I’ve had discussions in the late nineties and early oughties with Chinese Christian groups who network in American companies. They still have to play cat and mouse in China with a government that sometimes turns a blind eye, sometimes becomes very zealous about secular socialism uber alles.
The best churches develop under some kind of pressure. One can’t learn to punch the hardest with grace against Satan in an easy school. Home grown Christianity may, on a longer time scale, become ascendant in China.
That’s true, the Christian Church has weak and lukewarm under years of freedom in the US. Still, it’s not a societal good to have the church be forced underground. Or maybe the increasing evil of society has affected the church. This is very “which came first, chicken or egg?”