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Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Islam, and Protestantism
- The Chinese Communist Party’s nearly 100 million members are required to be atheist, but the party recognizes five religions: Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Islam, and Protestantism.
www.cfr.org/backgrounder/religion-chinaThe State of Religion in China - Council on Foreign Relations
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...
Oct 17, 2019 · The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is officially atheist, and religious believers are forbidden to join it. At the same time, the Party claims to adhere to the constitution promulgated in 1982, which contains provisions for freedom of religion.
All religious institutions in the country are required to uphold the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, implement Xi Jinping Thought, and promote the sinicization of religion. [6]
Mar 16, 2020 · According to many recent observations on the ground, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under Xi Jinping has moved to a new stage in its policy towards religion. It has intensified its campaigns against some religions, but it also promotes some others.
Although the Chinese Communist Party has a long history of restricting religious freedom, in recent years it has become increasingly hostile toward religion and has initiated campaigns to “sinicize" Islam, Tibetan Buddhism, and Christianity to rid them of what it deems “foreign" influences.
Dec 16, 2013 · Other minority religions, such as Baptists and Pentecostals, were spared this onslaught in order to get their support for the attack on the dominant Orthodox Church. During the trials of church leaders, activist lower clergy were recruited to testify against the church leadership.
