In their effort to "exert total control" over religion and to "sinicise" Catholic and Protestant Christianity, the authorities have "ordered the removal of crosses from churches [and] replaced images of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary with pictures of President Xi Jinping," the report said. 
The Chinese government has also required "the display of CCP [Chinese Communist Party] slogans at the entrances of churches, censored religious texts, imposed CCP-approved religious materials, and instructed clergy to preach CCP ideology," the USCIRF report said. 
Its investigation pointed to a report from 2019 of a Catholic church in the eastern province of Jiangxi that was forced to replace a painting of the Virgin Mary with her child with one of President Xi. 
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There's nothing really new here. All states have attempted to exercise control over religion for this same reason: no competing external authority to the state is allowed. China just goes the extra mile about it.
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