Chinese Communist Party Hails the Dissolution of the Unification Church in Japan

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Chinese Communist Party Hails the NEWSLETTER Dissolution of the Unification Church in Japan Email address: Your email address by Massimo lnt rovigne I Apr 24, 2025 I Op-eds China

A statement by the Party-cont rolled China Anti- Cult Association celebrates a verdict against the Mil “anti-communist” church and hopes it will inspire similar moves abroad. SU PPORT BITTER WINTER by Massimo lntrovigne

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MOST READ The Winter Olympics Story Beij ing Does Not Want You to Read A Chinese policewoman indoctrinating children about the “evil of cults.” These activities are South Korea: A Law to Dissolve usually carried out with the China Anti-Xie Jiao Association. From Weibo. Churches at Will

The China Anti-Xie Jiao Association legit imately claims to be the largest anti-cult Africans Converts to the Russ ian association in the world. It has branches in all large cities and most small towns Orthodox Church Are Lured to and villages. It t ranslates its name into English as “China Anti-Cult Association,” Russia, Then Forced t o Fight i n although “xie j iao” is an expression used in Chinese since t he Middle Ages to Ukraine designate “organ izations spreading heterodox teachings.” The large Association is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) through the United Front China, You’re Never Too Old or Central Work Department. Too Young to Fight “Cults and Illegal Religions” On April 18, the Association released a statement celebrating the verdict by the China: Christian Missionary Dong Tokyo Dist rict Court of March 25, 2025, dissolving t he Unification Chu rch (now Yanmei Still Detained Despite called Family Federation for World Peace and Unification). It notes it is a first- Expired Lega l Deadline degree verdict and finds it deplorable that the Unification Chu rch appealed. Korea: Pastor Son Is Free- But The CCP-controlled association is happy that the Unification Church has been His School ls Not work of the anti-cult National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales in “agitating the public opinion,” which played a key role in the dissolution. It credits LEGAL the Network for having “successfully promoted” the new law on donations to Privacy Policy religious entities (in fact, dangerous for all religions). What particularly satisfies the Chinese entity is that “for the first time the law includes the notion of mind control,” which is also a cornerstone of the Chinese repression of groups st igmatized as “xie jiao” or “cults.”

From a March 2025 China Anti-Xie:)iao association documentary against the Unification Church.

The statement cal ls the verd ict “a milestone” and “a breakthrough,” which wou ld “start a process of ‘de-cultization’ of Japanese society.” The process, it predicts, would move “from the ind ividual case” of the Unification Church to “an institutional system” of regulating religion differently.

The CCP-controlled association sees three “breakthroughs” that would eventually revolutionize how the Japanese legal system looks at religion. “First, it was the first ti me a ‘religious corporation’ was dissolved for civil violations. Previously, Japan only dissolved ‘religious corporations’ for crim inal offenses.” This is important, the c;tr1tPmPnt c;;wc; ;ic; ;i w;iv nf “hrP;ikinP thrrn 1P”h thP ‘imm1 mitv’ nf rPliPirn 1c;

activities.”

“Secondly, dissolution will destroy the Unification Church’s economic lifeline. The dissolution order will deprive the Unification Church of its legal person status, and the court will liquidate its assets.” The statement hopes this would impact the Unification Church globally, particularly “in the United States.”

Third, the statement believes t hat the verdict hitting the Unification Church is only the first step in a broader crackdown on minority religions, which wou ld be “a great progress for Japanese society.” “The Japanese government plans to revise the Religious Corporations Act, strengthen financial supervision of religious groups, and establish a victim compensation fund. It also plans special anti-cult measures … The court’s dissolution order may curb the activities of other minority sects in Japan, which also rely on donat ions to survive.”

The statement concludes that the verdict does not solve all problems. It laments that the Universal Peace Federation (UPF) is still active internationally.

However, the Communist Party-related association is confident that the Tokyo District Court verdict will “become an example for other countries to deal with cu lt issues,” teaching others that if anti-cult propaganda is carried out effectively, “evil forces in the guise of religion will have nowhere to hide.”

Summing up, the CCP, through its loyal anti-cult agency, tells us that the Tokyo verdict applies the same categories used aga inst religion in China, benefits Chinese interests, destroys an anti-communist organization, prepares a broader crackdown on rel igions in Japan, and may inspi re other countries to do the same. We knew it all along.

Massi m o lntrovigne Massimo lntrovigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an int ernational network of scholars who study new religious movements. lntrovigne is t he author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the ma in author of the EncicloP..edia de/le religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the lnterdisci[1linary Iournal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of Ca lifornia Press’ Nova Relig[Q. From January 5 to December 31, 2011 , he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of ot her religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.

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