For background on Orthodox Christianity in China, see here.

“New Report Shows Increase in Persecution Against Christians in China,” by Rafael Llanes, Zenit, November 3, 2024:

…The Chinese Government allows the Catholic Church a limited existence. There are 95 Catholic Bishops in Continental China. Of these, 69 are official and 26 non-official. The Catholic Church includes 147 dioceses, many of them vacant. The Authorities keep constant vigilance on believers’ behaviour while strengthening in Patriotic Church for its governmental propaganda….

The Hudson Institute’s Report reflects the fact that “the persecution of the Chinese Government against the Catholic Church in China is directed against the hierarchs who resist the control of the Chinese Communist Government over religious affairs.” There have been ten persecuted Prelates since 2018, including “indefinite detentions without due process, disappearances, open investigations by the Security Police, exiles from their dioceses and other impediments to their Episcopal Ministries, including threats, vigilance, interrogations and so-called re-education.”

China goes beyond its borders to suppress and silence religion, regarding it as opposition. Recently, Afghanistan discovered a Chinese espionage network operating from Kabul with Haqqani, a terrorist group affiliated to the Taliban, to seize Uyghur refugees and returned them to China.

The Chinese government is hostile to groups practicing their faith without control, as it has done with the Uyghur population of Muslim majority. It also harasses and closes unregistered Christian meetings, called house churches, detaining the local leaders and threatening the free practice of the faith….