{"id":69887,"date":"2023-08-30T09:38:24","date_gmt":"2023-08-30T14:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2023\/08\/30\/non-religion\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T11:15:35","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T15:15:35","slug":"non-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/religion\/2023\/08\/30\/non-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"6. Non-religion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Children make vows during a ceremony for newly joined members of the Young Pioneer Organization, a youth branch of the Chinese Communist Party, in Fuyang, China, in 2019. (Visual China Group via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Many international studies, including from Pew Research Center<\/a>, compare levels of religious identity and commitment across countries. China tends to rank high<\/a> on the lists of countries with the biggest share of people who are \u2013 by several measures \u2013 secular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In China, religious affiliation is typically translated as \u201creligious belief,\u201d such as in the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) question \u201cWhat is your religious belief (zongjiao xinyang<\/em> \u5b97\u6559\u4fe1\u4ef0)?\u201d In 2018, 90% of Chinese adults chose the option \u201cNo religious belief\u201d in response to this question.[84. numoffset=”84″ The 2018 CGSS was conducted in 28 of mainland China’s 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. The 2021 CGSS was conducted in 19 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions. In the 2021 CGSS, 93% of respondents identified with no religious belief (zongjiao xinyang). Due to these differences, results from 2021 may not be directly comparable to 2018 and earlier CGSS waves.] By this measure, about 998 million Chinese adults were religiously unaffiliated in 2018. Other national studies, including the World Values Survey (WVS), also find that about nine-in-ten adults in China do not have a zongjiao xinyang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chart<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

However, questions that translate religion as zongjiao<\/em> (\u5b97\u6559) capture a narrow facet of religion, as the phrase commonly connotes formal membership in a religious organization or a public commitment to a religious belief system. When respondents choose the \u201cno religious belief\u201d (wu zongjiao xinyang <\/em>\u65e0\u5b97\u6559\u4fe1\u4ef0) option in a survey, they might not have in mind a complete lack of religious or spiritual beliefs. For example, they may not associate belief in Buddha and\/or a bodhisattva or folk deities with the word \u201creligion\u201d (zongjiao<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, some Chinese people may reject zongjiao affiliation because they only occasionally engage in zongjiao activities, or because they see that the state disapproves of zongjiao<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Table<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As a result, the share of people who claim to have \u201cno religion\u201d is far larger than the share who reject any belief in gods or who never engage in spiritual activities. For example, when asked whether they believe in (xiangxin <\/em>\u76f8\u4fe1) any <\/em>gods or deities, only 61% of Chinese adults said they do not believe in Buddha and\/or a bodhisattva, Taoist immortals, Jesus Christ, Tianzhu<\/em> (\u5929\u4e3b, the word for God used by Chinese Catholics), or Allah, according to the 2018 CFPS.<\/em> (Xiangxin, which is commonly translated as \u201cbelieve in,\u201d also means to trust or have no doubts in. The term does not always connote worship or veneration.) <\/em>When the analysis includes belief in supernatural forces or participation in traditional customs with spiritual underpinnings, the rate of non-religion drops even further.

And while the Chinese Communist Party espouses atheism as its official ideology, just one-third of Chinese adults identify as atheist (wu shen lun zhe <\/em>\u65e0\u795e\u8bba\u8005), according to the 2018 WVS.

This chapter discusses different ways of looking at non-religion in China, and it explains the advantages and limitations of using zongjiao affiliation to estimate the extent of secularism in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it is an exaggeration to say that 90% of China\u2019s population is secular, it also is an exaggeration to suggest that religious and\/or spiritual practices are pervasive and frequent. Common survey measures and categories of analysis tend to ignore traditional customs and may poorly capture beliefs, which overlap and are not consistently detected when question wording and format vary. Ultimately, the best available survey data indicates that in many senses, a considerable portion of China\u2019s population rejects supernatural beliefs and does not engage in frequent religious rituals.<\/p>\n\n\n

The meaning of zongjiao xinyang<\/em><\/div>