(En)countering State-led Sinicization: Critical Discursive Responses from Roman Catholics in China

In 2015, President Xi Jinping proclaimed the principle of the Sinicization of religions. Since then, it has become the Communist Party’s guiding thought in religious governance. However, so far little is known about how it is perceived by everyday religious practitioners, especially Christians. Based on textual analysis of speeches and writings by leaders of the Catholic Church in China, and 50 in-depth interviews with Catholic practitioners from the mainland and Hong Kong, this paper examines how Catholics (en)counter the public transcript created by the state. Church leaders at the national level publicly embrace Sinicization and appropriate the Church’s teaching on inculturation, another transcript, as its justification. However, the everyday practitioners interviewed for this study refused to embrace this discourse. Instead, they adopted one of three discursive strategies: rejection, evasion and empathy. All fell short of endorsing the state’s discourse. The findings suggest that the Church’s transcript enables Catholic practitioners to critically (en)counter the state’s transcript.