To grasp just how possible, I suggest you read David Aikman's new book, "Jesus in Beijing" (Regnery, 2003). As a journalist who speaks Chinese and has covered China for over 30 years, Aikman estimates there are currently over 80 million practicing Christian believers in China, and predicts that within three decades this number will quintuple to embrace fully one-third of China's population. This in spite of incredible persecution by the Chinese Communist government.

In other words, the underground "Christian house church" movement is about to reach critical mass. By 2033, China will have the largest Christian population in the world, with 400 million Christian Chinese.

"China is in the process of becoming Christianized," Aikman maintains. This means that "a Christian view of the world will be the dominant worldview within China's political and cultural establishment." Such a view entails for Aikman an "Augustinian sense of restraint, justice, and order in the wielding of state power." He sees the Christianization of China as happening concurrently with China's becoming a global power, such that it will exercise that power as responsibly and benevolently as has the United States.