China has released its first major survey on 'Faith' in which a staggering 300 million Chinese consider themselves "religious" - three times the figure previously estimated by the communist government.

Of those surveyed aged 16 and above 31.4 per cent considered themselves "pious", which would be equivalent to 300 million people on a national scale, the state-operated China Daily newspaper reported.

In total 4,500 people took part in the survey, which was carried out by Professors Tong Shijun and Liu Zhongyu of the East China Normal University in Shanghai.

The communist Chinese government has a global reputation for its strict regime towards religious organisations, only allowing worship to take place in state-monitored churches, temples and mosques. Churches operating outside these establishments are labelled as 'underground churches' and their members are frequently jailed and attacked.

Officially China only recognises five religious groups as "legal". These are: Buddhists, Muslims, Taoists, Roman Catholics, and Protestants.

Highlighted in the survey was a sharp increase in the number of people who call themselves followers of "Christianity". In all, the poll showed that 12 per cent of believers (equating to 40 million people) said they were Christian, much higher than official figures given by the Chinese government, which in 2005 said Christians numbered 16 million.