The Negotiation About Chinese Returning Churches In Xianfeng And Tongzhi Times

In modern times, the western powers destroyed the Chinese forbidden policy of Catholicism which had been followed for nearly one and a half centuries. The Catholicism became lawful and influential. urthermore , various forms of conflicts among missionaries and each class in China tended to intensified .One type of the contradictions was caused by returning the old assets which included Churches'houses , fields ,schools and tombs to the missionaries. For the"old assets", there were some negotiations between the government of Manchu dynasty and missionaries ,which is also called the Returning Church Case or the Negotiation of Returning Church .The first case began in Shanghai in 1845, ended with the last case in Nanyang in 1895,and reached its peak after which in the end of Xianfeng period and throughout Tongzhi period, certainly, this two periods are the most important periods of my essay.In this period, 35 cases accrued in more 14 provinces throughout the country which were also got two peaks, one was in 1861, and the other was in the period between 1865 and 1866. The features were different when seen it from different angles. The attitudes of both the two sides of the negotiation determined the features and those features depended on the attitudes of both the two sides of the negotiation.At that time, French belonged to Catholic religions; the missionaries should ask the center government of Manchu dynasty to return the old assets through the French minister in China. Therefore, the attitude of French embassy directly influenced the results of the cases. The main agency was Tsungli Yamen whose attitude was"keep treaty, pursuit fair, comfit appropriated tied up , control secretly". The actions of local officers were leaded not only by Tsungli Yamen, but also by their different understandings on the treaty. The squires and the philistines objected to return the churches, but they could not determine the result,but their influences were so difficult to develop .French and the missionaries held the same behalf and attitude on the cases .Their attitude which was according to the treaty influenced throughout the process. In order to obtain more interests, they had resorted to every conceivable means, like cheat, threat, fraud and blackmail and so on. The churches were returned by the government of Manchu dynasty, which seemed had determined the results of the cases. However, in fact, the missionaries were the true decision makers. Since they armed with great military strength and depended on the force of the western powers which were much stronger than Manchu dynasty . Besides some exceptions, the missionaries could achieve their interests no matter whether they had any evidences to proof the existence of church.