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China has a complicated relationship with religion. As a communist government, it is officially an atheist nation. It tolerates religion in theory, but in practice it best tolerates religions traditionally associated with Chinese culture. That means “outsider” religions like Islam and Christianity risk offending Beijing.

In the midst of a crackdown on all things “non-Chinese,” China is cracking down on Christian home churches.

Beijing has destroyed large parts of Yarchen Gar, one of the largest sites of Tibetan Buddhism, which is so distinctly Tibetan that China finds it offensive. Satellite imagery revealed that the government razed the site, dislocating monks and nuns.

China has also enacted a relocation policy impacting Tibetan nomads who have lived on the grasslands of central Tibet for 8,000 years. Soon, that long legacy will be over. In the past few months, China has ramped up a forced relocation policy, which requires that the nomads move to villages. According to the Chinese government, the policy is meant to protect the environment. Alternative sources, however, report that the land is being sold to developers.

This news is bringing (yet more) controversy to Reddit. In the discussion thread about the news, comments are disappearing and being deleted with unusual frequency. Some users speculate that it’s because Chinese social media company Tencent is a major investor in Reddit.

The displacement of Tibetan nomads is part of a drawn out cultural genocide against the Tibetan people, and that is but one of the peoples that China is attempting to “assimilate.”  As many as one million Uighurs are currently being held in secret concentration camps: “The allegations came from multiple sources, including activist group Chinese Human Rights Defenders, which said in a report last month that 21 percent of all arrests recorded in China in 2017 were in Xinjiang.”

China’s economic ties to major world powers will likely ensure that its human rights violations continue unabated.

More news.