China’s online retailers stopped selling Bible

Beijing. April 6. Silkroadnews - The search for the Bible on JD.com, Taobao and Amazon.cn does not work, South China Morning Post reports.
On JD.com, searches for “the Bible” in Chinese yielded no results, while on Taobao, Amazon.cn and Dang Dang, they led to other Christian publications, such as storybooks and Bible study aids, the publication reads.
Neither Taobao nor JD.com commented on the situation.
The Bible pulling from the shelves is obviously due to the fact that Beijing and the Vatican continue to seek a compromise in the appointment of bishops, which, if reached, could lead to the normalization of ties between the two countries that were broken back in 1951.
For a long time, the Bible has been classified in China as a publication “for internal distribution”, meaning that officially it can only be sold by bodies authorized by the government that control Christian churches, but the authorities, as a rule, looked at this restriction though the fingers.
According to official data, about 38 million Protestants and 6 million Catholics live in China. However, many believers go to underground churches that are not a part of a state-sanctioned system. According to some academic estimates, Christians in China now outnumber 90 million people.
In China, all religious activities come under the close scrutiny of the officially atheist Communist Party. Beijing has often repeated its position that it will not allow “foreign forces” to dominate the country’s religious activities, the report says.
Under President Xi Jinping, the authorities further strengthened their positions with regard to Christianity, including cracking down on underground churches.