Freedom of Religion or Belief in China

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) on her speech. Although I will talk primarily about the persecution of Christians in China, and particularly the intolerable position of the Catholic Church, I fully support what she and the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) said about the persecution of Muslims. What is happening to the Uyghurs is absolutely intolerable.

In China, the institutionally entrenched ideological intolerance of Christianity and other religions stems back to 1949, and has continuously been perpetrated by the communist regime, often with extreme violence. An estimated 96.7 million Christians live in China; they are one of the largest Christian populations in the world. Religious groups are made to register with state-operated “patriotic associations”, and unregistered religious activity is illegal. Many Christians worship in unregistered house churches, which leaves them vulnerable to raids, fines and detention.

China currently ranks 17th on the 2026 world watch list, with a persecution score of 79 out of 100. In many regions of China, children under the age of 18 are widely prohibited from participating in religious activities. The restrictions reported include the suspension of Sunday school programmes, schools discouraging religious belief among students, and students being pressured to report religious activity within their families, which is probably the worst of all—something out of George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four”.

In September 2025, China introduced new regulations on the online behaviour of religious clergy. The rules require religious leaders to support the leadership of the CCP, promote socialist values and preach only on Government-approved online platforms.

Let me say a bit about the position of the Catholic Church. Catholics were hopeful that the 2018 agreement between the Vatican and the People’s Republic of China would heal wounds caused by the Communist party’s attempt to suppress Catholicism. The promise of reconciliation has, alas, not been realised. In some dioceses, the divisions between the actual Catholic Church in China and the state-backed so-called patriotic Church has actually deepened. Bishops who stood aside in the interests of unity have been marginalised and placed under surveillance for refusing to take part in state structures. State-controlled religious apparatus remains coercive. The Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association exercises extensive control over Catholic life in the People’s Republic.

[Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)]

Between 2017 and 2020, my daughter worked as a teacher in Shanghai. We visited her at Easter 2018, and I recall walking past the Catholic cathedral while the service was taking place on Easter morning, and it was overflowing. Later in the day, I attended a service at the church that my daughter went to, and there were 200 or 300 people there. There did not appear to be any repression of the services. Is my right hon. Friend suggesting that it has got much worse over the last three or four years?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The devil is in the detail. When it comes to China, everything is very complicated; there are no simple arguments or solutions. This is not an outright communist regime like North Korea. In theory, if someone is a Catholic, they are allowed to practise their faith, which is why my hon. Friend saw the church overflowing, but they have to practise in a way that is approved by the state.