Mission unfinished: The United Church of Canada and China, 1925-1970

Despite the sincerity of the UCC's missionaries, the home church and the church public, a sense of racial and cultural superiority had existed in their missionary effort to bring the Gospel to China. Until the 1920s, most missionaries of all three UCC's missions enjoyed the treaty system, accepted the use of force by West, and held a hostility against the rising Chinese nationalism, which challenged Western domination in China. Even in a miserable situation, China still was not a correct place for the missionaries to accomplish their ambitious cultural and religious crusade. The Chinese people associated the missionaries with the extraterritoriality imposed on them by Western forces. After the Boxer movement, as a group, the missionaries had changed their image from progressive forces to reactionary forces. The majority of the missionaries always supported the governing classes which were destined to be overthrown eventually. The revolution of 1925-1927 declared the failure of the missionary movement in China. The missionary movement had lost its momentum both in China and at home. The Communist victory in 1949 delivered a final blow to the missionary enterprise in China. Although the UCC tried to operate its missionary enterprise in China under the Communist rule, the missionaries were forced to leave that land. Apparently the UCC's effort was not successful in evangelism, but the UCC's missionaries as the bearers of modern science, education, medicine and other contribution had been widely acknowledged.;The UCC's missionary effort in China had a much bigger impact on Canada and the church itself than its original targets. Its promotional campaigns educated several generation of Canadians. For a long time, the Canadian image of China was generally based on the missionaries' efforts to shape and reshape according to the missionaries' improving understanding of China and its people. Although many misunderstandings and conflicts arose, the missionary enterprise in China and the missionary support network in Canada established a channel for mutual understanding of the two countries and their peoples, geographically remote and culturally different. For a long time, the UCC naturally considered itself and was usually considered by others as the best interpreter of issues on China and the Chinese peoples because of its long time missionary experience. This legitimacy not only was very obvious when Canada's official presence in China was at a minimum, but also had a far reaching impact on the church and on the Canadian society when China issue became a political controversy during the Cold War.;The legacies of the missionary efforts had a lasting influence beyond the missionary era. With the Hamilton resolution in 1952, which urged the Canadian government to accord its relation to the People's Republic of China and admit the Beijing Government into the United Nations, the UCC became one of the most important and consistent pressure groups on Canada's China policy for almost two decades. Also, since the 1960s, the UCC began to reassess its past missionary efforts and make significant changes in its present mission policies according to the experience and lessons of its missionary enterprise in China.