After the Opium War in 1842, China was defeated by Western military power and the Qing government was forced to sign a series of unequal treaties.
On August 29, 1842, China signed the Nanjing Treaty with the British government. This required China not only to give up Hong Kong and open five sea port cities to foreign trade, but also to protect the missionaries in China: "The Catholic Church asks people to be good and holy. Therefore, all the missionaries who come to China from now on should be protected.‘ The onething that is worth mentioning in the treaty is the Western view of separation of Church and State had been ignored. They inter- fered with an undermined China"s own supreme authority. In October 1844, China signed another unequal treaty, the Huangpu Treaty, with France. The governor of Liang Guang, who partici- pated in the negotiations, wrote to Emperor Dao Guang in De- cember asking him to relax the rules on the Catholic Church but continue to forbid missionaries to go inland. In February 1846, Emperor Dao Guang issued an order to the whole country al- lowing Chinese to once again enter the Catholic Church and re- turning all the Catholic churches back to church control. The order made it also very clear that the missionaries should not go to inland to preach. This part of the order did not go too far be- fore it was dismissed.
After China lost the second Opium War, many countries, including Russia, the United States, Britain and France, forced the Qing government to sign a further series of treaties. The Zhong Ying (Sino-UK) Tianjin Treaty stated: "Jesus‘ holy Church is the Catholic Church, and it asks people to be holy and good. The Church asks people to treat others as they would like to be treated themselves. All those preach for this Church and those who learn about the Church should be protected. All Chinese officials haveno rights over them‘? Zhong Fa (Sino-French) Tianjin Treaty con- tained a similar statement: ’…according to article eight, all those missionaries who have permission to go inland should be pro- tected. In order to avoid punishment, local officials should have no rights to question them. All the places following the order to suppress the Church should stop doing so.‘ As a result, the Catho- lic mission expanded to all the provinces in China. In October1860, China and France signed another treaty, the Zhong Fa Beijing Treaty, in which a Chinese official was induced by a priest from Paris Foreign Missions to add the following clause:"Any French missionary can rent or buy land. They can use the land as they wish.‘ This article should not be considered as part of the treaty, yet no one brought up the issue and the Chinese government could not dare to mention it. During the fourth year of Emperor Tong Zhi (1865), the State Affairs department of the government issued an order: "The churches in the inland area have been there for a long time. The properties the foreign mis- sionaries have bought were used to build churches and the con- tracts involved should be protected by law. All others that were used for private purposes are forbidden by law and are prohib- ited. In the future, if any missionary wants to buy land to build churches should be granted permission. Do not get confused.’
herefore it became legal for the Catholic missionaries to r rent property for religious purposes.