Chinese religion has been influenced by three streams of human thought: Taosim, Confucianism and Buddhism. All three have been inextricably entwined in popular Chinese religion along with ancient animist beliefs. The founders of Taosim, Confucianism and Buddhism have been deified. The Chinese worship them and their diciples as fervently as they worship their own ancestors and a pantheon of gods and spirits.
Muslims are believed to be one of the largest identifiable religious group still active in China today, numbering perhaps 3% to 5% of the nation's population. Christians make up a similar percentage. The government has not published offical figures for the number of Buddhists. It's impossible to determine the number of Taoists, but the number of Taoist priests is very small.
