The ban on Christmas celebrations comes after the party reportedly placed restrictions on celebrating Valentine’s Day, Easter, April Fool’s day, and Halloween.

Although movement against Western festivals - Christmas is particular - emerged about a decade ago under Confucian scholars claiming to be fighting against ‘cultural invasion’ by the West, the Communist Party seems to have officially adopted it now. The movement is in line with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s idea of a national cultural revival and fits the Communist Party’s ideology.

According to experts, the crackdown on events with religious connotations has intensified after the introduction of Regulations on Religious Affairs by the State Council in February this year.

Unlike other parts of the world, Christmas is not a public holiday in China, where the ruling party is officially atheist.

In theory, the party claims to give Chinese citizens the right to practice and profess the religion of their choice. In practice, however, it keeps tight controls on religious activities throughout the country using its sophisticated surveillance set-up.

"The fact that party members have forsaken the party's world view of dialectical materialism and have turned to religion is now attracting serious concern, to the extent that it now falls within the purview of disciplinary work," the mouthpiece of the party's Commission for Discipline Inspection had said in an article in 2015.

The ban comes even as the country makes most of the world’s artificial Christmas trees and Santa Claus costumes to be shipped across the globe. Over 600,000 Christmas trees and three million decorations have been bought this year, according to marketing research company China Skinny.