Local governments are being urged to ramp up efforts to regulate the construction of new large outdoor religious statues, the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee reported on Friday.

Chinese society has reached common ground on regulating the commercialization of Buddhist and Taoist activities and the practice of building large outdoor religious statues has made some progress, but more challenges still ahead, according to a meeting held by the UFWD in Beijing on Wednesday.

Local governments have been told to create specific plans and timetables for regulating the construction of any new large outdoor religious statues and preventing the further commercialization of religions must be their "top priority," the UFWD wrote on its website on Friday.

"The regulation on religious statues doesn't mean the country is against religion, it aims to stop religions from profit-making activities," Xiong Kunxin, a professor with Beijing's Minzu University of China, told the Global Times.

Over-commercialization will contaminate the sanctity of religion and threatens social stability, Xiong said.

Zhu Weiqun, former chairman of the ethnic and religious committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, told the Global Times that "the crackdown must be resolute. We cannot give up halfway. The phenomenon still largely exists across China."

Global Times