Chinese Catholics attend a Christmas Eve mass at a church in Beijing. Christianity took root in China in the 16th century thanks to Jesuit missionaries who made converts of prominent people, but first reached China nearly 1,000 years earlier. Photo: EPA-EFE
Chinese Catholics attend a Christmas Eve mass at a church in Beijing. Christianity took root in China in the 16th century thanks to Jesuit missionaries who made converts of prominent people, but first reached China nearly 1,000 years earlier. Photo: EPA-EFE
Wee Kek Koon
Opinion

Opinion

Reflections by Wee Kek Koon

The Christian converts in Ming dynasty China who made the religion respectable there and the millions of Chinese who will celebrate Christmas

  • Christianity took proper root in China thanks to 16th century Jesuit missionaries. Among their influential converts was a minister of the Ming emperor’s court
  • Today, at least 44 million Chinese Christians in China and millions more elsewhere celebrate Christmas, or the Festival of the Holy Birth

Wee Kek Koon
Wee Kek Koon

Updated: 8:45am, 9 Dec, 2021

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Chinese Catholics attend a Christmas Eve mass at a church in Beijing. Christianity took root in China in the 16th century thanks to Jesuit missionaries who made converts of prominent people, but first reached China nearly 1,000 years earlier. Photo: EPA-EFE
Chinese Catholics attend a Christmas Eve mass at a church in Beijing. Christianity took root in China in the 16th century thanks to Jesuit missionaries who made converts of prominent people, but first reached China nearly 1,000 years earlier. Photo: EPA-EFE
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