Not all that long ago, academic English-language publications of the history of Roman Catholicism in China were quite rare. The fact that the relevant original sources were written in a variety of continental European languages proved to be a significant challenge to scholars in the Anglo-American world. While a considerable number of monographs have been published in English in recent years, they have primarily focused on the Catholic missionary enterprise in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Ernest P. Young's long-awaited study is, therefore, an important contribution in English to the study of the Catholic Church in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China. In addition to a thoroughly researched history of the controversial French Religious Protectorate, it also provides an insightful discussion of important Chinese contextual considerations.

Having examined with characteristic attention to detail a wealth of unpublished primary sources in the French diplomatic archives as well as the major ecclesiastical archives in the Vatican, Young is able to locate the protectorate in the ‘unequal’ treaties signed between France and the Qing Empire in 1844 and 1858–60. It should, however, be understood that there had been no formal agreement by either Rome or the Qing authorities to assign to France the role of guardian for all Catholics in China. Driven by eschatological considerations that compelled them to propagate the ‘Good News’ by whatever means in ‘heathen’ lands, the foreign missionaries welcomed the protectorate and frequently sought help from French officials in China during the last four decade of the nineteenth century. In other words, the religious protectorate, with the threat of diplomatic or military intervention, encouraged the missionaries' aggressive behaviour – which in turn either spawned or aggravated tensions and often violent conflict between Catholics and non-Christians in many parts of China, namely the so-called ‘missionary cases’ (jiao'an).

In this connection, Young observes that the French authorities in China generally extracted exorbitant indemnities from the Chinese under the often harsh jiao'an settlements. Particularly disturbing is the fact that indemnities represented a major source of income for the various missions. According to the author's findings, often such payments were not passed on to Chinese Catholic victims, but were invested in land and property to generate income for the mission. After 1900 critical voices began to emerge, objecting in particular to the ways in which the abundance of funds resulting from the disastrous Boxer Uprising were spent on vanity projects or on ‘buying’ converts.

The author devotes a substantial part of the book to the protracted and bitter struggle for the reform of the Catholic mission Church in China during the early decades of the twentieth century. As Young explains so convincingly, the outspokenly pro-Chinese Belgian Lazarist Vincent Lebbe (1877–1940), ably supported by a small group of dissident Chinese priests and lay leaders in the Tianjin area, began to agitate against the religious protectorate on account of the close link between French imperialist interests and the foreign-dominated missionary enterprise that impeded the emergence of a genuinely Chinese Church. The French state, on the other hand, the anti-clerical ethos of the Third Republic notwithstanding, continued to jealously defend the religious protectorate. It was not until after the First World War that reform-minded popes like Benedict xv (1914–22) and Pius xi (1922–39) were able to overcome vested missionary interests and bypass the French protectorate. Establishing direct relations with the Chinese Republic in 1922 and the consecration of six Chinese bishops in Rome in 1926 were initial steps toward a Chinese Catholic Church.

In his carefully constructed and eminently accessible presentations, Young helpfully explains Catholic terminology. One minor ambiguity relates to the names of Franciscan friars. Especially among Italians, it was still customary in the modern period to refer to friars by their religious name, followed by their place of birth. Thus Silvio Nanetti (1867–1911), who survived the Boxer upheavals in Shanxi province, was known in religion as Barnaba da Cologna. In other words, his surname was Nanetti, not ‘Da Cologna’.

In contrast to Young, whose principal focus is on the French Religious Protectorate and its impact on and consequences for Chinese society, Olivier Sibre is primarily interested in the Holy See's diplomacy in the rather more complex political arena of East Asia. While there is some overlap with Ecclesiastical colony, Sibre's coverage includes China, Japan and Korea and its time-frame extends to 1952, covering a number of traumatic events. This comprehensive study, first submitted as a doctoral dissertation at the Sorbonne in Paris, has benefited greatly from the intense evaluation of the rich archival resources in several Vatican repositories, including the newly accessible material covering the pontificate of Pope Pius xi and the eleven volumes of the Vatican's wartime documents, Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, published between 1965 and 1981.

This massive tome consists of four major parts. Part i deals with the protracted negotiations concerning permanent diplomatic relations between the Vatican and the East Asian states (1885–1943). Part ii is devoted to the Holy See's involvement in the promotion of local Catholic elites by means of higher education (Sophia University in Tokyo; Furen University in Beijing) and the formation of indigenous clerical elites to prepare them for leadership positions in jurisdictions in China, Japan and Korea. Part iii considers Rome's reaction to the rise of nationalism and revolutionary ideologies in East Asia. The final part analyses the Holy See's responses to the geopolitical upheavals in the region (Japanese expansion into Taiwan, Korea and Manchuria; the first and second Sino-Japanese wars; the Pacific War; the civil war and Communist take-over in China).

Sibre's thoroughly researched monograph exposes the prominent role that Japan played in Vatican's diplomacy in East Asia. Note, for example, the delicate matter of the Japanese puppet state of Manchoukuo. Because the Apostolic Delegate to China, Celso Costantini, no longer had access to the Catholic missions in Manchuria after 1932, the Holy See appointed the bishop of Jilin, Auguste-Ernest Gaspais, as its temporary representative to look after the interests of the Catholic Church there. The somewhat contradictory aim was not to recognise the puppet state. Yet as a result of his dealings with the Manchurian authorities, he unintentionally played a role in Rome's decision to reverse the unfortunate ‘Chinese rites’ decision of 1742. In May 1935 the Holy See took the momentous decision to officially authorise Catholics in Manchukuo to render homage to Confucius as well as to their ancestors. In 1939 this ruling was applied to the rest of China.

The two works under review are complementary in their exploration of the long and often tortuous march toward indigenous East Asian Catholic Churches. These excellent studies add significantly to our understanding of the history of modern Catholicism in this part of the world.