Religious practice and institutions

China is a country with many religions-Buddhism, Taoism, Islam. Catholicism and other Christian denominations with believers totalling 100 million.

Buddhism spread from India to China some 2,000 years ago. Chinese Buddhism may be classified according to languages into three communities: Mandarin, Tibetan and Bali. Most of the Mandarin Buddhist believers are Han Chinese while Tibetan Buddhist (generally called Lamaist) believers are of the Tibetan, Mongolian, Yugui, Lhoba, Moinba and Tu nationalities, and Bali Buddhist believers are of the Dai and Blang ethnic groups. Of all the religious communities in China, Buddhism is the largest. However, since quite a few of the Han Chinesare not always steadfast followers of Buddhism, it is hard to count their exact numbers. Taoism is native to China and has a history of more than 1,700 years. Its founder was Lao Tzu and its doctrines are based on his writings, the Tao te ching. Taoism, a polytheistic religion, is still quite influential in rural areas inhabited by Han Chinese

Islam spread from the Arab countries to China more than 1,300 years ago. It now has more than 14 million believers among the Hui, Uygur, Kazak, Ozbek, Tajik, Tatar, Kirgiz, Dong Xiang Sala and Bonan ethnic groups.

Catholicism and other forms of Christianity began to make their way into China very early. In 635, Olopan, a missionary of the Nestorian sect came to China from Persia. Then called Jing, the religion withered long before gaining a strong foothold in China. It was after the Sino British Opium War in 1840 that the Christian religion developed rapidly. After the founding of New China, Christian communities took the path of independence and self administration. Now there are more than 3.3 million Catholics and nearly 5 million Protestants in country.

In addition, there are also members of the Orthodox Eastern Church and of other religions among minority groups.

No religion has ever assumed a dominant position in China. Foreign religions, influenced and assimilated by time-honoured Chinese culture and tradition, have gradually become religions with Chinese characteristics. Religious believers make up only a tiny proportion of the 1.2 billion Chinese people.
Respect and protection of religious freedom is one of the basic policies of the Chinese government.