BEIJING – China has issued new rules on financial accounting at religious organisations, state media said Friday, in an apparent bid to increase its already tight controls on faith-based groups.
China officially allows freedom of religion, but in practice, the atheist Communist Party restricts religious groups through a bureaucratic registration process that demands allegiance to the ruling party.
The new rules, issued by the State Religious Affairs Administration, will require all “religious institutions” to hire accountants and file annual financial reports to authorities, Xinhua news agency said.
The rules are aimed at building a system under which the government can better supervise the finances of the nation’s 130,000 religious institutions, it said.
They would help prevent embezzlement and the misappropriation of public funds, it said. Few details of the rules were given.
Before China embarked on economic reforms 30 years ago that have transformed the nation, the practice of religion was strongly discouraged and in many places banned outright.
But as the ruling party’s Marxist ideology has been discarded, all major religions in China have enjoyed a renaissance supported by an increasingly prosperous population.
The United States has regularly called for China to end what Washington views as politically motivated repression of its millions of religious faithful.
In October, the US State Department released a report alleging continued religious persecution in a number of nations, including China.
