Uneasy Encounters

"The book complicates traditional depictions of the role and behaviours of both the Presbyterian church in Taiwan and Catholic groups in the PRC, making a substantial contribution to our understanding of organized Christianity in Greater China."
- Dr Jonathan Sullivan, Associate Professor, School of Politics and IR, University of Nottingham, UK
"The distinguished scholarship of the author was manifested on her capacity in grasping the difficult Catholic issues in the PRC whose political system with its policy making are operating in a black box, with complicated "guanxi" ¿¿."
- Sr. Beatrice Leung, Ph.D., Honorary Research Fellow, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
The book examines the dynamic processes of the various social, political, and cultural negotiations that representatives of Christian groups engage in within authoritarian societies in Greater China, where Christianity is deemed a foreign religious system brought to China by colonial rulers. The book explores the political and social cooperation and negotiations of two particular Christian groups in their respective and distinct settings: the open sector of the Catholic Church in the communist People's Republic on mainland China from 1945 to the present day, and the Presbyterian church of Taiwan in the Republic of China in Taiwan during the period of martial law from 1949 to 1987. Rather than simply confirm the 'domination-resistance' model of church-state relations, the book focuses on the various approaches adopted by religious groups during the process of negotiation. In an authoritative Chinese environment, religious specialists face two related pressures: the demands of their authoritarian rulers and social pressure requiring them to assimilate to the local culture. The book uses two case studies to support a wider theory of economic approach to religion.
Magdaléna Rychetská is a staff member at the Department of Chinese studies at the Masaryk University. In her research, she is dedicated to the study of Christianity in the Chinese context.