At a time of increasing religious and ethnic persecution in China, the CCP’s recent actions to tear down symbols of one of China’s most historic religions, is reminiscent of darker days under the Cultural Revolution that ravaged China for a decade. 

The Cultural Revolution was a ten-year period, beginning in 1966, where the Communist Party of China under the leadership of Mao Zedong sought to purge China of its capitalist and traditional influences. They targeted the “Four Olds, ” a term that included the old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas.

To do this, the CCP destroyed historic statues, persecuted the country’s academics, and replaced traditional art and culture with a new pro-communist selection. This revolution heavily targeted China’s religious groups for their threats to the Communist agenda – Tibetan Buddhism has been targeted for its pre-Communist heritage, Christianity for its influence from western world. 

This attack on Tibetan heritage and religion comes only a month after the CCP shuttered a Tibetan School at the Drakgo Monastery and comes as little surprise given China’s increasing persecution of religious and ethnic minorities across the country. The CCP has targeted Christian groups across the country to control religion through the state and has carried out a systemic genocide against the Xinjiang province’s Uyghur Muslim population.

Tibetans continue to face increasing persecution in China as the CCP attempts to further subjugate this occupied province, break their spirits, and crush any aspiration for Tibetan separatism. The CCP’s assault on religious and ethnic heritage remind us of darker days where China looked to eliminate any influence that might contract the CCP’s communist agenda. 

Source: persecution.org