At least 48,365 baptisms were celebrated in churches and Catholic communities in the People’s Republic of China in the year 2018. This is the number reported in the official publication of the Faith Institute for Cultural Studies, based in Shijiazhuang, the capital of the Chinese province of Hebei. The figures bring together data from 104 Catholic dioceses recognized by the Chinese authorities, scattered in more than 30 national provincial divisions. These data appear in substantial continuity with those of the previous year, when the Faith Institute had certified the celebration of 48,556 baptisms in the Chinese Catholic communities.

Also in 2018, as in previous years, the largest number of new Catholics baptized reported by the Faith institute (almost 13,000) was concentrated in the Chinese province of Hebei with other remarkable percentages of new baptisms celebrated in the Catholic communities of the provinces of Shanxi (4124), Sichuan (3707) and Shandong (2914). Faith institute also reported on baptisms celebrated in Catholic communities in the regions where Muslim populations and ethnic minority groups are found, such as Tibet (8 baptisms), Hainan (35), Qinghai (43) and Xinjiang (57).