Illegal Religious Activities and Counter-Terrorism in China

Abstract

The fight against terrorism prompts governments to differentiate between good religious practices and the bad ones. The simplistic dichotomy of good and bad Muslims has led to a cascade of criticism, but a fallacy underlying this dualism remains underexplored. This paper examines the no true Scotsman fallacy that is prevalent in the political discourse surrounding terrorism and religion. It argues that China's attempt to counteract the essentialist assumption about Uyghurs leads to a reinforced good-versus-bad dichotomous categorization of Muslims, reflected in the binary of normal and illegal in China's religious policy. This is a major contribution to the existing literature on politics and religion because, theoretically, this paper applies the no true Scotsman fallacy and good and bad Muslims dichotomy to explain the relationship between politics and religion; empirically, it provides a rich overview of the political nature of religious policy in China.