The Bible disappears from China』s major ecommerce platforms

The Bible suddenly disappeared from major ecommerce sites inChina, right as the government outlined the country』s stance onreligious freedom inside China.

On Taobao and Amazon China, searches for the Bible inChinese show results of Bible-related studies, book covers andsimplified Bible stories, instead of the original book itself.Nothing at all comes up when you search for the Bible (or theKoran) on JD.com.

Searches for the Chinese version of the Bible show no relevantresults.

And searching for it on Weidian, the shopping mini program inWeChat, results in the message: 「Products are not displayedaccording to relevant laws and regulations.」

No official outlet clarified whether the book was banned or not,and a number of Weibo posts about the Bible』s disappearance alsovanished from the platform.

On Tuesday, the State Council Information Office published awhite paper titled 「China』s Policies and Practices on ProtectingFreedom of Religious Belief」, in which it said that the freedom ofreligious belief is protected in the country -- but stresses thatreligions in China must 「be Chinese in orientation」 and must adaptto a socialist society.

Officially, only state-controlled churches are allowed tooperate in China. 「Underground」 churches have been able to operate,but it』s becoming difficult for them as the government tightenscontrol of religious activities.

A report by Yang Fenggang, a scholar at Purdue University,estimates there are 93 million to 115 million Protestants in China,even though the state says the number is much lower. The governmentsays there are only 38 million Protestants and six millionCatholics in the country.