In China, it is also a matter of geography.  The church is not spread 
uniformly throughout the country.  You might find an area in which there 
is virtually so sign of the gospel, while in another area it thrives.  
The same is true of persecution, the severity of which depends largely 
upon the whim of local and regional authorities.  I was in China with 
some missionaries a number of years ago, met and ate with members of the 
underground church, and later than night after i had returned to preach 
in Macau, the bible study which the missionary was teaching was raided, 
and all of them, missionary and chinese believers both, were beaten and 
hauled off for interegation.

We need to be careful about taking anecdotal evidence and generalizing 
from it.


Jim Harrison