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Oct 23, 2023 · Here are 10 things to know about how the Chinese government regulates religion, from our recent report, “Measuring Religion in China.” China is pursuing a policy of “Sinicization” that requires religious groups to align their doctrines, customs and morality with Chinese culture.
- Introduction
- Freedom and Regulation
- Atheism and The CCP
- Chinese Buddhism and Folk Religions
- Tibetan Buddhism
- Christian State-Sanctioned and House Churches
- Islam and Uyghurs in Xinjiang
- Banned Religious Groups
- A Continuing Revival
Religious observance in China is on the rise. Amid China’s economic boom and rapid modernization, experts point to the emergence of a spiritual vacuum as a trigger for the growing number of religious believers, particularly adherents of Christianity and traditional Chinese religious groups. While China’s constitution allows religious belief, adhere...
Article 36 of the Chinese constitution says that citizens “enjoy freedom of religious belief.” It bans discrimination based on religion and forbids state organs, public organizations, or individuals from compelling citizens to believe in—or not believe in—any particular faith. The State Council, the government’s administrative authority, passed reg...
The CCP is officially atheist. The party prohibits its more than ninety million party members from holding religious beliefs, and it has demanded the expulsion of party members who belong to religious organizations. Officials have said that party membership and religious beliefs are incompatible, and they discourage families of CCP members from pub...
China has the world’s largest Buddhist population, with an estimated 185–250 million practitioners, according to Freedom House. Though Buddhism originated in India, it has a long history and tradition in China and today is the country’s largest institutionalized religion. Separately, a 2012 Pew Research Center report found that more than 294 millio...
The Tibet Autonomous Region and its adjacent provinces are home to more than six million ethnic Tibetans, most of whom practice a distinct form of Buddhism. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of one of the main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Since 1987, he and his exiled government in India have played a prominent role in garnering international ...
Since the 1980s, China has seen a significant growth in Christianity, and today Protestantism is the country’s fastest-growing religious group. There are three state-regulated Christian organizations and many underground house churches of widely varying size. The Pew Research Center estimated [PDF] that in 2010 there were sixty-seven million Christ...
Muslims make up about 1.8 percent of China’s population, accounting for around twenty-two million people. China has ten predominantly Muslim ethnic groups, the largest of which is the Hui, an ethnic group closely related to the majority Han population and largely based in western China’s Ningxia Autonomous Region and the Gansu, Qinghai, and Yunnan ...
Several religious and spiritual groups, dubbed “heterodox cults” by Beijing, are subject to regular government crackdowns. The party-state has banned more than a dozen such faiths on the grounds that adherents use religion “as a camouflage, deifying their leading members, recruiting and controlling their members, and deceiving people by molding and...
Religious revival among Chinese does not appear to be abating, experts say, though Beijing’s rigorous regulation of religious affairs has intensified. Some argue that state repression of religion often has less to do with religious doctrine than with a group’s organizational ability, due to fear that such a group could potentially challenge the CCP...
- Eleanor Albert
Aug 30, 2023 · Government policy toward religion in the People’s Republic of China – a brief history. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is officially atheist, and its members are not permitted to join any religion. The party’s attitude aligns with the Marxist view that religion is a temporary historical phenomenon that will disappear as societies advance.
- Reem Nadeem
In the early 2000s, the Chinese government became open especially to traditional religions such as Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism, and folk religion, emphasizing the role of religion in building a Confucian Harmonious Society.
Oct 3, 2022 · Chinese believers participate in ritual pacing in a Taoist Temple in Xuanling, Liangxi. (Supplied: Mayfair Yang) Folk religions like Mother Chen have strong links to Taoism — an ancient religion of China. Freedom of religious belief is also enshrined in the Chinese Constitution. Constitution of the People's Republic of China, Article 36.
The constitution of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which cites the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), states that citizens “enjoy freedom of religious belief” but limits protections for religious practice to “normal religious activities,” without defining “normal.”
