Communist China Still One of the Worst Abusers of Religious Freedom, Report Says

‘The CCP persecution of people of faith reveals a regime that denies the dignity of the individual,’ Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) said.

Chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) presides over a hearing in Washington on March 5, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The U.S. religious freedom watchdog called out China’s communist regime for continuing to carry out its “corrosive sinicization policy” against religious groups, in its 2025 annual report released on March 25.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent federal commission, stated in the report that religious freedom conditions in China “remained among the worst in the world” in 2024, as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) persists in forcing its “ideological agenda into every facet of religious life” among people of faith.

Several lawmakers participated in the rollout event for the report, including Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP.

“For decades, the CCP has carried out the sinicization of religion, which is a full-scale assault on faith and the courageous Chinese people who choose to believe in a power higher than communism,” Moolenaar said.

“The CCP persecution of people of faith reveals a regime that denies the dignity of the individual. The Uyghur genocides, internment camps, the destruction of mosques, and the forced sterilization of women are all horrors from which we must not look away.

“The CCP has also been rewriting the Bible and other sacred texts, not to clarify them, but to corrupt them, twisting spiritual truth into communist propaganda.”

The Chinese regime has been waging a war against faith since it seized power, with successive Party leaders having launched campaign after campaign to suppress and control religious communities in China.

The USCIRF report identified several groups that the CCP has targeted, including Muslim Uyghurs, Hui Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, Christians, and Falun Gong practitioners.

Inside China, Chinese authorities regularly use big data; artificial intelligence; and facial, voice, and gait recognition to conduct mass surveillance against these groups, according to the report.

Several individuals are named in the report, including Protestant pastor Kan Xiaoyong, who was sentenced in January 2024 to 14 years in prison by a Chinese court on what the report describes as “groundless allegations.”

Falun Gong

Another person mentioned in the report, Xu Na, a Falun Gong practitioner, was sentenced to eight years in prison in January 2022. Xu was one of 11 Falun Gong practitioners sentenced for supplying materials to The Epoch Times that exposed the early toll of the COVID-19 pandemic in China.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline consisting of meditative exercises and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

In 1999, the CCP ordered the eradication of the practice out of fear of its popularity, as the number of practitioners in mainland China outnumbered Party members. More than 70 million people were practicing Falun Gong at the time, according to official estimates.

The persecution is still happening today, and millions of people have been detained inside prisons, labor camps, and other facilities, with hundreds of thousands of people tortured while incarcerated and untold numbers killed, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center.

Two federal criminal cases in connection with Falun Gong are included in the report, as examples of how the U.S. government has taken up the issue of China’s religious freedom.

In November 2024, Li Ping, a Florida engineer and naturalized U.S. citizen, was sentenced to four years in prison for helping the Chinese regime collect intelligence on dissidents, including Falun Gong practitioners. Li passed on the information that he had collected to China’s Ministry of State Security, the regime’s top spying agency.

In the same month, U.S. citizen John Chen was sentenced to 20 months in prison over a scheme to bribe the IRS and manipulate the agency into revoking the nonprofit status of New York state-based Shen Yun Performing Arts. His coconspirator, Lin Feng, had been sentenced to a 16-month prison term several months earlier.

Shen Yun, a classical Chinese dance company founded in 2006, showcases the ancient Chinese culture that prevailed before the CCP’s takeover of China. It has regularly highlighted the regime’s persecution of Falun Gong.

The report also pointed to the case against Linda Sun, former deputy chief of staff to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, for allegedly spying for China. Sun allegedly “prevented the governor of New York from publicly addressing China’s mass incarceration of Uyghurs based on feedback from a Chinese government official,” the report states.

Recommendations

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told The Epoch Times at the event that he will continue to be outspoken about the importance of religious freedom.

“I have spoken out on that over and over and over again, and I'll continue to ... speak out for that as China continues ... to say, ‘There is no problem, there is no issue, the Uyghurs are all happy, and no one is persecuted,’“ Lankford said. ”We all know that’s false.

“So to be able to speak out for the rights of individuals, to be able to have a faith, change their faith, or choose their faith should be a basic human right, whether you’re in Tibet, whether you’re one of the Uyghurs, whoever it may be.”

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that addressing the CCP’s oppression is important.

“I wish I had pointed out how the Uyghurs are being oppressed and so many other religious groups are being oppressed in China,“ Sherman told The Epoch Times at the event. ”Absolutely.”

The report offers several recommendations to the U.S. government, including a request that the State Department redesignate China as a “country of particular concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

Another recommendation suggests coordinating with international partners to impose sanctions on Chinese officials and entities over religious freedom violations.

The report asks that Congress explore legislation to tighten restrictions on China’s use of technologies that contribute to human rights violations; ban paid lobbying by agents representing Chinese entities that undermine human rights; and raise China’s religious freedom concerns through delegation visits, meetings, and hearings.

“Despite the escalating threats to freedom of religion or belief, there is real opportunity to stave off any retreat of this fundamental freedom and, if pursued with energy and determination, to advance it,” USCIRF Vice Chair Meir Soloveichik said in a statement. “Religious freedom is a clear priority of the United States.”

In the statement, USCIRF Chair Stephen Schneck said, “The U.S. government must continue to stand firm against these threats against the universal right of religious freedom.”