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The Chinese Realm 1949-1959

Founding the Church in Hong Kong and Taiwan

Almost ten decades passed between the time when Elder Hosea Stout and his companions left Hong Kong in 1853 and the arrival in 1949 of the next group of LDS missionaries. The intervening years had not been kind to China and her people. Few parts of the world had endured more suffering, wars, rebellions, and revolutions than China. Foreign powers dismembered the once-glorious empire during the years following China's first treaty with a Western nation in 1842. From then until the turn of the century, the Ch'ing (Qing)1 Dynasty steadily lost control. Token measures intended to bring China technologically abreast of the West failed, and the Boxer uprising in 1900 also fell short of its objective of driving all foreigners, especially Christian missionaries, from the country.

Continued degeneration finally brought the fall of the Manchu Ch'ing regime in the Chinese revolution of 1911. But the new government was unable to establish stability, and by 1916 the nation had fallen into the hands of warlords who ruled parts of the country for their own benefit. This situation continued until Chiang K'ai-shek consolidated most of the country under the Kuomintang, the Nationalist government in the mid-1920s. By that time, the Chinese Communist party had been founded, and in the late 1920s it was a growing force. In the mid-1930s the Chinese Communists, with Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong) as leader, were established in the northwestern city of Yenan.

In 1937 war broke out between China and Japan. This protracted conflict finally ended in 1945, but it brought untold hardships to the Chinese people. Before China was on its feet, another war, this time between Mao's communist forces and the nationalist armies of Chiang K'ai-shek, ravaged the country. On October 1, 1949, the Communists established the People's Democratic Republic of China (PRC). Chiang and his followers retreated to the Island of Taiwan (Formosa), where they transplanted the Republic of China (ROC) government.

The history of Christianity in China largely parallels the foregoing political events. Protestant missions began in earnest after 1842, when five treaty ports were opened to Westerners. Although times were difficult and a number of missionaries died martyrs' deaths (the worst massacre took place during the Boxer uprising when 188 missionaries, missionary wives, and children were killed), thousands of Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, devoted their lives to the cause of Christ in China. The high watermark for the Protestants was 1925, when 8,158 missionaries and wives of missionaries were engaged in the work. Possibly as many Roman Catholics were there at the same time.

The Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945 forced many missionaries to retreat to western China and some to leave the country. The missionaries who remained provided hospitals and medical centers and tried to help the Chinese people. Following the war, large numbers of Protestant and Catholic missionaries returned to China or entered for the first time; but before the Christian schools, hospitals, and teaching stations were fully organized again, the Communists defeated the Kuomintang forces. Christianity was in a grave situation. Some missionaries withdrew immediately when the Communists took over, but most decided to take the risk and see whether some kind of working relationship could be arranged. In 1951, however, the missionaries began leaving in large numbers. By 1953 most missionaries were out of the country. Christianity in Communist China was not dead, but it was in serious danger. Before "liberation" there were more than four million Chinese Christians.