Eight Things to Know About Christians in China

The latest wave of religious repression in China represents the most aggressive internal clampdowns in years. Catholic bishops appointed by the Vatican have been disappeared, despite a deal allegedly giving the Vatican input in proposing Chinese bishops. Protestant house churches face constant surveillance and sweeping raids. New religious regulations give Chinese police increased power to monitor speech, belief, and religious thought. These moves are not isolated, they reflect Xi Jinping’s drive to “Sinicize” Christianity – to require Chinese Christians to support and spread the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party. Here are eight things to know about Christians in China:

1. China is home to as many as 160 million Christians.

China has a registered Christian population of 44 million, but estimates of the true figure run as high as 160 million — a gap driven by the difficulty of counting members of underground “house churches.” Some estimates place the number of unregistered Christians as high as 115 million, positioning China to have the world’s largest Christian population by 2030 should it continue to grow rapidly.

In 2018, about six million Catholic and 38 million Protestants had registered with the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the state-sanctioned organizations for Catholics and Protestants, respectively. Historically, unregistered Christians have outnumbered registered Christians. Online evangelism, notably through WeChat, China’s dominant messaging app, has enabled pastors and missionaries to reach far more adherents and converts.

China also prints roughly 75 percent of the world’s Christian bibles. The Amity Printing Company in Nanjing, the world’s largest Bible manufacturer, has printed nearly 300 million bibles since 1987. Domestic demand remains high with approximately 50 percent of these printed bibles distributed within China.

2. Christian churches are required to operate under CCP-approved bodies.

China recognizes seven official religious bodies: four that represent Christians plus one each for Muslims, Taoists, and Buddhists.

Since seizing power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has viewed Chinese Christians with suspicion for their ties to Western powers, history of participating in political uprisings such as the Taiping Rebellion in the 1850s, and dissonance with the CCP’s atheist ideology. In the 1950s, the government reorganized the century-old Protestant Three-Self Movement to sever ties between Chinese churches and foreign missionary movements, adopting the new name of Three-Self Patriotic Movement to assure the CCP of its loyalty and distance from foreign influence. The government-approved Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association followed suit when it was formed in 1957, adopting the same Party-approved terminology.

3. Unregistered “house churches” have proliferated as believers seek to worship outside of state control.

As an atheist movement, the CCP views religion as ideologically incompatible with communism; its members are not allowed to adhere to any religion. Further, the CCP believes Chinese churches are channels of foreign influence. From 1949 to 1951, Communist authorities expelled over 5,000 foreign missionaries and forced Protestant churches to register under the state-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Movement. Many believers rejected party allegiance as a condition of faith, meeting secretly in private homes and forming China’s first “house churches.” By 1958, there were an estimated half-million unregistered Christians.

Mao’s Cultural Revolution banned all worship, forcing roughly ten million Christians underground. Restrictions eased after Mao’s death in 1976, but many Christians refused to rejoin state-sanctioned bodies, fueling rapid growth of the house church movement through the 1980s. In the 2000s, new congregations appeared in major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, attracting educated urban professionals. By 2010, an estimated 45 to 60 million Protestants worshipped in house churches, compared to 18 to 30 million in state-approved institutions.

4. Xi Jinping outlined a Five-Year Plan in 2018 to “Sinicize” Christianity.

In 2018, Xi unveiled a five-year plan to “Sinicize” Christianity — along with  five-year plans to “Sinicize” all religions — to bring Chinese Christian beliefs and worship in line with the CCP’s ideology. Xi had foreshadowed this effort in 2016, stating that the Party must “guide the adaptation of religions to China’s socialist society.”

Under the plan, Christian churches and clergy must adhere to China’s “core socialist values” and support Party authority. In practice, this has involved government supervision of Bible translations, censorship of sermons, and the inclusion of “Xi Jinping Thought” in seminary curricula. Churches are required to display national flags and portraits of Xi, replace traditional hymns with patriotic songs, and preach obedience to the socialist order. “Sinicization” effectively subordinates divine authority to the Party, but many Christians resist what they see as an effort to place a human institution above God. 

5. Xi has tightened restrictions on all religions.

Passed by China’s State Council in 2004, the Regulations on Religious Affairs (RRA) serves as the CCP’s primary law for regulating faith. The RRA became the government’s stance on religion, replacing Document 19 that had liberalized Mao’s total ban but offered no legal framework for practice. The RRA formalized religious practice under state supervision, outlined China’s ideological stance, and established de facto legal recognition of religion.  

In 2018, Xi reversed any positive momentum gained from the RRA’s liberalizations. When then-Premier Wen Jiabao implemented the RRA, he had charged the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) with its enforcement. SARA was a government body instead of a CCP institution, nominally distancing religious regulation from the atheist CCP — though state institutions are mostly controlled by the Party. Xi dismantled SARA and charged the United Front Work Development, a CCP organization, with religious enforcement. Xi then revised the RRA, restricting foreign funding, requiring clergy to register with the government, and banning minors from religious activities, even church attendance.

6. A controversial 2018 China-Vatican deal gave the CCP unspecified powers over the appointment of Catholic bishops.

China and the Vatican reached an agreement in 2018 aimed at resolving a decades-long dispute over episcopal appointments. Previously, bishops appointed by the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association without Vatican approval were seen as illegitimate by many underground Catholics, creating a deep rift between state-sanctioned and unregistered churches.

While the exact terms of the deal have not been made public, the effects have been visible. The Pope agreed to recognize several bishops previously appointed by Beijing, while future appointments would allegedly be made jointly, with the Pope retaining final veto powers. Some Catholic house church attendees and pastors were reportedly angered by a deal they believed damaged their ability to independently practice Catholicism. Yet, despite the Vatican endorsing and renewing the deal multiple times, Beijing has not allowed the appointment or ordination of any new bishops under the agreement. Further, the CCP has pressured around 30 house church bishops to renounce Vatican authority and disappeared or forced out at least 10 Vatican-approved bishops.

7. The CCP used the COVID-19 pandemic to further repress religion.

According to the State Department, China used its ‘zero-COVID’ policy, introduced in January 2020, as a pretext to intensify its repression of religion. Officials shut down religious venues nationwide, including many state-sanctioned churches, and censored online posts referencing Jesus or the Bible. At the same time, the government removed more than 900 crosses in about 250 state-run churches, though that campaign began before the pandemic.

Between 2020 and 2023, Xi amended the RRA three times. The 2021 Measures for Religious Clergy imposed loyalty tests and a national registration system for clergy. The 2021 Internet Religious Information Services Measures banned unlicensed online preaching and required a provincial license to post religious content. Even after China lifted its ‘zero-COVID’ restrictions in December 2022, the 2023 Measures for Religious Activity Venues further tightened venue approvals and increased propaganda requirements in religious teaching.

8. For decades, the U.S. has designated China for severe violations of religious freedom.

In its first year of existence in 1999, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended China be designated as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) citing China’s crackdown on house churches, arrests of bishops and priests, and repression of Tibetan Buddhists. The U.S. Department of State accepted the recommendation and designated China as a CPC that same year.

In every subsequent report, USCIRF urged that China remain on the CPC list, and the State Department routinely followed suit — until 2009. That year, the State Department delayed renewing the designation. However, China was redesignated in 2010 and has remained on the list every year since.

In its most recent report, USCIRF again recommended CPC status for China, citing the regime’s “Sinicization” of religion that depopulates and distorts religious practice, the forced disappearance of Chinese Catholic bishops, and the detention and sentencing of Chinese Protestants on “security” and “criminal” charges.

Mariam Wahba and Samuel Ben-Ur are research analysts at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow Mariam on X @themariamwahba.