Revisiting Religious Freedom as a National Security Lens: The Case of China

Abstract

The distressing state of global democracy and religious liberty provides scholars and foreign policy practitioners an opportunity to rethink national security analysis by considering religious freedom as a national security lens. This article reprises the primary author’s framework, published ten years ago in The Review of Faith & International Affairs, assessing “what they say and do” on religious freedom as a means to understand threats and challenges to global peace and U.S. national security. This article analyzes a specific case—how China treats religion at home, among its neighbors, on the international stage, and in its political ideology.