Ideas have always possessed an extraordinary potency and vitality in China. The 19th-century Taiping Rebellion fused Christianity with revolutionary principles of social organisation, almost sweeping away the Qing dynasty in the process and leaving 20 million dead. The momentary incandescence of the Boxer Rebellion drew upon a volatile cocktail of martial-arts practices and superstition, blended with xenophobia, while the chaos of the Cultural Revolution further suggests what may happen in China when ideas assume the full supremacy they seek.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) today remains fearful of ideas and beliefs that challenge its authority. Proselytising is not permitted, religious organisation is regulated and monitored, while organisations such as Falun Gong (a quasi-Buddhist health system) and the Church of Almighty God (a radical Christian group) can be deemed cults and banned outright. Despite constraints, worship and religious practice is generally permitted and China’s spiritual world provides a vivid and colourful backdrop to contemporary Chinese life.
China has always had a pluralistic religious culture, and although statistics in China are a slippery fish, an estimated 400 million Chinese today adhere to a particular faith, in varying degrees of devotion. The CCP made strident efforts after 1949 to supplant religious worship with the secular philosophy of communism but since the abandonment of principles of Marxist-Leninist collectivism, this policy has significantly waned.
Religion in China is enjoying an upswing as people return to faith for spiritual solace at a time of great change, dislocation and uncertainty. The hopeless, poor and destitute may turn to worship as they feel abandoned by communism and the safety nets it once assured. Yet the educated and prosperous are similarly turning to religious belief for a sense of guidance and direction in a land many Chinese suspect has become morally bereft.
Religious belief in China has traditionally been marked by tolerance. Although the faiths are quite distinct, some convergence exists between Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, and you may discover shrines where all three faiths are worshipped. Guanyin, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, finds her equivalent in Tianhou (Mazu), the Taoist goddess and protector of fisher folk, and the two goddesses can seem almost interchangeable. Other symbioses exist: elements of Taoism and Buddhism can be discerned in the thinking of some Chinese Christians, while the Virgin Mary finds a familiar toehold in the Chinese psyche owing to her resemblance, in bearing and sympathetic message, to Guanyin.
Although not an indigenous faith, Buddhism (佛教; Fójiào) is the religion most deeply associated with China and Tibet. Although Buddhism’s authority has long ebbed, the faith still exercises a powerful sway over China's spiritual inclinations. Many Chinese may not be regular temple-goers but they harbour an interest in Buddhism; they may merely be ‘cultural Buddhists’, with a strong affection for Buddhist civilisation.
Chinese towns with any history usually have several Buddhist temples, but the number is well down on pre-1949 figures. The small Héběi town of Zhèngdìng, for example, has four Buddhist temples, but at one time had eight. Běijīng once had hundreds, compared to the 20 or so you can find today.
Some of China’s greatest surviving artistic achievements are Buddhist in inspiration. The largest and most ancient repository of Chinese, Central Asian and Tibetan Buddhist artwork can be found at the Mogao Grottoes in Gānsù, while the carved Buddhist caves at both Lóngmén and Yúngāng are spectacular pieces of religious and creative heritage. To witness Buddhism at its most devout, consider a trip to Tibet.
Founded in ancient India around the 5th century BC, Buddhism teaches that all of life is suffering, and that the cause of this anguish is desire, itself rooted in sensation and attachment. Suffering can only be overcome by following the eightfold path, a set of guidelines for moral behaviour, meditation and wisdom. Those who have freed themselves from suffering and the wheel of rebirth are said to have attained nirvana or enlightenment. The term Buddha generally refers to the historical founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, but is also sometimes used to denote those who have achieved enlightenment.
Siddhartha Gautama left no writings; the sutras that make up the Buddhist canon were compiled many years after his death.
Like other faiths such as Christianity, Nestorianism, Islam and Judaism, Buddhism originally reached China via the Silk Road. The earliest recorded Buddhist temple in China proper dates back to the 1st century AD, but it was not until the 4th century, when a period of warlordism coupled with nomadic invasions plunged the country into disarray, that Buddhism gained mass appeal. Buddhism’s sudden growth during this period is often attributed to its sophisticated ideas concerning the afterlife (such as karma and reincarnation), a dimension unaddressed by either Confucianism or Taoism. At a time when existence was especially precarious, spiritual transcendence was understandably popular.
As Buddhism converged with Taoist philosophy (through terminology used in translation) and popular religion (through practice), it went on to develop into something distinct from the original Indian tradition. The most famous example is the esoteric Chan school (Zen in Japanese), which originated sometime in the 5th or 6th century, and focused on attaining enlightenment through meditation. Chan was novel not only in its unorthodox teaching methods, but also because it made enlightenment possible for laypeople outside the monastic system. It rose to prominence during the Tang and Song dynasties, after which the centre of practice moved to Japan. Other major Buddhist sects in China include Tiantai (based on the teachings of the Lotus Sutra) and Pure Land, a faith-based teaching that requires simple devotion, such as reciting the Amitabha Buddha’s name, in order to gain rebirth in paradise. Today, Pure Land Buddhism is the most common.
Falun Gong – a practice that merges elements of qìgōng-style regulated breathing and standing exercises with Buddhist teachings, fashioning a quasi-religious creed in the process – literally means ‘Practice of the Dharma Wheel’. Riding a wave of interest in qìgōng systems in the 1990s, Falun Gong claimed as many as 100 million adherents in China by 1999. The technique was banned in the same year after over 10,000 practitioners stood in silent demonstration outside Zhōngnánhǎi in Běijīng, following protests in Tiānjīn when a local magazine published an article critical of Falun Gong. The authorities had been unnerved by the movement’s audacity and organisational depth, construing Falun Gong as a threat to the primacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The movement was branded a cult (xíejìao) and a robust, media-wide propaganda campaign was launched against practitioners, forcing many to undergo ‘re-education’ in prison and labour camps. After the ban, the authorities treated Falun Gong believers harshly and reports surfaced of adherents dying in custody. Falun Gong remains an outlawed movement in China to this day.
Regardless of its various forms, most Buddhism in China belongs to the Mahayana school, which holds that since all existence is one, the fate of the individual is linked to the fate of others. Thus, Bodhisattvas – those who have already achieved enlightenment but have chosen to remain on earth – continue to work for the liberation of all other sentient beings. The most popular Bodhisattva in China is Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy.
Ethnic Tibetans and Mongols within China practise a unique form of Mahayana Buddhism known as Tibetan or Tantric Buddhism (Lǎma Jiào). Tibetan Buddhism, sometimes called Vajrayana or ‘Thunderbolt Vehicle’, has been practised since the early 7th century AD and is influenced by Tibet’s pre-Buddhist Bon religion, which relied on priests or shamans to placate spirits, gods and demons. Generally speaking, it is much more mystical than other forms of Buddhism, relying heavily on mudras (ritual postures), mantras (sacred speech), yantras (sacred art) and esoteric initiation rites. Priests called lamas are believed to be reincarnations of highly evolved beings; the Dalai Lama is the supreme patriarch of Tibetan Buddhism.
The boundlessly compassionate countenance of Guanyin, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, can be encountered in temples across China. The goddess (more strictly a Bodhisattva or a Buddha-to-be) goes under a variety of aliases: Guanshiyin (literally ‘Observing the Cries of the World’) is her formal name, but she is also called Guanzizai, Guanyin Dashi and Guanyin Pusa, or, in Sanskrit, Avalokiteshvara. Known as Kannon in Japan, Guanyam in Cantonese and Quan Am in Vietnam, Guanyin shoulders the grief of the world and dispenses mercy and compassion. Christians will note a semblance to the Virgin Mary in the aura surrounding the goddess, which at least partially explains why Christianity has found a slot in the Chinese consciousness.
In Tibetan Buddhism, her earthly presence manifests itself in the Dalai Lama, and her home is the Potala Palace in Lhasa. In China, her abode is the island of Pǔtuóshān in Zhèjiāng province, the first two syllables of which derive from the name of her palace in Lhasa.
In temples throughout China, Guanyin is often found at the very rear of the main hall, facing north (most of the other divinities, apart from Weituo, face south). She typically has her own little shrine and stands on the head of a big fish, holding a lotus in her hand. On other occasions, she has her own hall, often towards the rear of the temple.
The goddess (who in earlier dynasties appeared to be male rather than female) is often surrounded by little effigies of the luóhàn (or arhat; those freed from the cycle of rebirth), who scamper about; the Guānyīn Pavilion outside Dàlǐ is a good example of this. Guanyin also appears in a variety of forms, often with just two arms, but frequently in multiarmed form (as at the Pǔníng Temple in Chéngdé). The 11-faced Guanyin, the fierce and wrathful horse-head Guanyin (a Tibetan Buddhist incarnation), the Songzi Guanyin (literally ‘Offering Son Guanyin’) and the Dripping Water Guanyin are just some of her myriad manifestations. In standing form, she has traditionally been a favourite subject for déhuà (white-glazed porcelain) figures, which are typically very elegant.
A home-grown philosophy-cum-religion, Taoism (道教; Dàojiào) is also perhaps the hardest of all China’s faiths to grasp. Controversial, paradoxical, and – like the Tao itself – impossible to pin down, it is a natural counterpoint to rigid Confucianist order and responsibility.
Taoism predates Buddhism in China and much of its religious culture connects to a distant animism and shamanism, despite the purity of its philosophical school. In its earliest and simplest form, Taoism draws from The Classic of the Way and Its Power (Taote Jing; Dàodé Jìng), penned by the sagacious Laotzu (Laozi; c 580–500 BC), who left his writings with the gatekeeper of a pass as he headed west on the back of an ox. Some Chinese believe his wanderings took him to a distant land in the west where he became Buddha.
The Classic of the Way and Its Power is a work of astonishing insight and sublime beauty. Devoid of a godlike being or deity, Laotzu’s writings instead endeavour to address the unknowable and indescribable principle of the universe, which he calls Dao (道; dào; ‘the Way’). Dao is the way or method by which the universe operates, so it can be understood to be a universal or cosmic principle.
The opening lines of The Classic of the Way and Its Power confess, however, that the treatise may fail in its task: 道可道非常道, 名可名非常名; ‘The way that can be spoken of is not the real way, the name that can be named is not the true name.’ Despite this disclaimer, the 5000-character book, completed in terse classical Chinese, somehow communicates the nebulous power and authority of ‘the Way’. The book remains the seminal text of Taoism, and Taoist purists see little need to look beyond its revelations.
One of Taoism’s most beguiling precepts, wúwéi (inaction) champions the allowing of things to naturally occur without interference. The principle is enthusiastically pursued by students of Taiji Quan, Wuji Quan and other soft martial arts who seek to equal nothingness in their bid to lead an opponent to defeat himself.
The very core of Chinese society for the past two millennia, Confucianism (儒家思想; Rújiā Sīxiǎng) is a humanist philosophy that strives for social harmony and the common good. In China, its influence can be seen in everything from the emphasis on education and respect for elders to the patriarchal role of the government.
Confucianism is based upon the teachings of Confucius (Kongzi), a 6th-century BC philosopher who lived during a period of constant warfare and social upheaval. While Confucianism changed considerably throughout the centuries, some of the principal ideas remained the same – namely an emphasis on five basic hierarchical relationships: father-son, ruler-subject, husband-wife, elder-younger, and friend-friend. Confucius believed that if each individual carried out his or her proper role in society (a son served his father respectfully while a father provided for his son, a subject served his ruler respectfully while a ruler provided for his subject, and so on) social order would be achieved. Confucius’ disciples later gathered his ideas in the form of short aphorisms and conversations, forming the work known as The Analects (Lúnyǔ).
Early Confucian philosophy was further developed by Mencius (Mèngzǐ) and Xunzi, both of whom provided a theoretical and practical foundation for many of Confucius’ moral concepts. In the 2nd century BC, Confucianism became the official ideology of the Han dynasty, thereby gaining mainstream acceptance for the first time. This was of major importance and resulted in the formation of an educated elite that served both the government as bureaucrats and the common people as exemplars of moral action. During the rule of the Tang dynasty an official examination system was created, which, in theory, made the imperial government a true meritocracy. However, this also contributed to an ossification of Confucianism, as the ideology grew increasingly mired in the weight of its own tradition, focusing exclusively on a core set of texts.
Nonetheless, influential figures sporadically reinterpreted the philosophy – in particular Zhu Xi (1130–1200), who brought in elements of Buddhism and Taoism to create Neo Confucianism (Lǐxué or Dàoxué) – and it remained a dominant social force up until the 1911 Revolution toppled the imperial bureaucracy. In the 20th century, modernist writers and intellectuals decried Confucian thought as an obstacle to modernisation and Mao further levelled the sage in his denunciation of ‘the Four Olds’. But feudal faults notwithstanding, Confucius’ social ethics recently resurfaced in government propaganda where they lent authority to the leadership’s emphasis on ‘harmony’ (héxié).
The explosion of interest in Christianity (基督教; Jīdūjiào) in China over recent years is unprecedented except for the wholesale conversions that accompanied the tumultuous rebellion of the pseudo-Christian Taiping in the 19th century.
Christianity first arrived in China with the Nestorians, a sect from ancient Persia that split with the Byzantine Church in 431 AD, who arrived in China via the Silk Road in the 7th century. A celebrated tablet – the Nestorian Tablet – in Xī’ān records their arrival. Much later, in the 16th century, the Jesuits arrived and were popular figures at the imperial court, although they made few converts.
Large numbers of Catholic and Protestant missionaries established themselves in the 19th century, but left after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. One missionary, James Hudson Taylor from Barnsley in England, immersed himself in Chinese culture and is credited with helping to convert 18,000 Chinese Christians and building 600 churches during his 50 years in 19th-century China.
In today’s China, Christianity is a burgeoning faith perhaps uniquely placed to expand due to its industrious work ethic, associations with first-world nations and its emphasis on human rights and charitable work.
Some estimates point to as many as 100 million Christians in China. However, the exact population is hard to calculate as many groups – outside the four official Christian organisations – lead a strict underground existence (in what are called ‘house churches’) out of fear of a political clampdown.
Churches (教堂; jiàotáng) are not hard to find and most towns will have at least one. Cities like Shànghǎi, Běijīng, Dàtóng, Tàiyuán and Qīngdǎo (and many other large towns) have cathedrals, most of them dating to the 19th and early 20th centuries.
In signs of greater official unease at the spread of Christianity, authorities in Wénzhōu – a city in Zhèjiāng province known as 'China's Jerusalem' – demolished churches, threatened others with demolition and removed large crosses from some church spires in 2014. Officials argued they were enforcing building laws but Christian locals saw the moves as a deliberate attempt to undermine their faith.
Běijīng has also recently ratcheted up efforts to suppress fringe Christian groups such as the Church of Almighty God, an anti-Communist Party apocalyptic church which was designated a cult. Over a thousand members of the Church of Almighty God were arrested over a three-month period in 2014.
An unhealthy by-product of the recent explosion of interest in Christianity in China and the widespread number of unofficial 'house churches' has been the emergence of Christian heresies with large numbers of devoted followers. Chief among these is The Church of Almighty God, which teaches that a Chinese woman named Yang Xiangbin is the second Christ.
After being blacklisted in 2000, Yang Xiangbin and the founder of the cult, Zhao Weishan, fled to the US. It was only when some followers killed a 37-year-old woman in a branch of McDonald's in Shāndōng, after she refused to give them her mobile phone number, that the organisation came to greater public attention.
Directly opposed to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which it terms the Great Red Dragon, the organisation continues to aggressively recruit adherents in China, although its members live a largely underground and secretive existence.
Sharing features with the revolutionary Taiping, who believed that their leader Hong Xiuquan was the Son of God, the Church of Almighty God fuses elements of Christian belief with other faiths that contradict mainstream Christianity. The group also encourages members to turn away from their families and devote themselves to the church; however, it is the church's opposition to the CCP that singled itself out for a nationwide ban.
Promoting itself via a slick website and also known as Eastern Lightning, the church is one of 14 religious groups identified as cults by Chinese authorities. Strongly worded propaganda posters warning Chinese people of the cult can be seen in churches and on notice boards across China.
Islam (伊斯兰教; Yīsīlán Jiào) in China dates to the 7th century, when it was first brought to China by Arab and Persian traders along the Silk Road. Later, during the Mongol Yuan dynasty, maritime trade increased, bringing new waves of merchants to China’s coastal regions, particularly the port cities of Guǎngzhōu and Quánzhōu. The descendants of these groups – now scattered across the country – gradually integrated into Han culture, and are today distinguished primarily by their religion. In Chinese, they are referred to as the Hui.
Other Muslim groups include the Uighurs, Kazaks, Kyrgyz, Tajiks and Uzbeks, who live principally in the border areas of the northwest. It is estimated that 1.5% to 3% of Chinese today are Muslim.
A small percentage of China’s population is animist, a primordial religious belief akin to shamanism. Animists see the world as a living being, with rocks, trees, mountains and people all containing spirits that need to live in harmony. If this harmony is disrupted, restoration of this balance is attempted by a shaman who is empowered to mediate between the human and spirit world. Animism is most widely believed by minority groups and exists in a multitude of forms, some of which have been influenced by Buddhism and other religions.
Ironically (or perhaps intentionally), Mao Zedong, while struggling to uproot feudal superstition and religious belief, sprung to godlike status in China via a personality cult. By weakening the power of deities, Mao found himself substituting those very gods his political power had diminished. In the China of today, Mao retains a semideified aura.
Communism sits awkwardly with the economic trajectory of China over the past 30 years. Once a philosophy forged in the white-hot crucible of civil war, revolution and the patriotic fervour to create a nation free from foreign interference, communism had largely run its credible course by the 1960s. By the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, the political philosophy had repeatedly brought the nation to catastrophe, with the Hundred Flowers Movement, the Great Leap Forward and the disastrous violence of the Cultural Revolution.
Communism remains the official guiding principle of the CCP. However, young communist aspirants are far less likely to be ideologues than pragmatists seeking to advance within the party structure. In real terms, many argue that communism has become an adjunct to the survival of the CCP.
Chinese Communism owes something to Confucianism. Confucius’ philosophy embraces the affairs of man and human society and the relationship between rulers and the ruled, rather than the supernatural world. Establishing a rigid framework for human conduct, the culture of Confucianism was easily requisitioned by communists seeking to establish authority over society.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, Běijīng became aware of the dangers of popular power and sought to maintain the coherence and strength of the state. This has meant that the CCP still seeks to impose itself firmly on the consciousness of Chinese people through patriotic education, propaganda, censorship, nationalism and the building of a strong nation.
Communism also holds considerable nostalgic value for elderly Chinese who bemoan the erosion of values in modern-day China and pine for the days when they felt more secure and society was more egalitarian. Chairman Mao’s portrait still hangs in abundance across China, from drum towers in Guǎngxī province to restaurants in Běijīng, testament to a generation of Chinese who still revere the communist leader.
Until his spectacular fall from power in 2012, Chinese politician and Chóngqìng party chief Bo Xilai launched popular Maoist-style ‘red culture’ campaigns in Chóngqìng, which included the singing of revolutionary songs and the mass-texting of quotes from Mao’s Little Red Book. President Xi Jinping has also faced accusations of attempting to build a personality cult, allowing himself to be nicknamed Xi Dada (Big Daddy Xi), a kind of perennially good, sympathetic and paternal figurehead for the nation, with his citizens' best interests always at heart.
In today’s China, ‘-isms’ (主义; zhǔyì or ‘doctrines’) are often frowned upon. Any zhǔyì may suggest a personal focus that the CCP would prefer people channel into hard work instead. ‘Intellectualism’ is considered suspect as it may ask difficult questions. ‘Idealism’ is deemed nonpragmatic and potentially destructive, as Maoism showed.
China’s one-party state has reduced thinking across the spectrum via propaganda and censorship, dumbing down an educational system that emphasises patriotic education. This in turn, however, helped spawn another ‘-ism’: nationalism.
Nationalism is not restricted to Chinese youth but it is this generation – with no experience of the Cultural Revolution’s terrifying excesses – which most closely identifies with its message. The fènqīng (angry youth) have been swept along with China’s rise; while they are no lovers of the CCP, they yearn for a stronger China that can stand up to ‘foreign interference’ and dictate its own terms.
The CCP actively encourages strong patriotism, but is nervous about its transformation into aggressive nationalism and the potential for disturbance. Much nationalism in the PRC has little to do with the CCP but everything to do with China; while the CCP has struggled at length to identify itself with China’s civilisation and core values, it has been only partially successful. With China’s tendency to get quickly swept along by passions, nationalism is an often unseen but quite potent force, most visibly flaring up into the periodic anti-Japanese demonstrations that can convulse large towns and cities.