A Chinese university has banned Christmas in order to help young people resist the “corrosion of Western religious culture.”

The Communist Youth League at Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, in China’s north-east, posted an online notice informing students that the ban was to help them develop their own “cultural confidence”.

“In recent years,” the notice said. “Influenced by Western culture and individual business operations, as well as erroneous public opinions expressed on the Internet, some young people are blindly excited by Western holidays, especially religious holidays like Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.”

The notice said that the students' union, the different student associations, and the sub branches of the youth league would not be permitted to hold Christmas-related activities.

The ban was put in place "in order to guide the youth league members in building cultural confidence and resisting the corrosion caused by Western religious culture", it added.

Christmas is not a national holiday in officially atheist China, and few people understand its traditional meanings or religious roots.

However, it is becoming more popular among the wealthier families in China’s larger cities.