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. Although this stance has not changed in the seven decades since the state’s founding, policies on […]
Only one-in-ten Chinese adults formally identify with a religion, but surveys indicate that religion plays a much bigger role in China when the definition is widened to include questions on spirituality, customs and traditional beliefs.
This report relies primarily on data from seven waves of the Chinese General Social Survey (between 2010-21) and four waves of data from the China Family Panel Studies (between 2012-18) to discuss China’s religious landscape and how it has changed in recent years. Additionally, some analysis uses the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (between 2012-14), World […]