He made the remarks to an audience of religious people and scholars at the University of California in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

Fu, chairman of the China Catholicism Association, is heading the Chinese delegation of religious leaders who are on their way to the Millennium World Peace Summit of religious and spiritual leaders to be held in the UN headquarters later this month.

According to the law, Chinese citizens can freely choose and express their religious beliefs and make their religious affiliation clear, Fu said.

There are more than 100 million religious followers in China, more than 85,000 places of worship, and 3,000 religious communities with 30,000 clergy to serve the spiritual needs of their followers, the bishop said.

Of the top five religions, Buddhism, the most influential, has a history of 2,000 years in China and Taoism, native to the country, has a history of more than 1,700 years. Islam was introduced to China in the seventh century. Catholicism and Protestantism boomed in China with the Opium War in the 1840s, and they still have respectively 4 million and 10 million followers in China today.

"Religious organizations in China run their own affairs independently and set up religious schools, publish religious books and periodicals and run social services according to their will," he said.

"All clerical and worshipping activities conducted in accordance with the law, in public or at home, such as worshipping Buddha, reciting scriptures, going to church, praying, preaching, observing Mass, baptizing, monkhood initiation, fasting and celebrating religious festivals, are not interfered with by outsiders," said the bishop.

He said all religions are equal in status in China and religious wars are unheard of here.

"Religious believers and non-believers respect each other, are united and have a harmonious relationship," he claimed.

At present, the number of religious believers is increasing dramatically. He declined to elaborate on the average annual increase overall, but said, for example, the Protestant church has 10 times more followers than it did in 1949.

Fu said although the Chinese religious population has witnessed a sharp increase over recent years, he has mixed feelings about it because the ill-educated are always prone to fall prey to cults.

"It poses a major challenge for us when the educational background of the followers is considered," the bishop said.

The increased number of followers are more than the existing Chinese clergymen can handle, because their own proficiency levels also need to be updated and improved, said Fu.

(Xinhua)