China's Communist Party has condemned predictions that the country is on course to have the world's biggest Christian congregation, in a sign of Beijing's deep unease at the rapid spread of the faith within its borders.
In a recent interview, Fenggang Yang, an expert on religion in China, said the number of Chinese Protestants could rise to about 160million by 2025, with the total number of Christians exceeding 247million by 2030. That would put China ahead of Mexico, Brazil and the US as the world's biggest Christian community.
However, the prediction appears to have gone down badly in Communist Party circles, with many senior leaders fearing the impact an increasingly powerful church could have on their ability to stay in power.
Ye Xiaowen, one of the most senior members of the officially atheist party's powerful central committee, told the pro-party Global Times that such claims were "unscientific" and "obviously inflated".
The newspaper cited a Peking University study that said there were 26million Protestants in China in 2012. Academics and members of China's "house church" movement believe the figure is closer to 80million.
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