<p>As much as we tend to think of China as becoming more like America, they are still a totalitarian state without the basic freedoms we take for granted.</p>
<p>The Communist Party of China (CPC) has recently declared that all members &ndash; of which there are roughly 85 million &ndash; must be atheists. New members will be screened and current members will be forced to denounce or &#8220;rectify&#8221; previous or existing religious beliefs. ;</p>
<p>The CPC has also recently banned any and all textbooks that promote &ldquo;Western values&rdquo; or criticize the Party&rsquo;s leadership from Chinese schools. ;</p>
<p>The requirement that bars religious believers from joining the CPC is a &ldquo;long-standing but little-enforced rule,&rdquo; reports <em>Huffington Post. ;</em>China&rsquo;s official &ldquo;religion&rdquo; is atheism, but the communist nation recognizes these five faiths: Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism. ;</p>
<p>Intolerance against Islam, Christianity, and Western values in general has increased under President Xi Jinping&#8217;s leadership. Buddhism and Taoism are tolerated because they have deep Asian origins.</p>
<p>Over the past year, more than 200 Christian churches in the Zhejiang city of Wenzhou have been marked for demolition.</p>
<p>Zhejiang&#8217;s Communist leadership is spearheading the effort to enforce the Party&#8217;s atheism rule, but the sentiment is echoed throughout the nation and is backed by the government.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Party members should not have religious beliefs, which is a red line for all members,&rdquo; writes Wang Zuoan, a spokesman with China&#8217;s State Administration for Religious Affairs. &ldquo;Party members should be firm Marxist atheists, obey party rules, and stick to the party&rsquo;s faith&hellip;they are not allowed to seek value and belief in religion.&rdquo; ;</p>
<p>Wang believes people should be guided not by religion, but by &ldquo;socialist core values&rdquo; and &ldquo;traditional Chinese culture.&rdquo; According to a report by the UK-based Christian Institute, Wang has promised that CPC members who resist the rule ;&ldquo;will be punished.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Meanwhile, ;Chinese President Xi Jinping insists that ;China must &ldquo;guard against overseas infiltrations via religious means and prevent ideological infringement by extremists.&rdquo; ;</p>
<p>By &ldquo;infiltrations,&rdquo; Xi is referring not only to Christianity, but also to Western values like freedom of speech and multiparty democracy.</p>
<p>According to the Institute&#8217;s report, Christianity has been labeled a ;&ldquo;natural security risk,&rdquo; and &ldquo;hundreds of Christian pastors and activists have been arrested&rdquo; over the past few years. ;</p>
<p>Despite increasing persecution, however, Christianity in China is surging. The Institute predicts that by 2030, roughly 17% of China&rsquo;s population will be made up of Christians (that&rsquo;s over 247 million people).</p>
<p><em>Could it be that these people are turning to religion to escape the iron grip of Communism?</em> ;</p>