New Wine in Old Bottles

This paper discusses Xi Jinping’s policy of religious sinicisation (zhongguohua 中国化) and the subsequent revision of the Regulations on Religious Affairs. I argue that Xi’s fear of foreign influence has driven the direction of recent changes in religious policy in favour of indigenous or indigenised religions. I show that the effort to sinicise religions and the consequent strengthening of the existing regulatory framework risks exacerbating the challenges that the Xi regime seeks to confront in the first place.