Abstract: The subject of the study is the religious policy pursued by the Communist Party of China in the period from the XVI to the XVIII National Congress of the CPC (2002-2012). During the reign of the "fourth generation" of party and state leaders, the approach to solving internal problems of the People's Republic of China has become more complex, the issue of regulating religious activities has received special attention in determining the further social development of the People's Republic of China. The key role in the work is assigned to the consideration of the main trends of religious policy: the tasks of religious policy, legal regulation, party-state control bodies, the relationship of religious policy with the concept of a "harmonious society", the role of Confucianism. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the triple "religious market" model, which conditionally divides religious practice in China into legal, illegal and "shadow" categories. The novelty of the research lies in the consideration of religious policy as a management process with systemic properties. Based on the sources, the main changes in the implementation of religious policy that occurred during the "fourth generation" of party and state leaders were traced. The work is based on the method of system analysis, which allowed analyzing the principles of the construction and operation of the political system of the People's Republic of China as a whole and studying the features of all components of the system, their interdependence and internal patterns of development.
The article substantiates the position that religious policy consisted in a comprehensive detailed regulation of the religious sphere of public life. The pragmatic goals of the policy were the separation between legal and illegal religious activities, control over patriotic religious associations and, importantly, bringing society to a state of "harmony", emphasizing neo-Confucian principles in the identity of the Chinese nation.