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Aug 30, 2023 · Based on formal religious identity, China is the least religious country in the world (among all places where survey data is available). Just one-in-ten Chinese adults self-identify with a religion, according to the 2018 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS).
Religion in China is diverse and most Chinese people are either non-religious or practice a combination of Buddhism and Taoism with a Confucian worldview, which is collectively termed as Chinese folk religion.
Oct 23, 2023 · China’s constitution says ordinary citizens enjoy “freedom of religious beliefs” and the government officially recognizes five religions: Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, Protestantism and Daoism (also called Taoism). But authorities closely police religious activity.
- 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
Amid an economic boom and rapid modernization, religion in China has been on the rise in recent decades. Experts point to the emergence of a spiritual vacuum as a trigger for the growing number of religious believers, particularly followers of Christianity and traditional Chinese religious groups. While China’s constitution allows religious belief,...
China’s relationship with religion has shifted throughout its modern history. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), religions were essentially banned, and followers were forced underground or persecuted as part of a campaign to eliminate “old” customs and ideas. In the 1980s, the CCP acknowledged the Chinese people’s complex relationship with r...
The CCP is officially atheist. The party prohibits its roughly ninety-eight million party members from holding religious beliefs, and it requires 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—an estimate of 4 percent to 33 percent of the country’s population (42 million to 362 million people) depending on how religious practices are measured, according to the U.S.-based Pew Research Center. Though Buddhism originated in India, it has a long history and tradition in China and today is the...
According to China’s 2020 census data, the Tibetan region of China is home toseven million Tibetans, more than 90 percent of the region’s population. Nearly all Tibetans in the region practice a distinct form of Buddhism. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of one of the main schools of Tibetan Buddhism and symbolizes Tibetan identity for both T...
China saw a significant growth in Christianity in the 1980s, after former leader Deng Xiaoping opened China to the outside world. Today, Protestantism is the predominant branch of Christianity practiced in China. There are three state-regulated Christian organizations and many underground house churches, though authorities have been cracking down o...
Muslims make up an around 1 to 1.5 percent of China’s population, accounting for around eighteen million people, according to recent estimates by Pew Research Center. 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 ...
Several religious and spiritual groups that fall outside the CCP’s officially recognized religions, 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 co...
- Eleanor Albert
May 14, 2024 · Officially, this does not exist as a religion in China but instead is a catch-all designation for local and popular deities.
China is a multi-religious country. Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism have all developed into culture-shaping communities throughout Chinese history. Freedom of belief is a government policy, and normal religious activities are protected by the constitution.
