The United Front told the leaders of the five authorized religions that holidays should be an opportunity to teach believers to identify with China, the CCP, and socialism.
by Hu Zimo
The United Front gathered the leaders of the government-controlled five authorized religions to wish them happy Lunar New Year—and to remind them that holidays are opportunities not to be wasted to educate believers to “patriotic values.”
The top leaders of China Buddhist Association, China Islamic Association, China Taoist Association, the Patriotic Catholic Church and the Protestant Three-Self Church gathered on February 5 for a “Spring Festival Symposium of Leaders of National Religious Groups.”
The meeting was attended by the CCP ideologue-in-chief, Wang Huning, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, who delivered the keynote speech.
He recommended that holidays be used as a starting point for a campaign aimed at preaching in all places of worship the “Five Identifications” (五个认同). The formula is regarded by Xi Jinping as very important. He introduced the identifications in 2014 but had particularly emphasized them since 2021. They were four in 2014 but had become five by 2015, including identification with the CCP.
Interestingly, Xi Jinping introduced the identifications at a conference on Xinjiang. The first two identifications are with “the Great Motherland” and “the Chinese Nation.” The “Great Motherland” is a concept encompassing all the territorial claims of the People’s Republic of China, including to Tibet, Xinjiang, and of course Taiwan. They are all parts of the “Great Motherland.” “The Chinese Nation” is in turn one entity, including minorities but shaped by Han Chinese history, language, and culture. That these two identifications need to be preached by the official religions means that they are expected to cooperate in the struggle against all forms of “separatism,” particularly by Uyghurs and Tibetans. They, and everybody else, should embrace the third identification: with “Chinese culture,” read Han Chinese culture even if, as in the case of Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Southern Mongolians this is not their cultural tradition and they speak a different tongue.
Not any Chinese culture, though. The fourth and fifth identifications are with the Chinese Communist Party and with Marxist “Socialism with Chinese characteristics.” The Party is the sole arbiter authorized to define what should be kept of Chinese culture. Religious believers are of course at risk of missing full identification with the Communist Party and Marxism, hence the new campaign, reminding the authorized religions that the role of their places of worship and preachers is to broadcast the ideology of Xi Jinping.
In fact, some religionists who were forced into the authorized religions after an experience in the “illegal” unauthorized religious communities may have vivid reminiscences of the “Five Identifications.” The method of indoctrination used in Chinese jails to reeducate political and religious dissidents includes their memorizing five booklets explaining each of the “Five Identifications.”
Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.
