China has expanded a website listing details of religious workers so that it now covers all five state-sanctioned religions – Beijing’s latest move to tighten control over their activities.
The website was launched in February, giving the public access to information on Buddhist and Taoist monks and clerics. The Communist Party’s United Front Work Department – which oversees religious activities in China – said at the time that the website could help to expose fraud being carried out by rogue Buddhist and Taoist monks.
It was expanded on Tuesday to cover all priests, nuns, pastors, clerics and other workers in government-approved Catholic, Protestant and Islamic institutions.
Their details – name, gender, photo, religion and denomination, position within the organisation and a government-issued registration number – are all publicly available on the website. Users must provide a telephone number to search for information on the site.
Religious workers who have not been approved and registered by the government are not listed.
The United Front Work Department in February said releasing this information was a way to make religious organisations more self-disciplined. It said the move could help to crack down on fake nuns and monks, amid reports of extortion and sexual abuse by impersonators.
The website is part of a broader campaign by China’s officially atheist ruling party to step up control over religious workers through the use of big data and cadres at the grass roots.
Since 2018, cadres have been assigned to units set up by township and street village committees to surveil the activities of people in religious organisations in their area. That move came after an overhaul that saw the former State Administration for Religious Affairs absorbed into the party system.
Authorities in some areas have also started using big data to help grass-roots officials control and monitor religious activities – including giving them access to information such as the venues, staff, activities and finances of religious groups in their area.
Laohekou, a city in the central province of Hubei, is one example. Its local government in February said hundreds of cadres had downloaded an app to keep track of the finances, security and activities of places of worship and their followers. The cadres are also tasked with disseminating government propaganda to visitors and staff of the temples and churches in their area.
Cameras have also been installed at some places of worship in Laohekou, and elsewhere in China, so that authorities can monitor them in real time. The cameras are connected to Xue Liang, or Sharp Eyes – a vast surveillance project aimed at public spaces in all villages, towns and counties.
Authorities in Xiangyang, which oversees the Laohekou government, said it wanted to expand the use of Sharp Eyes cameras to more religious premises.