Chinese government continues crackdown on Christian Churches

China: Chinese authorities has continued to intensify their crackdown on churches, by requiring its members to register with the government.

According to reports from a Texas-based Christian charity China Aid, local officials raided Huoshi Fellowship church in Gansu, northwestern province, China, on May 29. Members were forced to register their identification with the government and the church was warned they could no longer hold their meetings.

Christian charity China Aid warns that China’s Communist Party aims to obliterate Christianity from the country. 

The Chinese government wants to replace "Christ as the head of the church with submission to the Communist Party,” said the ministry.

Its reported that, in the past two years up to 1,700 churches have been destroyed or had their crosses brought down by authorities in China and many Christians have been attacked by government officials with some beaten and jailed.

Government authorities have also cracked down on those who have engaged in prayer meetings in honor of the twenty-seventh anniversary of the military crackdown in Tiananmen Square where the government killed hundreds of pro-democracy protesters.  

According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, it recognizes that,

the Chinese government last year "stepped up its persecution of religious groups deemed a threat to the state's supremacy and maintenance of a 'socialist society'".

The Chinese government considers the protests a 'counter-revolutionary riot', and commemorating the anniversary is forbidden.