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"I'm not saying all Chinese, but many Chinese are still pagan"
Let me start by saying that I am not religious. I am not quite "atheist" either, since life itself is a mystery and as a human being, I do have a yearn for spiritial connection. But I always approach religion and faith in a more criticically fashion or a more scholary approach. You will just have to pardon me if this approah will offend any of you.
I assume your beliefs belong to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition since you brought up the word "pagan" and you spelled "God" with a capital G, hence one God as opposed to many "gods".
But for argument sake, I will assume you are Christian because pagans is what Christians would call people of other faiths.
People tend to forget that Christianity is a western religion despite the fact that it originated in the near east or middle east, specifically israel. It is relatively "new" if you compared to all the "pagan" religions that existed before. Although Christianity stems from Judaism, which is older, there is nevertheless no "historic or archaelogical" proof that Judaism is the first religion in the world despite the wonderful stories it tells us about the creation of the world.
Since Christianity is a messianic faith, that is it followers continuously seek to convert people to its faith; it is no surprise that when the western world (most important through Rome first) expand its power and territory into the rest of the world, a lot of people were embraced into its Christian faith. Some were converted through "reasoning" while others through "force".
Now when speaking of China and its religion, it is a different matter. If you go back in time, China was for most of her history a dominant regional power of the far east. I will list five important reasons to why China was never "conquered" by the Christian faith.
Firstly, China was never conquered by the West or by any other race for that matter. The mongolians and manchus were the only two peoples that conquered China as a "whole" but they were themselves east asians (like the chinese) and has been in touch with chinese civilization and cultures for centuries. There were some contacts with the west but only limited through trade with the exception of later times when the jesuits priests arrived in China.
FYI: jewish settlers arrived in China quite early (definitely centuries before the mongol conquest of China) but their communities were small and did not make any significant change in chinese religious thought.
Secondly, Ancient China was an old civilization dominated by the court of the emperor and its confucian scholars who accepted the emperor rule as a "mandate" of heaven for he was known as the son of heaven and by confucian code of ethics. In ancient chinese thoughts no one (earthly power that is) is higher than the emperor. FYI:it took buddhism almost 400 years to permeate chinese culture and thoughts. One of the situation they faced is that unlike India or the west, the chinese emperor power is above even those of holy men (in ancient india for example the influence of holy men equal or in some cases dominates rulers like the pope did in the western world). Most importanly Confucianism rejects any idea of a higher God or gods. It is not a religion and its focus is on how to create a perfect or organized country and society. I remember one of Mencius (one of Confucius disciples) followers ask him about what the relationship is between man and god. Mencius replied, how can you properly serve god if you can not act as a civilized human being first, hence create a peacefull, productive and organized society. They were in a sense realists.
Thirdly, China has its own native religions which is Taoism and its "sinicized" version of Buddhism. Although Buddhism originated in India, it took almost three to four centuries of "chinese influence" for it to take roots. That is why Chinese Buddhism or east asian buddhism is very different than other buddhist branches around the world. FYI: buddhism is different than christianity. Buddhists was and still is a nearly extinct religion in a Hindu dominated India. There is no central power of Buddhist center in the ancient world,unlike other religions like Christianity with its powerfull centre in Rome. Buddhism own survival depended on how effectively it was able to integrate into a country. That is why each branches of Buddhism has absorbed the native traditions of a country it resides in. When buddhism was integrated with Chinese native culture and thought, it became "acceptable" to the Chinese people.
Fourthly, Christianity with its centre in Rome (yes I am aware of the other branches of Christianity but Roman Catholics still is the dominant form of Christianity with its highly organized centre) is tied to western culture. Christianity therefore unlike Buddhism was able to "retain" its "pure" doctrine without absorbing other countries native religions.
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