Xi put a different twist on this as he told China that he is the ruler and the only religion allowed is the CCP. Having defined orthodoxy, the party names the true believers, saints, sinners, heretics and agnostics. The CCP can proclaim that anyone who died as collateral damage is a martyr of the “motherland.” While the “CCP as religion” is an apt metaphor with multiple applications, it also explains why the party must control all other religions. The CCP needs to appoint Catholic bishops, and pick and groom the Panchen Lama, and even the Dalai Lama when he dies. The Turkic Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, including Uighurs, are considered dangerous and must become malleable citizens, while strange agnostics who practice Falun Gong must be eliminated. Citizens need only worship the golden calf of the CCP. The CCP runs China as a one-party state, by which it is saying that its brand of communism is the “religion” of China. Unbelievers must suffer the consequences, with democracy advocates in Hong Kong serving as the latest “heretics” to suffer the wrath of the CCP’s religio. Even the media fit within the metaphor. There is no free press in China, as there is in Taiwan. In China, the media exist to propagate the faith and trample out heresy.