[stuffedBelly]

There is going to be repercussion. The Chinese government starts to treat Christianity as a cult like Falun Gong, to which it used the same tactic. But unlike Falun Gong, which is more of a home-brew quasi religion from the 90s, Christianity and missionary activities have been intrinsically rooted in major cities like Nanjing and Shanghai, especially during the wartime.

This also sends a danger sign to the Uyghur area, which is Muslim dominated, making Uyghurs worry that Muslim might be the next religion to crack down. If the Chinese government wants stability and total control of its people, this is not the way to do it. And unlike two decades ago, there are now hundreds of ways to uprise and much harder to crack down.

[erric]

What kind of repercussions?

[candiodari]

One can only presume the same kinds that they faced between 1949 and 1994 or so. So essentially ... none at all.

What baffles me about Chinese people is how acquiescent they are. Ironically the fact that Chinese people trust their government so much is, at least partly, the cause that their government (especially on local level) is so ridiculously untrustworthy.

How untrustworthy ? It is generally accepted that about 80% of Chinese published economic indicators from public institutions are outright fabrication. If you look further into this and what it means, it is baffling. They are lies, and not just lies, but they are lies by people who do not themselves know the true numbers.

About the whole financial community is convinced that the Chinese government itself has no idea about the economic performance of the country because of this pervasive and onmipresent falsification.

In one famous case, a local governor from Mongolia is known to have promised to reduce steel producing capacity by about 20%. Not only did he not do it. He lied about it, and it took the central government about 4 years to realize it had happened (or at least, took 4 years before it was even mentioned anywhere).

The attitude in China must change. I mean, even if the communists just want to remain in power, they must find a way to at least get decent data themselves, as well as trustworthy governors.