Religion and Official Politics in Contemporary China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

ABSTRACT With increasing discussions on political deification and the official references to traditional religions in the People's Republic of China (PRC), recent debates on the PRC's alleged infiltration over Taiwan elections through the goddess Mazu, and the post‐Handover government's emphasis on filiality to China in Hong Kong, it is high time to reassess the dynamic relationship between official politics and religions in places commonly dismissed as atheist or secular and the political significance of traditional Chinese religions. China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are juxtaposed in this article because they constitute what is often considered “Greater China” and share strong religious ties, while a decolonial perspective from Sinophone studies, which this article adopts, demonstrates how these religious ties can be instrumentalized by China's internal hegemony, which marginalizes Hong Kong and Taiwan in both “Greater China” and global power imaginaries, and how the same religious ties can contribute to democratization and help decentralize this internal hegemony and colonialism. Furthermore, as Han Chinese people comprise the racial majority in all three places, focusing on the role of religion in official politics can reveal the relevance of traditional Chinese religions to contemporary political life, while also revealing the religious diversity within Han‐majority societies. Due to the constraints of a single article, this review article does not claim to offer a comprehensive overview of all religions but mainly traditional Chinese religions or a full range of existing scholarship on all religions or religious‐political interactions, but focuses mainly on major monographs on this topic, complemented with recent journal articles, out of the consideration that monographs are more sustained and theoretically coherent interventions, reflecting broader analytical trajectories, historiographical shifts, and conceptual debates shaping the field.