Smith makes the important argument that for most of human history people have been religious without needing the notion of religion, and that “the rise of the concept of ‘religion’ is in some ways correlated with a decline in the practice of religion itself”
(W. C. Smith 1962)
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Yet whereas in Europe “religion” was a term that emerged into consciousness alongside the gradual decline or transformation of religious life, in China the introduction of this term facilitated an active and purposive suppression of religious life.
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This suppression was undertaken without benefit of detailed examinations of just how Chinese religious practices might work differently from Christian ones, or how they operated and played beneficial roles in a Chinese social order.
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From
Chinese ReligiositiesAfflictions of Modernity and State Formation
Edited by Mayfair Mei-hui Yang
All similarities with Indian experience are merely coincidental 😂