COUNTRY
ChinaPOPULATION
1,343,239,923 (July 2012 est.)GDP PER CAPITA
$8,500 (2011 est.)RELIGIONS
Daoist (Taoist), Buddhist, Christian 3%-4%, Muslim 1%-2% note: officially atheist (2002 est.)AT THE CENTER
RELATED RESOURCES
ORGANIZATIONS (3)
China Islamic Association
Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association
National Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China
Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association
National Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China
PEOPLE (10)
QUOTES (15)
China
Letters (9)
China has a long tradition of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, which have undergone a revival due to many of the government’s restrictions on religious practice having been lifted since the 1980s. The Han Dynasty (202 BCE-220 CE) promulgated Confucianism as the state culture, which it has largely remained. Buddhism gained significant influence by the 5th century and mixed considerably with native Daoism. The Communist Party implemented state atheism when it came to power in 1949 and attempted to expunge religion from society during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). However, religious practice surged as prohibitions eased. Chinese religious policy is freedom of belief and practice with government oversight of organization and political action. The government oversees officially organized religious bodies, though underground organizations also exist, particularly for Christianity. Foreign proselytism is illegal, and Communist Party members are required to be atheist. Internal conflicts tend to have a religious element, as seen in the cases of the Tibetan Autonomous Region and Xinjiang province.
January 12, 2011
The past 4 months have granted me the opportunity to engage with numerous cultures all over Europe and the Mediterranean world. Travels ranging from Dublin in Ireland to the Northern Sahara Desert in Tunisia have provided an unprecedented opportunity to engage with the gamut of the Christian, or what once was the ancient Christian, world. From the 4th century onward, Christianity was the king religion throughout the known civilized western world. Covering an area stretching from the northern...
December 13, 2010
In my previous letter, I addressed how China’s holistic thinking can be used as a model for religious understanding. While China’s holistic thinking does allow the seamless interflow of Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism, its views on the holistic “share” of human rights can actually restrict the religious beliefs of China’s other 56 minority groups.
In November, I was able to experience the culture of one of these minority groups when I traveled to Jiuzhaigou County, an area in the northern...
In November, I was able to experience the culture of one of these minority groups when I traveled to Jiuzhaigou County, an area in the northern...
December 6, 2010
I was handling homesickness well until Thanksgiving hit. Attending class like a normal day, I imagined my mom putting the turkey in the oven and dreamed of my school friends on planes and trains headed for home. They dont celebrate Thanksgiving here in China how was I to find the holiday spirit?
Although absent from my family table, I knew I still had many things to be grateful for. My close friend from Georgetown had finished her study abroad program early and flew from Australia to...
Although absent from my family table, I knew I still had many things to be grateful for. My close friend from Georgetown had finished her study abroad program early and flew from Australia to...
December 2, 2010
One or even a few sweeping generalizations cannot explain China and its dynamic and radical changes over the past several decades. Today, a prevailing Western position on why the Communist Party has endured stems from a belief in three key factors state-led economic development policies; market forces relate to late industrialization; and socialist legacies. These factors are valuable but ultimately incomplete.
In the past three years, China has hosted three major international events: the...
In the past three years, China has hosted three major international events: the...
November 12, 2010
"The People's Republic of China is officially a society without religion." As with most of the Chinese Communist Party's official positions, this one is far from the truth about Chinese society. It does, however, pose an interesting question: what place can religion have in this socialist society, and are socialism with Chinese characteristics, as Chairman Mao said, and religion, mutually exclusive?
I spent a week and a half in Xinjiang Autonomous Region, the predominantly Muslim province...
I spent a week and a half in Xinjiang Autonomous Region, the predominantly Muslim province...
October 28, 2010
"Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly. A butterfly fluttering happily around--was he revealing what he himself meant to be? He knew nothing of Zhou. All at once awakening, there suddenly he was--Zhou. But he didn't know if he was Zhou having dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhou. Between Zhou and the butterfly there must surely be some distinction?"
This is the way of the Dao ? (romanized as Tao), one philosophy that governs Chinese religious values, which is...
This is the way of the Dao ? (romanized as Tao), one philosophy that governs Chinese religious values, which is...
October 13, 2010
Each city has its paradoxes. In DC, there are homeless people huddled on the same streets that are lined with the multimillion-dollar homes of the country's elite, and the harsh contrast between rich and poor is an inescapable feature of the nation's capital. In Dakar, those contrasts are even more glaring. Perhaps it is because I am a visitor, and we view other societies through a sharper lens than we view our own, but Senegal's paradoxes have come to define my perception of this colorful,...
October 9, 2010
During China's Cultural Revolution--a period of tumultuous and oftentimes brutally violent social, political, and economic upheaval beginning in the late 1960s and lasting until Mao Zedong's death in 1976--religion was dealt a crippling blow. The Communist Party saw religion's overall concepts and practices as deleterious to Maoist and Marxist-Leninist teachings. Monasteries, mosques, and temples were defaced and destroyed. Countless religious practitioners such as monks and shamans were...
October 5, 2010
In the first two weeks that I have lived in Beijing, I have seen many interesting sights. From babies defecating in public to bicycle and taxi crashes, the most meaningful sights I have seen were in places of commerce. At its purest level, capitalism is thriving in this capital; more entrepreneurs wander the streets here, peddling nearly identical products right across the street from each other. Many of the assumptions underpinning perfect competition hold in many of the markets of Beijing:...