A Problem of ‘Religion,’ and Polling, in China

Is China one of the world’s most atheist countries?

That’s the conclusion of a poll by WIN/Gallup International, released earlier this year, that surveyed more than 50,000 people from 57 countries. In China, 61 percent identified themselves as atheist and 29 percent as nonreligious; 7 percent said they were religious.

That contrasts starkly with the rest of the world. Over all, just 11 percent of those surveyed said they were atheists; 22 percent said they were nonreligious, and 63 percent said they were religious. The only countries whose percentage of declared atheists came anywhere near China’s, according to the poll, were Japan, France and the Czech Republic, each with about 30 percent. No other country had more than 15 percent.

Since its release in April, the poll has been widely reported in the global media, attracting attention in The Washington Post, The Daily Telegraph and The Huffington Post, as well as blogs predicting a rising atheist tide, primarily because of China’s huge number of reported atheists.

But since then, experts have been wondering why the results contradict the situation that many researchers see on the ground. Travelers to China often note the growing number of temples, churches and mosques, while leading academics are almost unanimous in describing a religious rebirth.

Ijaz Gilani, who heads global opinion research for WIN/Gallup, which is based in Switzerland, said he also wondered about the high response rate for atheism in China. At first, he said, he thought it might have to do with China being a post-communist state (or post-Maoist, at any rate). But then he noted that most post-communist states did not report high numbers of atheists.

“This flummoxed me,” Mr. Gilani said. “But I began to notice that there was something going on in East Asia.” In Japan, 62 percent of respondents said they were either atheists or not religious; in South Korea, the figure was 56 percent, and in Hong Kong it was 70 percent.

Yang Fenggang, who runs the Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University, believes the answers have to do with the question. The word for religion in Chinese, zongjiao, is a 19th-century term borrowed from the Japanese, who in turn translated the concept from German.

In East Asia, religious beliefs and practices were long an organic part of daily life. Modern states separated religion into a separate sphere, and so needed a new word. As religion became a hotly contested subject in China in the 20th century, under the Nationalists and then the Communists, zongjiao became a narrow, highly politicized term that usually referred to formal organizations and structures.

“‘Religion’ in China is a contested term,” Professor Yang said. “You have to look at how the questions are posed.”

WIN/Gallup asked respondents in every country to characterize themselves as “a religious person,” “not a religious person” or “a convinced atheist,” with a fourth option of “do not know/no response.” In China, the first two options used the term xinyang zongjiao, literally “a person who believes in religion.”

“Xinyang zongjiao is a very formal term,” Professor Yang said. “People may not respond the way the researchers intend.”

Robert Weller, a professor of anthropology at Boston University, said xinyang zongjiao was probably understood to refer to formal members of one of China’s five officially recognized religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism. Most Chinese practice an amalgam of Buddhism, Taoism and folk practices that is often described as “traditional belief” (chuantong xinyang) or simply “belief” (xinyang), avoiding the contentious term zongjiao.

Another problem with the poll could be methodology, Dr. Weller said. In China, it was conducted online — a medium that increasingly is not anonymous here. “The ‘convinced atheist’ rate is probably so high because everyone knows it’s the official answer,” Dr. Weller said.

Such possible problems mirror an issue that arose last year when Pew Research Center, in its Global Attitudes Project, found that most Chinese did not consider belief in God to be necessary for morality. The results for China were eventually excised from the final report.

As Mr. Gilani notes, though, the WIN/Gallup poll has much value. It breaks down responses by age, education, and income levels. In China, the combined response rate for “convinced atheist” and “not a religious person” is only 56 percent among people age 30 and under, versus 90 percent for those 70 and older. This indicates that younger Chinese are more likely to reject the term “atheist,” which is still promoted by the Communist Party.

“In other parts of the world, the survey is more uniformly understood,” Mr. Gilani said. “In East Asia, the signals are more complex, but it still gives some insight.”