Over the past 30 years, organized religion has grown at an astonishing rate throughout China, while the state’s officially endorsed religious tradition — atheism — has remain unchanged. An independent survey conducted in 2007 by Shanghai University found that around 
Over the past 30 years, organized religion has grown at an astonishing rate throughout China, while the state’s officially endorsed religious tradition — atheism — has remain unchanged. An independent survey conducted in 2007 by Shanghai University found that around 31 percent of those Chinese polled considered themselves to be religious — three times higher than government statistics reported at the time. Similar surveys have asked respondents whether they worship gods in any form; in one study, 63.2 percent responded in the affirmative, indicating that the practice of religious rituals is more widespread than identification with an organized faith.
Boston University Professor Robert P. Weller writes about the phenomenon in a recent article in Daedalus. “Temples to local gods have popped up like mushrooms over broad sections of the rural countryside,” he writes, while “Islam is increasingly visible as Muslims from China’s far west migrate to the heavily populated east side of the country.” Christianity has grown almost everywhere, and “Daoist and especially Buddhist temples are reviving quickly as well.”
It has been difficult for the Chinese government to keep up with these rapid changes. By the time of Mao’s death in 1976, most forms of religion and religious expression in China had been deemed threats to the security of the state and thoroughly suppressed. Now, China’s government is largely forced to improvise when it comes to creating policy on religious issues. At the moment, only five religions are legally recognized: Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism. To maintain their official status, each is required to have an organized representative entity that works closely with the government to ensure that their ideals and objectives align. Since a religious tradition cannot be recognized without this formal organizational structure, any activity that takes place outside of the designated traditions is technically illegal — including the small number of Chinese who practice religions like Hinduism or Judaism, as well as the millions who visit local temples and worship indigenous gods and spirits.
Weller terms the current government strategy for dealing with public extralegal religious activity as a “one-eye open, one-eye closed” policy. “It is as if government officials agree to pretend that they cannot see, so long as followers agree to pretend that they are not breaking the rule,” writes Weller. “The state has created an open space where religion has fermented and expanded, even without a stable legal environment to support it.” This tactic — which has been historically successful in totalitarian European countries — allows unrecognized religions to continue to exist (and, in some cases, thrive) in the public sphere, while allowing for the possibility of government repression at any moment with a ready excuse: combatting flagrantly illegal activity. Thus far, Beijing has been taking action almost exclusively against groups or individuals they deem socially disruptive or who have the potential to deviate from state interests.
Why would the government choose to operate this way? Why not simply add other religious traditions to the existing state-recognized five — a move that would expand the number of legitimate religions while pulling those religions closer to the state? Weller’s answer is that the state sees significant advantages to having some forms of religion remain outside the regulator