ABSTRACT
In the 1950s and early 1960s, religious institutions in Dali were subjected to different measures from the Chinese Community Party (CCP) authority. The Yiguandao crackdown was in the manner of mass-mobilization campaigns choreographed by the government. Yiguandao was the first religious organization subjected to crackdown by the CCP. However, the state defined religions in a particular way that only five religions were recognized officially: Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity, Catholicism, and Islam, all of which had already experienced etatization movements before 1949. Catholicism and Protestantism were not just religions but foreign religions. Buddhism in Dali was a major religion that underwent several incarnations. It was adopted as the state religion in the ninth century and continued to remain the same for seven centuries. Buddhism was less troublesome to the authority. Although granted the status of religion, the containment of religious practice was met with little resistance from believers – most of the ordained clergy simply abandoned their religions with a few exceptions.
