China’s campaign to crack down on Islam, explained

Islam has been in China for more than 1,300 years, and Muslims there have a long and storied history.

But that legacy is currently under threat, as China’s 22 million Muslims face an ongoing “Sinicisation” process that aims to fully assimilate this minority into the majority Han-Chinese society. The suppression of the Turkic Uighurs in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region has long been discussed and documented.

But Chinese-speaking Muslims (the Hui) and Islam in China’s interior provinces have similarly, if not more quietly, been subject to a fierce campaign. In the past five years, some 1,700 mosques in China have been destroyed or modified to remove their iconic minarets and domes, according to a striking new report.

Meanwhile, some local municipalities have banned Chinese students under the age of 18 from entering mosques or learning about Islam. Muslim bookstores have been closed and religious publications are prohibited. Even Halal signs in Arabic have been removed from Muslim restaurants.

To understand this phenomenon, one has to understand the history of Islam in China and China’s political dynamics associated with its Marxist ruling ideology.

Since the Ming Dynasty in the 14th century, Islam and Muslims as a whole had already been assimilated into Chinese societies and cultures. During this time period Muslims adopted the Chinese language.

Muslim religious professionals such as Buddhist and Daoist clergies registered with and were authorised by the Chinese state. Muslim intellectuals took part in the Confucian civil service exam. The Muslim populace married Han Chinese.

Islam began to be interpreted in Confucian terms and a rich Han Kitab (or Chinese book) literature began to emerge.

Muslims of various origins, cultures, and languages now became Sino-Muslim, or Chinese-speaking Muslim, and Islam became Sino-phone Islam. Or in other words, Muslims became Chinese and Islam was Sinicised, as evidenced by the construction of pagodas, or temple-shaped mosques, and the formation of Confucian-Muslim literati.

However, things began to change in the early 20th century, especially after China launched the Open Door policy to foreign investors in the late 1970s. Islam and Muslims in China began to be influenced by Middle Eastern dynamics, especially by Arab culture and way of understanding. Chinese Muslims who used to study in Ottoman Türkiye now went to Arab countries including Egypt’s Al Azhar University and schools in Gulf Arab countries.

Students brought back increased Arabic vocabularies in daily life. Restored mosques often adopt Middle Eastern or Arabesque style. All these practices and adoptions were tolerated during the Open Door policy from the 1970s to 2010. However, they began to be seen as an obstacle to China’s Han cultural populism and ethnic nationalism.

Since the collapse of the former Soviet Union and East European socialist countries, Marxism has faced global decline and the Chinese communist party has sought to legitimise and consolidate Marxism (which cherishes class struggle and justifies the dictatorship of the proletariat working class) through Sinicisation.

As Chinese President Xi Jinping described, Mao Zedong, the founding father of Communist China, had combined Marxism with the “specific realities” (or conditions) of China’s revolutionary period. Mao, however, did not tie Marxism to traditional Han Chinese culture, probably due to the inherent incompatibility between socialism, which was aimed at eradicating social classes, and Confucianism which reinforced social hierarchies.

In a majoritarian populist world today following the collapse of the socialist bloc and the Marxist ideology globally since the 1990s, Xi attempts to root Marxism in Chinese history and tradition for political legitimacy and cultural confidence, a cultural appeal for making China great again or the Chinese version of “Make America Great Again.”

After becoming president in 2012, Xi said he wanted to pursue the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation—essentially making the majority Han Chinese civilization great again. At the 20th National Party Congress in 2022, Xi re-affirmed that “to uphold and develop Marxism, we must integrate it with China’s fine traditional culture. Only by taking root in the rich historical and cultural soil of the country and the nation can the truth of Marxism flourish here.”

This strategy has led to the demotion of non-Han cultures and religions by accusing them as foreign. Arab-influenced domes and mosques are now deemed non-traditional, un-socialist, and even reactionary.

As a 2018 document revealed, Xi and the Party Central Committee made a series of important decisions and arrangements on Islam since the 18th National Congress, specifying the ultimate directions and major tasks regarding Islam.

They identified as worrisome certain trends such as “de-Sinicisation,” “Saudisation,” and “Arabisation” in architecture, clothing, religious rituals, scripture interpretation, and the use of the Arabic language. The Sinicisation movement targeting Islam and Muslims in China’s interior regions entails demolishing Arab-style minarets and even mosques, banning the religious exchange between Chinese Muslims and Arab Muslims, and eradicating everything that is considered Middle Eastern or Arabesque.

The new wave of Sinicisation first of all is a majoritarian populism aiming at consolidating and legitimising the Chinese communist rule through Han nationalism and by Sinicising/Hanifying non-Han ideology such as Marxism and non-Han cultures/religions such as Islam. Sinicisation requires maximisation of assimilation of non-Han cultures and religions into Han culture/history.

“Arabisation” and “Saudisation” of Islam in general, and Wahhabi-inspired Islam in particular in contemporary China constitute “de-Sinicisation” in modern China, as the 2018 document denounces. Sinicisation of (Arab-influenced) Islam, to some extent, represents a cultural decoupling with the (Wahhabi-inspired) Arab world.

In other words, Sinicisation essentially aims to secularise Islam. In addition to affecting China’s Islamic architecture, the process will also affect the interpretation of Islamic texts. It will require using Confucian/Chinese/Communist terms to interpret Islam in order to make Islam adapt to contemporary ruling ideology of socialism and majoritarian cultural norms.

For Chinese-speaking Muslims, this isn’t the first time they have had to forcefully adapt to Chinese realities and dynamics. From the Ming dynasty’s (neo)-Chinese Confucianism to early 20th-century Chinese nationalism and to post-1949 Chinese communism, Chinese-speaking Muslims have experienced various political and social turmoil and strived to preserve their Islamic faith through adaptation and accommodation.

Despite grievances, many Chinese Muslims see this as a test of their Islamic faith and will continuously adjust non-essential aspects of their religious life while sticking to the central tenets of Islam in a non-Muslim country.

Finally, to curb foreign (Arab) religious influences on Chinese Muslims and to control Islamic institutions will likely lead to eradication of (Arab/Wahhabi-inspired) Islam and the development of Chinese indigenous Islam by reviving the Han Kitab tradition and by forming a Confucian Islam.

In the best scenario, the possible result of the Sinicisation of Islam in China could be the emergence of a Sino-Islam closely tied to Chinese history, culture, and ideology, not Middle Eastern tides and dynamics.