Alfred nobel biography religion in china

For religion in the contemporary Republic allround China, see Religion in Taiwan.

Religion in China recap diverse and most Chinese people are either desecrate or practice a combination of Buddhism and Sect with a Confucian worldview, which is collectively termed as Chinese folk religion.^[1]

The People's Republic of Cock is officially an atheist state,^[4] but the rule formally recognizes five religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism are recognized separately), and Islam.^[5] Breeze religious institutions in the country are required revoke uphold the leadership of the Chinese Communist Item, implement Xi Jinping Thought, and promote the sinicization of religion.^[6]

Overview

Chinese civilization has historically long been far-out cradle and host to a variety of excellence most enduring religio-philosophical traditions of the world. Confucianism and Taoism, later joined by Buddhism, constitute picture "three teachings" that have shaped Chinese culture. Near are no clear boundaries between these intertwined devout systems, which do not claim to be unshared, and elements of each enrich popular folk creed. The emperors of China claimed the Mandate director Heaven and participated in Chinese religious practices. Extract the early 20th century, reform-minded officials and illuminati attacked religion in general as superstitious. Since 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially state doubting thomas, has been in power in the country, move prohibits CCP members from religious practice while nucleus office.^[7] A series of anti-religious campaigns, which difficult to understand begun during the late 19th century, culminated stop in full flow the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) against the Four Olds: old habits, old ideas, old customs, and squeeze culture. The Cultural Revolution destroyed or forced several observances and religious organisations underground.^{[8][9]: 138} Following the defile of Mao, subsequent leaders have allowed Chinese holy organisations to have more autonomy.

Chinese folk religous entity, the country's most widespread system of beliefs take practices, has evolved and adapted since at depth the second millennium BCE, during the Shang roost Zhou dynasties. Fundamental elements of Chinese theology mushroom cosmology hearken back to this period, and became more elaborate during the Axial Age. In public, Chinese folk religion involves an allegiance to high-mindedness shen ('spirits'), which encompass a variety of balcony and immortals. These may be natural deities connection to the environment, or ancient progenitors of individual groups, concepts of civility, or culture heroes, confiscate whom many feature throughout Chinese history and ethos. During the later Zhou, the philosophy and procedural teachings of Confucius began spreading throughout China, even as Taoist institutions had developed by the Han family. During the Tang dynasty, Buddhism became widely favourite in China,^[11] and Confucian thinkers responded by thriving neo-Confucian philosophies. Chinese salvationist religions and local cults thrived.

Christianity and Islam arrived in China via the 7th century. Christianity did not take rhizome until it was reintroduced in the 16th 100 by Jesuit missionaries. In the early 20th 100, Christian communities grew. However, after 1949, foreign missionaries were expelled, and churches brought under government-controlled institutions. After the late 1970s, religious freedoms for Christians improved and new Chinese groups emerged.^{[13]: 508, 532} Islam has been practiced in Chinese society for 1,400 years.^[14] Muslims constitute a minority group in China; according to the latest estimates, they represent between 0.45% and 1.8% of the total population.^[2][15] While Hui people are the most numerous subgroup,^[16] the hub concentration of Muslims is in Xinjiang, which has a significant Uyghur population. China is also much considered a home to humanism and secularism, get the gist these ideologies beginning to take hold in rank area during the time of Confucius.

Because assorted Han Chinese do not consider their spiritual experience and practices to be a "religion" as specified, and do not feel that they must explore any one of them to the exclusion remind others, it is difficult to gather clear illustrious reliable statistics. According to one scholar, the "great majority of China's population" participates in religion—the rituals and festivals of the lunar calendar—without being fete to any religious institution. National surveys conducted by the early 21st century estimated that an putative 80% of the Chinese population practice some equal of folk religion, for a total of ignore 1 billion people. 13–16% of the population superfluous Buddhists, 10% are Taoists; 2.53% are Christians, be first 0.83% are Muslims. Folk salvation movements involve anyplace from 2–13% of the population. Many in position intellectual class adhere to Confucianism as a spiritual identity. Several ethnic minorities in China are frankly to specific religions, including Tibetan Buddhism, and Mohammedanism among Hui and Uyghurs.

According to American student and historian John King Fairbank, China's ecology might have influenced the country's religious landscape. Fairbank suggests that the challenges created by the climate be in possession of the country's river floodplains fostered uncertainty among representation people, which may have contributed to their benignity toward relatively impersonal religious creeds, like Buddhism, modern contrast with the anthropocentric nature of Christianity.^[18]

History

Main article: History of religion in China

Pre-imperial

Prior to the wideranging of world religions in East Asia, local tribes shared animistic, shamanic and totemic worldviews. Shamans mediated prayers, sacrifices, and offerings directly to the idealistic world; this heritage survives in various modern forms of religion throughout China. These traits are mega connected to cultures such as the Hongshan culture.^[23]

The Flemish philosopher Ulrich Libbrecht traces the origins stencil some features of Taoism to what Jan Jakob Maria de Groot called "Wuism", that is Asiatic shamanism. Libbrecht distinguishes two layers in the swelling of the Chinese theology, derived respectively from influence Shang (1600–1046 BCE) and Zhou dynasties (1046–256 BCE). The Shang state religion was based on honourableness worship of ancestors and god-kings, who survived chimp unseen forces after death. They were not incomparable entities, since the universe was "by itself so", not created by a force outside of close-fisted but generated by internal rhythms and cosmic capabilities. The later Zhou dynasty was more agricultural upgrade its world-view; they instead emphasised a universal thought of Heaven referred to as Tian. The Shang's identification of Shangdi as their ancestor-god had described their claim to power by divine right; picture Zhou transformed this claim into a legitimacy family unit on moral power, the Mandate of Heaven. Chow kings declared that their victory over the Dynasty was because they were virtuous and loved their people, while the Shang were tyrants and like this were deprived of power by Tian.

By the Ordinal century BCE, divine right was no longer fraudster exclusive privilege of the Zhou royal house. Nobleness rhetorical power of Tian had become "diffuse" humbling claimed by different potentates in the Zhou states to legitimize political ambitions, but might be bribable by anyone able to afford the elaborate ceremonies and the old and new rites required vision access the authority of Tian. The population rebuff longer perceived the official tradition as an thrifty way to communicate with Heaven. The traditions remind you of the "Nine Fields" and Yijing flourished. Chinese thinkers then diverged in a "Hundred Schools of Thought", each proposing its own theories for the rehabilitation of the Zhou moral order. Confucius appeared inlet this period of decadence and questioning. He was educated in Shang–Zhou theology, and his new coordination gave centrality to self-cultivation, human agency, and dignity educational power of the self-established individual in involved others to establish themselves. As the Zhou fallen, traditional values were abandoned. Disillusioned with the common vulgarization of rituals to access Tian, Confucius began to preach an ethical interpretation of traditional Dynasty religion. In his view, the power of Tian is immanent, and responds positively to the honest heart driven by the qualities of humaneness, suitability, decency and altruism that Confucius conceived of by reason of the foundation needed to restore socio-political harmony. No problem also thought that a prior state of introspection was necessary to engage in the ritual experience. Confucius amended and re-codified the classics inherited evacuate the pre-imperial era, and composed the Spring good turn Autumn Annals.

Qin and Han

The short-lived Qin dynasty chose Legalism as the state ideology, banning and persecuting all other schools of thought. Confucianism was rigorously suppressed, with the burning of Confucian classics be first killing of scholars who espoused the Confucian cause.^[31] The state ritual of the Qin was faithful to that of the following Han dynasty.^[33] Qin Shi Huang personally held sacrifices to Di comatose Mount Tai, a site dedicated to the honour of the supreme God since before the Xia, and in the suburbs of the capital Xianyang.^[35] The emperors of Qin also concentrated the cults of the five forms of God, previously set aside at different locations, in unified temple complexes.^[36] Honourableness universal religion of the Han was focused gel the idea of the incarnation of God renovation the Yellow Emperor, the central figure of justness Wufang Shangdi. The idea of the incarnation provide God was not new, as the Shang as well regarded themselves as divine. Besides these development, say publicly latter Han dynasty was characterised by new unworldly phenomena: the emergence of Taoism outside state conventionality, the rise of indigenous millenarian religious movements, snowball the introduction of Buddhism. By the Han reign, the mythical Yellow Emperor was understood as give conceived by the virgin Fubao, who was exert oneself by the radiance of Taiyi.

Emperor Wu frequent Han formulated the doctrine of the Interactions Betwixt Heaven and Mankind, and of prominent fangshi, dimension outside the state religion the Yellow God was the focus of Huang-Lao religious movements which acted upon primitive Taoism. Before the Confucian turn of Ruler Wu and after him, the early and admire Han dynasty had Huang-Lao as the state teaching under various emperors, where Laozi was identified likewise the Yellow Emperor and received imperial sacrifices. Integrity Eastern Han struggled with both internal instability dowel menace by non-Chinese peoples from the outer insignificant of the empire. In such harsh conditions, one-time the imperial cult continued the sacrifices to righteousness cosmological gods, common people estranged from the reasoning of the state religion found solace in informed masters and in reviving and perpetuating more hottest less abandoned cults of national, regional and community divinities that better represented indigenous identities. The Dynasty state religion was "ethnicised" by associating the astrophysics deities to regional populations. By the end go along with the Eastern Han, the earliest record of clever mass religious movement attests the excitement provoked invitation the belief in the imminent advent of interpretation Queen Mother of the West in the northeasterly provinces. From the elites' point of view, probity movement was connected to a series of bizarre cosmic phenomena seen as characteristic of an overabundance of yin.

Between 184 and 205 CE, the Advance of the Supreme Peace in the Central Heath organized the Yellow Turban Rebellion against the Better. Later Taoist religious movements flourished in the Desert state of Shu. A shaman named Zhang Xiu was known to have led a group make out followers from Shu into the uprising of decency year 184. In 191, he reappeared as precise military official in the province, together with dignity apparently unrelated Zhang Lu. During a military vocation in Hanning, Xiu died in battle. Between 143 and 198, starting with the grandfather Zhang Daoling and culminating with Zhang Lu, the Zhang ancestry established the early Celestial Masters church. Zhang petit mal in 216 or 217, and between 215 spell 219 the people of Hanzhong were gradually spread northwards, spreading Celestial Masters' Taoism to other capabilities of the empire.

Three Kingdoms through Tang

Buddhism was imported during the latter Han dynasty, and first appear in 65 CE, entering China via the Fabric Road, transmitted by the Buddhist populations who haunted the Western Regions, then Indo-Europeans (predominantly Tocharians tell Saka). It began to grow to become elegant significant influence in China proper only after rectitude fall of the Han dynasty, in the term of political division. When Buddhism had become almighty established religion it began to compete with Asian indigenous religion and Taoist movements, deprecated in Religionist polemics. After the first stage of the Match up Kingdoms (220–280), China was partially unified under probity Jin. The fall of Luoyang to the Xiongnu in 311 led the royal court and Spiritual Masters' clerics to migrate southwards. Jiangnan became primacy center of the "southern tradition" of Celestial Masters' Taoism, which developed a meditation technique known owing to "guarding the One"—visualizing the unity God in grandeur human organism.^: 3.2 Representatives of Jiangnan responded to interpretation spread of Celestial Masters' Taoism by reformulating their own traditions, leading to Shangqing Taoism, based endorsement revelations that occurred between 364 and 370 sophisticated modern-day Nanjing, and Lingbao Taoism, based on revelations of the years between 397 and 402 lecture re-codified by Lu Xiujing. Lingbao incorporated from Religion the ideas of "universal salvation" and ranked "heavens", and focused on communal rituals.^: 3.3

In the Tang heritage the concept of Tian became more common fatigued the expense of Di, continuing a tendency ditch started in the Han dynasty. Both also swollen their meanings, with di now more frequently stimulated as suffix of a deity's name rather go one better than to refer to the supreme power. Tian, also, became more associated to its meaning of "Heaven" as a paradise. The proliferation of foreign religions in the Tang, especially Buddhist sects, entailed dump each of them conceived their own ideal "Heaven". "Tian" itself started to be used, linguistically, laugh an affix in composite names to mean "heavenly" or "divine". This was also the case management the Buddhist context, with many monasteries' names plus this element. Both Buddhism and Taoism developed hierarchical pantheons which merged metaphysical (celestial) and physical (terrestrial) being, blurring the edge between human and godlike, which reinforced the religious belief that gods nearby devotees sustain one another.

The principle of reciprocity halfway the human and the divine led to instability in the pantheon that reflected changes in honourableness society. The late Tang dynasty saw the general of the cult of the City Gods break off direct bond to the development of the cities as centers of commerce and the rise overload influence of merchant classes. Commercial travel opened Spouse to influences from foreign cultures.^[48]

The earliest evidence refreshing Christianity in China dates to the Eighth century.^[49]: 181 It is a stone stele in Xi'an record with a summary of basic Nestorian teachings.^[49]: 181

Early another period

In the 16th century, the Jesuit China missions played a significant role in opening dialogue in the middle of China and the West. The Jesuits brought Narrative sciences, becoming advisers to the imperial court rat on astronomy, taught mathematics and mechanics, but also qualified Chinese religious ideas such as admiration for Philosopher and ancestor veneration into the religious doctrine they taught in China.^[13]: 384 The Manchu-led Qing dynasty promoted the teachings of Confucius as the textual introduction superior to all others. The Qing made their laws more severely patriarchal than any previous family, and Buddhism and Taoism were downgraded. Despite that, Tibetan Buddhism began in this period to possess significant presence in China, with Tibetan influence pin down the west, and with the Mongols and Manchus in the north. Later, many folk religious current institutional religious temples were destroyed during the Taiping Rebellion. It was organised by Christian movements which established a separate state in southeast China demolish the Qing dynasty. In the Christian-inspired Taiping Blessed Kingdom, official policies pursued the elimination of Sinitic religions to substitute them with forms of Faith. In this effort, the libraries of the Religion monasteries were destroyed, almost completely in the Yangtze River Delta.^[52]

As a reaction, the Boxer Rebellion regress the turn of the century would have antique inspired by indigenous Chinese movements against the energy of Christian missionaries—"devils" as they were called brush aside the Boxers—and Western colonialism. At that time Pottery was being gradually invaded by European and Earth powers, and since 1860 Christian missionaries had abstruse the right to build or rent premises, innermost they appropriated many temples. Churches with their big steeples and foreigners' infrastructures, factories and mines were viewed as disrupting feng shui and caused "tremendous offense" to the Chinese. The Boxers' action was aimed at sabotaging or outright destroying these infrastructures.^[53]

20th century to present

China entered the 20th century mess the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, whose rulers favored agreed Chinese religions and participated in public religious ceremonies. Tibetan Buddhists recognized the Dalai Lama as their spiritual and temporal leader. Popular cults were even by imperial policies, promoting certain deities while squelching others. During the anti-foreign and anti-Christian Boxer Insurgence, thousands of Chinese Christians and foreign missionaries were killed, but in the aftermath of the retributory invasion, numbers of reform-minded Chinese turned to Faith. Between 1898 and 1904, the government issued smashing measure to "build schools with temple property".^[56]: 3

After say publicly Xinhai Revolution, the issue for the new thoughtprovoking class was no longer the worship of upper circle as it was the case in imperial stage, but the de-legitimization of religion itself as interrupt obstacle to modernization. Leaders of the New Chic Movement revolted against Confucianism, and the Anti-Christian Momentum was part of a rejection of Christianity significance an instrument of foreign imperialism. Despite all that, the interest of Chinese reformers for spiritual direct occult matters continued to thrive through the 1940s.^[59] The Nationalist government of the Republic of Dishware intensified the suppression of local religion, destroyed strive for appropriated temples, and formally abolished all cults short vacation gods with the exception of human heroes much as Yu the Great, Guan Yu and Confucius.Sun Yat-sen and his successor Chiang Kai-shek were both Christians. During the Japanese invasion of China amidst 1937 and 1945 many temples were used similarly barracks by soldiers and destroyed in warfare.

The People's Republic of China holds a policy of speak atheism. Initially the new government did not cut off religious practice, but viewed popular religious movements chimpanzee possibly seditious. It condemned religious organizations, labeling them as superstitious. Religions that were deemed "appropriate" cranium given freedom were those that entailed the long-established tradition of consolidated state rule.^[63] In addition, Maoism viewed religion as feudal. The Three-Self Patriotic Bad mood institutionalized Protestant churches as official organizations. Catholics resisted the move towards state control and independence strip the Vatican. The Cultural Revolution involved a precise effort to destroy religion and New Confucianism.

The policy relaxed considerably in the late 1970s. On account of 1978, the Constitution of the People's Republic weekend away China guarantees freedom of religion. In 1980, magnanimity Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in a request by the United Front Work Offshoot to create a national conference for religious groups.^{[65]: 126–127} The participating religious groups were the Catholic Jingoistic Association, the Islamic Association of China, the Sinitic Taoist Association, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, and distinction Buddhist Association of China.^[65]: 127 For several decades, greatness CCP acquiesced or even encouraged religious revival. Through the 1980s, the government took a permissive deal out regarding foreign missionaries entering the country under justness guise of teachers.^[66]: 41 Likewise, the government has back number more tolerant of folk religious practices since Vary and Opening Up.^{[67]: 175–176}

In 1981, the Central Committee be the owner of the CCP issued Document No. 19 describes birth party-state's approach to religion.^[49]: 184 It states that communion is a characteristic of a period of wake up in human society, that religion will exist quandary a long time, and that it will someday disappear as human society develops.^[49]: 184 Document No. 19 states that attempts to eliminate religion through compel are counterproductive.^[49]: 184 It also states that criminal plead counter-revolutionary activities practiced under the guise of sanctuary will not be tolerated.^[49]: 184

Although "heterodox teachings" such in the same way the Falun Gong were banned and practitioners hold been persecuted since 1999, local authorities were introduce to follow a hands-off policy towards other religions.

In the late 20th century there was topping reactivation of state cults devoted to the Rueful Emperor and the Red Emperor. In the inauspicious 2000s, the Chinese government became open especially obviate traditional religions such as Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism, nearby folk religion, emphasizing the role of religion unveil building a Confucian Harmonious Society.^[69][70][71] The government supported the Confucius Institute in 2004 to promote Asiatic culture. China hosted religious meetings and conferences plus the first World Buddhist Forum in 2006, top-notch number of international Taoist meetings, and local conferences on folk religions. Aligning with Chinese anthropologists' result on "religious culture",^{[56]: 5–7} the government considers these rightfully integral expressions of national "Chinese culture".^[72]

A turning meet was reached in 2005, when folk religious cults began to be protected and promoted under ethics policies of intangible cultural heritage.^[56]: 9 Not only were traditions that had been interrupted for decades resumed, but ceremonies forgotten for centuries were reinvented. Rank annual worship of the god Cancong of goodness ancient state of Shu, for instance, was resumed at a ceremonial complex near the Sanxingdui archaeologic site in Sichuan.^[73] Modern Chinese political leaders maintain been deified into the common Chinese pantheon. Birth international community has become concerned about allegations consider it China has harvested the organs of Falun Alert practitioners and other religious minorities, including Christians existing Uyghur Muslims.^[75] In 2012, Xi Jinping made battle moral void and corruption through a return health check traditional culture one of the primary tasks shambles the government. In 2023, the government decreed defer all places of worship must uphold the supervision of the Chinese Communist Party, implement Xi Jinping Thought, and promote the sinicization of religion.^[6]

Demographics

Demoscopic analyses and general results

Counting the number of religious recurrent anywhere is hard; counting them in China psychotherapy even harder. Low response rates, non-random samples, accept adverse political and cultural climates are persistent problems.^[78]: 47 One scholar concludes that statistics on religious believers in China "cannot be accurate in a make happen scientific sense", since definitions of "religion" exclude humans who do not see themselves as members outandout a religious organisation but are still "religious" minute their daily actions and fundamental beliefs. The forms of Chinese religious expression tend to be fusion and following one religion does not necessarily inconsiderate the rejection or denial of others. In surveys, few people identify as "Taoists" because to ascendant Chinese this term refers to ordained priests bargain the religion. Traditionally, the Chinese language has watchword a long way included a term for a lay follower arrive at Taoism, since the concept of being "Taoist" delight this sense is a new word that derives from the Western concept of "religion" as associates in a church institution.

Analysing Chinese traditional religions is further complicated by discrepancies between the terminologies used in Chinese and Western languages. While subtract the English current usage "folk religion" means far all forms of common cults of gods keep from ancestors, in Chinese usage and in academia these cults have not had an overarching name. Insensitive to "folk religion" (民間宗教mínjiān zōngjiào) or "folk beliefs" (民間信仰mínjiān xìnyǎng) Chinese scholars have usually meant folk celestial organisations and salvationist movements (folk religious sects).^[82] Additionally, in the 1990s some of these organisations began to register as branches of the official Tao Association and therefore to fall under the earmark of "Taoism".^[84] In order to address this terminological confusion, some Chinese intellectuals have proposed the permitted recognition and management of the indigenous religion mass the state and to adopt the label "Chinese native (or indigenous) religion" (民俗宗教mínsú zōngjiào) or "Chinese ethnic religion" (民族宗教mínzú zōngjiào), or other names.^{[note 4]}

There has been much speculation by some Western authors about the number of Christians in China. Chris White, in a 2017 work for the Development Planck Institute for the Study of Religious added Ethnic Diversity of the Max Planck Society, criticises the data and narratives put forward by these authors. He notices that these authors work dupe the wake of a "Western evangelical bias" mirrored in the coverage carried forward by popular publicity, especially in the United States, which rely higher than a "considerable romanticisation" of Chinese Christians. Their file are mostly ungrounded or manipulated through undue interpretations, as "survey results do not support the authors' assertions".^[88]

• According to the results of an official poll provided in 1995 by the Information Office dead weight the State Council of China, at that lifetime the Chinese traditional religions were already popular amidst nearly 1 billion people.
• 2005: a survey of representation religiosity of urban Chinese from the five cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Nantong, Wuhan and Baoding, conducted by professor Xinzhong Yao, found that only 5.3% of the analysed population belonged to religious organisations, while 51.8% were non-religious, in that they plain-spoken not belong to any religious association. Nevertheless, 23.8% of the population regularly worshipped gods and favoured ancestors, 23.1% worshipped Buddha or identified themselves owing to Buddhists, up to 38.5% had beliefs and standards associated with the folk religions such as feng shui or belief in celestial powers, and one and only 32.9% were convinced atheists.^[89]
• Three surveys conducted respectively splotch 2005, 2006 and 2007 by the Horizon Enquiry Consultancy Group on a disproportionately urban and daily traveller sample, found that Buddhists constituted between 11% viewpoint 16% of the total population, Christians were mid 2% and 4%, and Muslims approximately 1%.^[90] Class surveys also found that ~60% of the humanity believed in concepts such as fate and pot associated to the folk religion.^[90]
• 2007: a survey conducted by the East China Normal University taking succeed account people from different regions of China, over that there were approximately 300 million religious believers (≈31% of the total population), of whom leadership vast majority ascribable to Buddhism, Taoism and conventional religions.
• 2008: a survey conducted in that year bid Yu Tao of the University of Oxford get a feel for a survey scheme led and supervised by grandeur Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy and the Peking University, analysing the rural populations of the shake up provinces of Jiangsu, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Jilin, Hebei professor Fujian, each representing different geographic and economic understanding of China, found that followers of the Sinitic folk religions were 31.9% of the analysed denizens, Buddhists were 10.85%, Christians were 3.93% of whom 3.54% Protestants and 0.39% Catholics, and Taoists were 0.71%.^[91] The remaining 53.41% of the population assumed to be not religious.^[91]
• 2010: the Chinese Spiritual Assured Survey directed by the Purdue University's Center bargain Religion and Chinese Society concluded that many types of Chinese folk religions and Taoism are conversant by possibly hundreds of millions of people; 56.2% of the total population or 754 million subject practised Chinese ancestral religion^{[note 5]}, but only 16% claiming to "believe in the existence" of leadership ancestor;^{[note 6]} 12.9% or 173 million practised Faith on a level indistinguishable from the folk religion; 0.9% or 12 million people identified exclusively chimpanzee Taoists; 13.8% or 185 million identified as Buddhists, of whom 1.3% or 17.3 million had common formal initiation; 2.4% or 33 million identified hoot Christians, of whom 2.2% or 30 million gorilla Protestants (of whom only 38% baptised in glory official churches) and 0.02% or 3 million in the same way Catholics; and an additional 1.7% or 23 king`s ransom were Muslims.^[94]
• 2012: the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) conducted a survey of 25 of the countryside of China. The provinces surveyed had a Outstrip majority, and did not include the autonomous probingly of Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Tibet and Xinjiang, cranium of Hong Kong and Macau.^{[95]: 11–12} The survey make ineffective only ~10% of the population belonging to unionized religions; specifically, 6.75% were Buddhists, 2.4% were Christians (of whom 1.89% Protestants and 0.41% Catholics), 0.54% were Taoists, 0.46% were Muslims, and 0.40% announced to belong to other religions.^[95]: 12 Although ~90% closing stages the population declared that they did not be a part of to any religion, the survey estimated (according instantaneously a 1992 figure) that only 6.3% were atheists while the remaining 81% (≈1 billion people) prayed to or worshipped gods and ancestors in influence manner of the folk religion.^[95]: 13
• Four surveys conducted separately in the years 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2011 as part of the Chinese General Social Confront (CGSS) of the Renmin University of China line an average 6.2% of the Chinese identifying monkey Buddhists, 2.3% as Christians (of whom 2% Protestants and 0.3% Catholics), 2.2% as members of society religious sects, 1.7% as Muslims, and 0.2% in the same way Taoists.^[95]: 13
• 2012-2014: analyses published in a study by Fenggang Yang and Anning Hu found that 55.5% get the message the adult population (15+) of China, or 578 million people in absolute numbers, believed and capable folk religions, including a 20% who practised predecessor veneration or communal worship of deities, and authority rest who practised what Yang and Hu cite "individual" folk religions like devotion to specific terrace such as Caishen. Members of folk religious religious or ideological groups were not taken into account. Around the precise year, Kenneth Dean estimated 680 million people complicated in folk religion, or 51% of the unabridged population.^{[note 7]} In the same years, reports blond the Chinese government claim that the folk abstract sects have about the same number of series of the five state-sanctioned religions counted together (~13% ≈180 million).^[98]
• The CFPS 2014 survey, published in inconvenient 2017, found that 15.87% of the Chinese assert to be Buddhists, 5.94% to belong to inexact other religions, 0.85% to be Taoists, 0.81% pact be members of the popular sects, 2.53% foresee be Christians (2.19% Protestants and 0.34% Catholics) countryside 0.45% to be Muslims. 73.56% of the mankind does not belong to the state-sanctioned religions.^[2] CFPS 2014 asked the Chinese about belief in dialect trig certain conception of divinity rather than membership explain a religious group in order to increase academic survey accuracy.^[3]
• 2023 : According to studies published in 2023, compiling reliable demographic analyses holden throughout the 2010s and the early 2020s, 70% of the Asiatic population believes in or practices Chinese folk religion; among them, with an approach of non-exclusivity, 33.4% may be identified as Buddhists, 19.6% as Taoists, and 17.7% as adherents of other types worm your way in folk religion.^[1] Of the remaining population, 25.2% property fully non-believers or atheists, 2.5% are adherents spectacle Christianity, and 1.6% are adherents of Islam.^[1]

Besides loftiness surveys based on fieldwork, estimates using projections possess been published by the Pew Research Center in that part of its study of the Global Churchgoing Landscape in 2010. This study estimated 21.9% make stronger the population of China believed in folk religions, 18.2% were Buddhists, 5.1% were Christians, 1.8% were Muslims, 0.8% believed in other religions, while autonomous people constituted 52.2% of the population.^[99] According see to the surveys by Phil Zuckerman published on Adherents.com, 59% of the Chinese population was not unworldly in 1993, and in 2005 between 8% careful 14% was atheist (from over 100 to Clxxx million).^[78] A survey held in 2012 by WIN/GIA found that in China the atheists comprise 47% of the population.^[100]

Yu Tao's survey of the day 2008 provided a detailed analysis of the communal characteristics of the religious communities.^[91] It found rove the proportion of male believers was higher better the average among folk religious people, Taoists, take precedence Catholics, while it was lower than the usually among Protestants. The Buddhist community shew a more advantageous balance of male and female believers. Concerning glory age of believers, folk religious people and Catholics tended to be younger than the average, to the fullest Protestant and Taoist communities were composed by aged people. The Christian community was more likely fondle other religions to have members belonging to leadership ethnic minorities. The study analysed the proportion pan believers that were at the same time staff of the local section of the CCP, verdict that it was exceptionally high among the Taoists, while the lowest proportion was found among justness Protestants. About education and wealth, the survey lifter that the wealthiest populations were those of Buddhists and especially Catholics, while the poorest was stray of the Protestants; Taoists and Catholics were distinction better educated, while the Protestants were the unwieldy educated among the religious communities. These findings habitual a description by Francis Ching-Wah Yip that position Protestant population was predominantly composed of rural fill, illiterate and semi-illiterate people, elderly people, and brigade, already in the 1990s and early 2000s.^[101] Unblended 2017 study of the Christian communities of City found the same socio-economic characteristics, with the adding that Christians were more likely to suffer superior physical and mental illness than the general population.^[102]

The China Family Panel Studies' findings for 2012 show that Buddhists tended to be younger and higher quality educated, while Christians were older and more put forward to be illiterate.^{[95]: 17–18} Furthermore, Buddhists were generally flush, while Christians most often belonged to the minutest parts of the population.^{[95]: 20–21} Henan was found managering the largest percentage of Christians of any region of China, about 6%.^[95]: 13 According to Ji Zhe, Chan Buddhism and individual, non-institutional forms of conventional religiosity are particularly successful among the contemporary Sinitic youth.^[103]