In Lanzhou, children and senior citizens are recruited to become “anti-xie-jiao experts.”
by Liu Mengyao
China’s anti-religious propaganda has always been ambitious. Still, its latest campaign shows a new approach: no one is too young or too old to be pulled into the fight against xie jiao, literally “organizations spreading heterodox teachings,” now increasingly used to designate “cults and illegal religions.”
Toddlers, get ready. Grandparents, lace up your shoes. In Lanzhou, Gansu’s capital, the struggle for ideological purity now reaches from the schoolyard to the morning exercise group. The outcomes are, depending on your sense of humor, either very alarming or unintentionally funny.
At the city’s Anti-Xie-Jiao Warning Education Base, primary school students enter a world where danger hides behind every glue stick and anime club. A guide seriously tells them that “some xie jiao hide in ‘anime societies’ and ‘handicraft groups.’” The children, we hear, quickly sit up straight, presumably rethinking their choices and wondering if origami leads to spiritual danger.
A real case is shared: in 2024, a stranger near a middle school offered “free drawing lessons” and distributed booklets containing banned religious content. One student noticed something “odd” and informed a teacher, saving the school from potential disaster. The children whisper, “Bad people pretend to be good teachers!”—a statement that would be unsettling if it weren’t said with the sincerity of a public-service cartoon.
Next is the VR experience, where students practice saying no to illegal pamphlets from virtual strangers. After they complete the simulation, they earn medals proclaiming them “Little Anti-Xie-Jiao Experts,” and wear them with the pride of junior firefighters. By the end of the visit, many choose to become propagandists themselves, joining weekend patrols to alert residents about suspicious “interest classes.” Nothing defines childhood like handing out anti-religious flyers instead of playing soccer.
But children are only part of the story. Older people—those kind souls who rise at
dawn to stretch in the park—are also being recruited. According to reports, morning exercisers are the primary targets of xie jiao, particularly those who claim to cure ailments without medicine. One brave retiree, Mr. Zhao, recounts seeing two women handing colorful flyers to a man with a cane. Sensing trouble, he hid behind a tree, recorded the conversation, took pictures of the suspects, and called the police. The authorities later rewarded him with cash for his alertness.
Motivated by his success, Mr. Zhao joined the community’s anti-xie-jiao volunteer team, where he now gives weekly talks warning fellow seniors to avoid anyone promising miracle cures. Across Lanzhou, over 100 communities have sent elderly representatives to the anti-xie-jiao base for training, and more than 30 “xie-jiao-related clues” have been reported since 2024. Monthly “anti-xie-jiao storytelling sessions” let residents share their experiences, exchange tips, and presumably bond over the thrill of watching for suspicious activity.
In today’s China, the fight against “cults and illegal religions” starts from childhood and continues into old age. Children learn to distrust free art lessons. Grandparents learn to view park conversations as undercover missions. Everyone becomes a potential informant, a small guardian of the ideological boundary.
It would all seem sinister if it weren’t so oddly theatrical. The state imagines xie jiao hiding in craft clubs, lurking behind watercolor sets, and stalking the elderly with pamphlets printed in suspiciously bright colors. So, in response, it trains children to be tiny protectors of orthodoxy and seniors to become amateur detectives armed with smartphones and a moral sense of duty.
Ultimately, the propaganda reveals the Party’s own fears. When even a free drawing class is seen as a spiritual threat, you start to wonder if the real concern is not the xie jiao but the chance that people—young or old—might begin to think for themselves.
Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.
