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people to turn to other beliefs. And it's certainly not just the Chinese poor who are turning to religion: the drift
to spiritual belief has occurred across the income spectrum.
The Chinese were traditionally either Buddhist, Taoist or Confucian; other major faiths in Běijīng are Islam
and Christianity. But while religious freedom exists in China, this is freedom with Chinese characteristics. Be-
lief systems (eg Falun Gong) can be banned overnight if Běijīng's leaders sense a threat to their political hege-
mony. Religious leaders of the major faiths are also cherry-picked by Běijīng. Proselytising is banned, although
this is having limited effect on the spread of Christianity.
Indeed, if any religion faces a bright future in China, it is Christianity. By wiping the slate clean, Mao Zedong
allowed the monotheistic religion - which had been an indecisive presence in China since the 7th century - to
flourish in a land that suddenly found itself unsure what to believe in. Most Chinese Christians belong to illicit
house churches, rather than the state-recognised Protestant or Catholic churches, so the precise number of
Christians is hard to fathom, although figures of over 100 million have been posited.
Jesus in Beijing (How Christianity Is Changing the Global Balance of Power)
by David Aikman argues that
China is approaching a tipping point that will transform the land into a largely Christian domain over the next
30 years. However unlikely the scenario, such an achievement would surely owe much to the communist secu-
larisation of China, which has turned the nation's soul into a blank sheet of paper to be written upon.
