Regulating Church Property in Late Imperial China

In recent years,religion in China has attracted increased attention,both domestically and internationally.A core aspect of this attention has been the role of church real estate,a contemporary issue with historical origins.After the Second Opium War,France—the self-proclaimed protector of Catholicism—took on the cause of obtaining additional rights and freedoms for Western missionaries in China,albeit with only mixed results.Constant disagreements between China's central and local governments made it difficult to implement nation-wide regulations.