;)
Posted on 11/29/2016 10:01:10 AM PST by Jyotishi
Beijing - Religious extremism has begun to spread to inland China from its western Xinjiang region, long considered by the government to be at the forefront of its efforts to battle Islamist separatists, the country's top religious affairs official said. China says it faces a serious threat from Islamist militants in Xinjiang, which borders central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and is home to the largely Muslim Uighur minority group.
Hundreds have died there in recent years in violence that Beijing blames on religious extremists, and the government has put in place tight controls on religion in the name of combating radicalism and maintaining stability. Extremist thought was now infiltrating China's "inland provincial areas", Wang Zuoan, head of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, told the National Congress of the Chinese Islamic Association, according to an article in the official China Daily newspaper on Monday.
The paper did not give details of the spread or mention specific provinces, but cited Wang as saying China's official Islamic clergy must be the "front line" in fighting extremism and should work to "convert" those influenced by it. "We should let Muslims know the boundaries between legal and illegal religious activities, to enable them to say no to illegal activities," he told the association on Saturday.
Wang also said that China must "appropriately manage the issue of Menhuan Sect Islam", referring to a Chinese-style Sufism, a mystical form of Islam, according to a statement posted on the State Administration of Religious Affairs website. China has about 21 million Muslims, only a portion of which are Uighur. Other Muslim groups, such as the Hui, are spread throughout the country, including in the western region of Ningxia and the southwestern province of Yunnan.
President Xi Jinping has urged Chinese Muslims to resist illegal religious "infiltration". Attacks tied to such extremism by the government have spread beyond Xinjiang in recent years. A grisly knife attack in Yunnan's Kunming train station in March 2014 killed more than 30 people.
Rights groups say that unrest in Xinjiang often stems from localised incidents that boil over into physical violence, fuelled by ethnic tension and religious and economic repression of Turkic-language speaking Uighurs. Beijing regularly denies religious discrimination against minorities in Xinjiang or elsewhere. Despite a resurgence of religious faith, officially atheist China restricts believers to a handful of recognised religions overseen by the state.
ALSO READ: China tightens security in Muslim-majority Xinjiang, asks them to oppose extremism
For the US, this is a civilizational issue. For China, its a very minor threat. Their nation is 95% Han Chinese, and unlike western leftists, they very much accept and promote their dominant Han Chinese culture. This won’t change - its why China has been around for 5000 years, and will be around long after we are gone.
In addition, they still have a government organized on Marxist political-control lines who are not afraid to round up and jail people who they feel disrupt the social and political order. There is zero chance any Saudi/Gulf State influenced jihadis gain any organizational traction in China.
But the point of the article is not lost.
Another country with Muslims has a Muslim problem.
China for the Chinese, no multicultural stuff? How can they do that if we expect to be one world? Its like Japan for the Japanese or Poland for the Poles, and Hungary for the Hungarians. Are they allowed to do that? Isn’t that racist to want to be what you are?
;)
Yes. Practice your religion, but not when it conflicts with our law.
Every religion has ways to enforce its tenets on their adherents. But the enforcement should not extend beyond a determination of that person’s standing within the religion, meaning excommunication or lesser penalties. It also should have the right to proselyte.
It should not have power over marriage and parenthood, personal property, government privileges and freedom from corporal punishment, nor the power to force conversion. While I am willing to tolerate other religions in a live-and-let-live situation, I do not think society should tolerate it when adherents step beyond the limits noted above. There needs to be comity or tolerance is not warranted.
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