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China has banned the Bible from being sold online as part of its ongoing crackdown on Christianity.
The Bible is now no longer available on major Chinese retailer websites. Other holy books were like the Taoist Daodejing, Buddhist sutras Islam’s Quran were not banned. The Quran also has the Chinese equivalent of an ISBN, a numeric book identifer – which the Bible doesn’t have in China.
Websites like Amazon China, Taobao and JD.com have stopped selling the holy book online in China.
However, some retailers are still offering related materials – like illustrated story books, or academic analyses of the Bible.
Chinese president Xi Jinping recently said that Buddhism was integral to Chinese people’s cultural and spiritual life. He is currently leading a campaign to promote traditional values in China, including boosting Buddhism, Taoism and folk religion.
China already had existing rules that meant that Bibles couldn’t be sold at normal shops – only church bookstores were allowed to sell it.
This crackdown comes even as China remans in talks with the Vatican to end a split between the Chinese government-run church and the global church
The Quran also has the Chinese equivalent of an ISBN, a numeric book identifer – which the Bible doesn’t have in China.
From 2014 to 2016, China removed 1,500 crosses from churches in one province.
A recent report suggested that there are six million Catholic worshippers and 38 million Protestant worshippers in China, although some believe that these figures only represent about half of the true total.