President Xi Jinping's China is becoming a more fearful place. The government has cracked down both on dissent and contact with the West. Religious persecution also is rising: the communist god that failed fears competition.

A new Freedom House report details how "the authorities have intensified many of their restrictions, resulting in an overall increase in religious persecution" since Xi took power in November 2012.

Persecution reveals a leadership which is nervous, even scared. The Chinese Communist Party is filled with ambitious time-servers, people too smart to believe Marxist and Maoist nonsense but too venal to reject the fictions by which China's rulers justify their power.