In their effort to “exert total control” over religion and to “sinicise” Catholic and Protestant Christianity, the authorities have “ordered the removal of crosses from churches [and] replaced images of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary with pictures of President Xi Jinping,” the report said.
The report concluded that “every facet of religious life for Buddhists, Catholics and Protestant Christians, Muslims, and Taoists” was facing pressure to incorporate CCP ideology, and religious elements considered contradictory to the state’s political agenda were being eradicated.
Dictators always do that.
And, not because they’re atheists as the butthurt Christians so often claim.
It’s all about centralized control and not allowing for divided loyalties or spaces for people to gather outside the party’s control.
More often dictators take control of the church and use it for propaganda.
The US has it figured out, give the churches that support you special privilege