ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some of the key contested issues with respect to Christianity in contemporary China. Some non-Christian Chinese are very concerned about the numbers, for they fear the erosion of Chinese culture by the encroachment of what they perceive to be a religion that is essentially “Western” and “foreign”. Christian groups in China fall mainly under the first and the last responses, and relate differently to the party-state and Chinese society depending on which of these responses they take. The institutionalisation of religion in China has ultimately created a legitimate space for officially recognised religions to operate. M. Yang’s study of conversion to Christianity in urban China finds that the crucial contexts for the rising numbers of new converts in the 1990s in the cities were China’s increasing embrace of the globalising market economy under circumstances of tight political control and suppression of dissent.
