That has been accompanied by a renewed campaign promoting atheism and loyalty to the party, along with a push to study the works of one of communism’s founding fathers, Karl Marx, who famously wrote that religion “is the opium of the people”. The anti-religion drive overlaps with campaigns to promote patriotism and party loyalty, oppose separatism among ethnic minorities and fight Western liberal values.
The claims of Taoism and Buddhism to be far more authentically Chinese than Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism ever were or could be appear to be lost on China's ideologues, who laughably exalt the ideas of a foreigner, a Westerner and quite the late-comer on the world stage. Karl Marx as Chinese patriot is a bad joke.
The claims of Taoism and Buddhism to be far more authentically Chinese than Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism ever were or could be appear to be lost on China's ideologues, who laughably exalt the ideas of a foreigner, a Westerner and quite the late-comer on the world stage. Karl Marx as Chinese patriot is a bad joke.
