HONG KONG (UCAN): Wang Zuo’an, deputy minister of the Chinese government’s United Front Work Department, published a signed commentary dealing with so-called Sinicisation of the Catholic Church and other religious groups on March 26.
 
Writing in the state-run Zhongguo Minzu Bao newspaper, he insisted there must be Communist Party leadership in relation to religious practice taking into account “geopolitical” factors.
 

HONG KONG (UCAN): Bishop Joseph Ma Yinglin of Kunming, the president of the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China (BCCCC), has pledged to work with the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) to develop the Sinicisation of religion.
 
Bishop Ma was speaking after Wang Zuo’an, deputy minister of the United Front Work Department (UFWD), visited the CCPA and the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China BCCCC in Beijing.
 

HONG KONG (UCAN): Wang Zuo’an, deputy director of the Central United Front Work Department told a December 18 symposium, held by the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in China and the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, that no foreign religious organisation or foreign powers would be able to endanger national interests through control and manipulation of the Chinese Catholic Church.
 

BANGKOK (CNS): Although China and the Vatican signed a provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops in September, persecution of Chinese Catholics continues.
 
Some believe there is considerable pushback against the Vatican-China deal from inside China’s United Front Work Department (UFWD), the Communist Party-controlled religious bureaucracy, especially at a more localised level.
 

HONG KONG (UCAN): Parroting the tired old line, Wang Zuo’an, the deputy minister of the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), insisted that China’s religious affairs cannot be dominated by any foreign powers.
 

HONG KONG (UCAN): The recent crackdown on various Catholic and Protestant communities was the result of more than two years of organisation and preparation at provincial, city and county level through the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) increasingly powerful United Front Work Department, according to Ying Fuk-tsang, a professor and director of the divinity school at Chung Chi College, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
 

HONG KONG (UCAN): The long-standing director of China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA), Wang Zuo’an, has been formally transferred to the United Front Work Department (UFWD), as the religious affairs bureau is officially absorbed into the latter office.
 
While Wang will be promoted to deputy director of the UFWD, he will his retain his SARA title to prevent confusion in dealings with other nations on religious matters.
 

Hong Kong (UCAN): China’s Communist Party has further stepped up control over all religions, dissolving its long-standing State Administration for Religious Affairs bureau and handing its functions over to the feared United Front Work Department.
 

HONG KONG (UCAN): The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, together with one of the seven members of the elite Politburo standing committee, announced on June 22 that the next round of inspections of government offices are to target two watchdog departments that are charged with keeping an eye on others.

Beijing (AsiaNews): Ye Xiaowen, a former head of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, and Zhu Weiqun, the former head of the Tibet section of the United Front Work Department, have been called out by a Tibetan scholar of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing for corruption in connection with the designation of Living Buddhas, or tulku.