“President Xi Jinping considers Christians one of the greatest threats to his power. Underground churches are listed as one of the ‘new black five’ national security threats in China. It’s new under this president for churches to be classified as a national security threat. The government-sanctioned churches that are allowed to exist right now have unique restrictions. Each church has to install a facial-recognition camera in front of the pulpit. The purpose is to identify certain people in the congregation. Many classes of people are banned from entering into any church. These include young people under 18 years old, college students, doctors or medical professionals, civil servants, military members and educators. If they’re found, immediately their boss or a government official will be speaking with them. These are huge ramifications right now. It really began after President Xi Jinping took office in 2012. He is now nicknamed ‘Emperor Xi’ since he successfully removed his term limits in March of this year. When he took power, the mass forced demolition of crosses started in Zhejiang province. That area is called the Jerusalem of China. These are government-sanctioned churches. The house churches do not have buildings or a cross. On February 1 of this year, a new law called ‘Regulations on the Administration of Religious Affairs’ took effect. Things have become dramatically even worse. Bible-burning campaigns are happening across China. China is perhaps the world’s most sophisticated surveillance police state. It’s beyond anything the U.S. does. Some of these efforts are aided by greedy American companies. Apple decided to remove all virtual private networks from Apple Stores across China. They have a segregated Chinese version of the Apple iCloud. Supposedly this China iCloud is still part of Apple, offering iTunes content. But it’s totally controlled by the Chinese government. Cisco and Google are similar. China has the most cameras in the whole world, on every street corner. These facial recognition cameras are part of their dynamic monitoring system. They can follow you anywhere. If you drive a car, they can quickly track your license plate. If you buy a train or bus ticket, as soon as you swipe your card, you are classified. I noted how China has five categories of dangerous people. Now China is also building the world’s largest so-called ‘social credit’ system. If you get a traffic ticket, then one point of morality is deducted. If you are found in the underground church, your social score is essentially zero. You lose your right to buy airplane tickets. Last week, I was in South Korea attending a house church leadership conference. But 240 out of 300 church leaders were blocked in Chinese airports, even including Hong Kong, and declared as national security threats. They were not allowed to board the flight when they checked in to Customs.” “China Mandates Surveillance as Religious Persecution Rises,” an interview with Bob Fu, The Stream, Nov. 14, 2018 Comments are closed.
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