2009 unrest in Xinjiang especially galvanized policymakers who framed control over ethnic identity as a central concern of the party-state.29 In response, calls for greater assimilation became louder and more influential within the central administration. By the time Xi ascended into leadership, a shift towards a homogenizing, assimilative nation-state building process was in evidence. Changes in the staffing and structure of the administration of ethnic politics illustrated such shifts.30
These measures were swiftly implemented in Turkic and Muslim communities in Xinjiang. Though the party-state’s efforts to link unrest in Xinjiang to the larger politics of the US-led Global War on Terror (GWOT) began in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, securitization around Islamic identity intensified following July 5, 2009 unrest in Urumqi.31 After a number of attacks occurred between 2009 and 2014, Xi leaned into more aggressive strategies of assimilation to counter “extremist” religious ideologies. In a speech given in Urumqi on April 30, 2014, following an inspection tour of Xinjiang in the wake of the Kunming attacks earlier in the month, Xi outlined the dangers of the so-called “three forces” (三股势力) of terrorism, separatism and religious extremism. Highlighting the unique dangers posed by infiltrators from abroad, Xi warned, “There are ‘seeds’ outside the country, ‘soil’ inside the country, and ‘markets’ online, which are the main reasons for the active violent and terrorist activities in Xinjiang.”32
Following two further attacks in Urumqi (on April 28 and May 22) Xi declared the opening of the “Strike Hard Against Violent Terrorism Campaign (严厉打击暴力恐怖活动专项行动).” Speaking privately to the Second Central Xinjiang Work Forum on May 28, Xi characterized “extremist” (read “foreign”) Islamic ideology as a virus. His remarks stressed that this “disease” of religious extremism must be treated with Sinicisation, declaring, “Heart disease needs heart medicine. For Xinjiang, this ‘heart medicine’ is the correct view of the motherland and nation, Chinese culture, the socialist core value system and socialist core values.”33
Publicly, Xi emphasized the centrality of “traditional Chinese values” in informing the party-state’s policies on ethnic and religious affairs. In an April 2016 address to the National Conference of Work Related to Religious Affairs, Xi pronounced that religious communities in China should “interpret religious doctrines in a way that is conducive to modern China’s progress and in line with our excellent traditional culture” and warned that China must “resolutely guard against overseas infiltrations via religious means and prevent ideological infringement by extremists.”34 During his 2017 address to the 19th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi reprised this rhetoric by promising “We will remain committed to the principle that religions in China must be Chinese in orientation and provide active guidance to religions so that they can adapt to socialist society.”35
Practically, the party-state has devised a comprehensive and iterative set of policy measures intended to implement the call to Sinicisation made in Xi’s remarks. The most visible enactment of these measures by the party-state–undertaken as part of the so-called “People’s War on Terror” (人民反恐战争)–has occurred in Xinjiang’s Uyghur, Kazakh and other Turkic and Muslim communities.36 However, Muslim minority communities throughout China have seen the implementation of measures aimed at de-Islamification and officials from areas with significant Muslim minority populations have coordinated with their counterparts in Xinjiang on “counter-terrorism” measures.37
The policies of Sinicisation enacted in Islamic communities encompass a wide array of interventions and measures enacted primarily by local governments in communication with the UFWD and the Chinese Islamic Association (CIA). After a series of workshops and white papers released between 2014 and 2017 which defined the threats related to the so-called “Three Transformations” (三化) of ”Saudification” (沙化), Arabization (阿化), and pan-halalification (清真概念泛化), policymakers in the central bureaucracy developed a comprehensive and multifaceted program of Sinicisation in response. The party-state adopted a gradualist approach to implementing Sinicisation strategies, first experimenting with processes and tactics at local levels, then expanding to implementing them nationwide. Further, the party-state has implemented policy in phases, building off of earlier foundations to entrench and extend Sinicisation processes. As a result, the process of implementing policy has been piecemeal and iterative.
In initial stages, beginning in early 2018, key speeches and strategic policy documents articulated overarching goals and best practices for Sinicisation nationwide. In particular, two documents—“The Five Year Workplan for Adhering to the Sinicisation of Islam in China, 2018-2022” (坚持我国伊斯兰教中国化方向五年工作规划纲, 2018-2022) and “Suggestions on Strengthening and Improving Islamic Work in the New Situation (关于加强和改进新形势下伊斯兰教工作的意见)”—provide guiding principles for the campaign, and set strategic priorities.38
These imperatives were developed at a central level in close cooperation with the CIA, and outline broad objectives of the campaign—namely, entrenching patriotic education, eliminating “foreign” religious influence in aesthetics, scriptural interpretation and practice of worship, re-centering religious practice on “traditional” Chinese culture, and establishing channels for party-state surveillance. For example, the Five Year Plan emphasized the necessity of promoting the “Four Enters Program to Bring Chinese Exceptional Traditional Culture into Mosques” (中华优秀传统文化四进清真寺活动, hereafter referred to as “The Four Enters”), an initiative to ‘exceptional traditional Chinese culture’ in mosques begun in 2014.39
These guiding documents also established the ideological justification for party-state intervention in religious affairs—largely, countering “religious extremism” and protection of a historically-rooted, “uniquely Chinese Islam.” Further, these documents established benchmarks for progress toward Sinicisation and standards for the “correct” practice of faith in Islamic communities. Through such specifications the documents created a template for Sinicisation to be enacted by authorities on the ground at the local level.
 
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36 Klimeš 2018, Byler 2021, Clarke 2022.

37 Ji Yuqiao, ‘Ningxia Learns from Xinjiang How to Fight

Terrorism - Global Times’, Global Times, 27 Novem-

ber 2018, sec. Society, https://www.globaltimes.cn/con-

tent/1129272.shtml; Stroup 2022, p.157–65.

38 Better known as “Document No. 10” in the “Xinjiang

Papers.” We will hereafter refer to it as such.

39 https://news.ifeng.com/a/20141212/42699377_0.shtml view all