Four Governments in China (1932–1949)

During the tumultuous period between the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the Communist victory in 1949, parts of China were controlled by three different governments: the Nationalist government based in Nanjing and then Chongqing, the Communist-controlled area around Yan’an in the northwest, and the Japanese. Against this backdrop of regional division and contested legitimacy, the ecclesiastical government of the True Jesus Church stands out. The church’s extensive and relatively functional systems of church governance point to the significance of autonomous ideological organizations, whose stable models of functional governance and legitimate authority contrasted unflatteringly with the dysfunctional or corrupt authority of the Chinese party–state. Legitimate moral authority held the True Jesus Church together in a national and even international community during a chaotic time in which other attempts to create shared identity and common purpose across China failed.