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There are bloody conflicts around the globe, in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, producing in some loose talk of genocide. But for attendees at the International Freedom of Religion Summit Asia, held in Tokyo earlier this month, the discussion was precise and the target clear in what many said was a quiet, de facto policy genocide being carried out by China’s Communist regime in both Tibet and Xinjiang.

“The term ’genocide’ is sometimes misused to get attention,” said Robert Rehak, the Czech Republic’s special envoy for Holocaust Issues, Interfaith Dialog and Freedom of Religion. “It may not be the mass killing of a huge number of people, but if the long-term aim is to end a nation — you can call it genocide.”

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“It makes sense that authoritarian regimes fear faith,” said Katrina Lantos Swett, co-chair of the Tokyo religious freedom summit. “What they need is control of their populations, but if people have acquired convictions, they are much harder to control.”

All religious venues should have permissions, all [religious] teachers should have certifications and have ‘Xi Jinping Ideology.'

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Ethnic identities and religious practices are being replacing with uniform identities and party-approved practices. Among the worst alleged abuses are torture, disappearances and organ harvesting. More mainstream methods of control include heavy police presences and mass detentions in camps.

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The campaign is not limited to adults: Since 2016, Tibetan children as young as five have been wrenched from their families and placed in “colonial boarding schools.”

“When children come out, their connection with their families has changed,” one Tibetan expert says. “They can’t speak Tibetan, they forgot their traditions and are not able to communicate with their families.”

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An AI-monitored security web that synchronizes high technologies, from CCTV camera networks to spyware embedded in personal digital devices, allows for ubiquitous and never-resting monitoring of the population.

“Families cannot communicate with each other,” said Ilham Mahmut, chairman of Japan’s Uyghur Cultural Center. “People got skeptical about each other, even within the family.”

He speaks, he said, from personal experience. “The last time I communicated with my mother was in April 2017. She said, ‘Please don’t call me; I’ll call you if something happens.’”

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Along with the human cost comes repression In the physical space — key structures central to religious culture, notably mosques and monasteries, are being destroyed or repurposed [...]