HONG KONG (UCAN): Halmurat Ghopur, a leading Uyghur intellectual, has been detained by authorities in northwestern Xinjiang since November last year for displaying “nationalistic tendencies,” according to a source in exile, amid a widening crackdown on prominent members of the ethnic group.
 
Ghopur, is president of the Xinjiang Food and Drug Administration’s Department of Inspection and Supervision in the regional capital Urumqi.
 

LINCANG (AsiaNews/ChinaAid): A court in Lincang in southern Yunnan, sentenced a group of people belonging to the Three Grades of Servants sect to up to 13 years in prison for belonging to an apocalyptic sect that the authorities deem an illegal cult.
 
Ju Dianhong received a 13-year sentence for leading the sect, recruiting new followers, carrying out missionary work and spreading rumours about an imminent apocalypse.
 

GUANGZHOU (AsiaNews): Two Vatican-recognised bishops have reportedly been asked to step aside or take on junior positions in favour of illicitly ordained bishops. 
 
Bishop Peter Zhuang Jianjian of Shantou, in southern Guangdong, who was ordained in 2006 with Vatican approval, was asked to give way to Bishop Joseph Huang Bingzhang, who was excommunicated in 2011, but is backed by the Chinese government and is a long-time member in the National People’s Congress.
 

BEIJING (AsiaNews): China’s demographic picture is starting to look a lot like that of Japan: births are declining, the workforce is getting smaller and the population is aging. This is what the latest official figures show.
 
According to the National Statistics Bureau, while the country’s economy grew 6.9 per cent in 2017 from 6.7 per cent in 2016, its demographic statistics are less positive. 
 

HONG KONG (UCAN): Father Lu Danhua from the diocese of Lishui in eastern Zhejiang province has been missing since government officials from State Administration for Religious Affairs took him away from a priests’ dormitory on December 29.
 
A witness to the incident said that the officials claimed Father Lu was only going for a brief chat.
 
He is the only priest of Lishui and was ordained by for the diocese by Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin, from the unofficial Church in Wenzhou, on 14 December 2016. 

BEIJING (SE): Authorities in China demolished the Golden Lampstand church belonging to an unofficial Protestant community in Linfen, Shanxi province on January 9, UCAN reported. 
 
It is the third church demolition or closure in China in just over three weeks and comes amid a broader crackdown on religions by the government of president, Xi Jinping.
 

WWENZHOU (AsiaNews): Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin, from Wenzhou in Zhejiang, was released from detention on January 3. Named by the Vatican as the bishop for both the official and unofficial communities in Wenzhou, he is not recognised by the Chinese government and was taken away by police and officials from the Religious Affairs Bureau on 18 May 2017 (Sunday Examiner, 4 June 2017).
 
However, he has freedom of movement although sources say he is not in Wenzhou but in Xining in Qinghai, which is 2,500 kilometres away.
 

BEIJING (AsiaNews): Reverend Olav Fykse Tveit, the secretary general of the World Council of Churches (WCC), has been on what has been deemed an historic trip to China. 
 
Reverend Fyske has been in the country since January 7 together with the WCC president for Asia, Reverend Sang Chang along with the programme executive for Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation, Reverend Peniel Rajumkar.