Religion

 

Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism are one, a litang style painting portraying three men laughing by a river stream, 12th century, Song Dynasty.

China does allow a limited degree of religious freedom although the state is officially atheist. However, official tolerance is only extended to members of state-approved religious organizations and not to those who worship underground, such as house churches. An accurate number of religious adherents is hard to obtain due to a lack of official data, but there is general consensus that religion has been enjoying a resurgence over the past 20 years. A survey by Phil Zuckerman on Adherents.com found that in 1998, 59% (over 700 million) of the population was irreligious. Meanwhile, another survey in 2007 found that there are 300 million (23% of the population) believers as opposed to an official figure of 100 million.

Despite the surveys' varying results, most agree that China's traditional religions – Buddhism, Taoism, and Chinese folk religions – are the dominant faiths. According to a number of sources, Buddhism in China accounts for between 660 million (~50%) and over 1 billion (~80%) while Taoists number 400 million (~30%). However, the number of adherents to these religions can be overcounted because one person may subscribe to one or more of these traditional beliefs simultaneously, and the difficulty in clearly differentiating Buddhism, Taoism, and Chinese folk religions. In addition, subscribing to Buddhism and Taoism is not necessarily considered religious by those who follow the philosophies in principle but stop short of subscribing to any kind of divinity. Most Chinese Buddhists are nominal adherents because only a small proportion of the population (over 8% or over 100 million) may have taken the formal step of going for refuge. Even then, it's still difficult to estimate accurately the number of Buddhists because they do not have congregational memberships and often do not participate in public ceremonies. Mahayana (大乘, Dacheng) and its subsets Pure Land (Amidism), Tiantai and Zen are the most widely practiced denominations of Buddhism. Other forms, such as Theravada and Tibetan, are practiced largely by ethnic minorities along the geographic fringes of the Chinese mainland.

Christianity in China was first introduced during the Tang period in the 7^th century with the arrival of Nestorianism in 635 CE. This was followed by Franciscan missionaries in the 13^th century, Jesuits in the 16^th century, and finally Protestants in the 19^th century, during which time Christianity began to make significant foothold in China. Of the minority religions, Christianity has been particularly noted as one of the fastest growing (especially since the last 200 years) and today may number between 40 million (3%) and 54 million (4%) according to independent surveys, while official estimates suggested that there are only 16 million Christians.

Islam in China dates to a mission in 651, eighteen years after Muhammad's death. Muslims came to China for trade, dominating the import/export industry during the Song Dynasty. They became influential in government circles, including Zheng He, Lan Yu and Yeheidie'erding. Nanjing became an important center of Islamic study.¹⁶¹ The Qing Dynasty waged war and genocide against Muslims in the Dungan revolt and Panthay rebellion. The number of Muslims in China today is estimated between 20 and 100 million¹⁵⁹ by one source while most estimates figures that there are 20 to 30 million Muslims (1.5% to 2% of the population).

There are also followers of minority religions including Hinduism, Dongbaism, Bon, and a number of new religions and sects (particularly Xiantianism). In July 1999, the Falun Gong spiritual practice was officially banned by the authorities,¹⁷² and many international organizations have criticized the persecution of Falun Gong that has occurred since then.¹⁷³ According to official estimates, 50–70 million Chinese practised Falun Gong in 1998. Other estimates have varied, however: Falun Gong itself claims to have as many as 100 million practitioners, while the China's Ministry of Civil Affairs later claimed that there were as few as 2 million. As there is no official membership or lists, current global numbers are unknown.