The Catholic Church has had a long and powerful influence on China. Missionaries first traveled to the Middle Kingdom in the seventh century and Catholic communities have existed in the country ever since.
It has been an uneasy relationship. Both the Catholic Church and the Chinese leadership -- whether it was an imperial family, the Nationalists or the Communists -- have claimed the complete allegiance of the Chinese people. Since 1949, in particular, there has been no room for competing claims on the hearts and souls of the Chinese millions.
There were 3 million Catholics in China when the Communists seized power. The government suppressed the church, forcing many adherents to renounce their faith or driving them underground. In recent years, that campaign has largely halted. Yet incredibly, as Richard Madsen notes in "China's Catholics," the Catholic population in the country today is estimated to be about 10 million; in other words, despite the repression, its growth has kept pace with that of the country as a whole.