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The brief history of the California Jesuits in China can be divided into two periods: 1928 to 1948 and 1948 to 1957. From 1928 to 1948 the California Province of the Society of Jesus sent fifty-five of its men to China. Having had no previous intention of going there, the California Jesuits would not have gone there had not Joseph Lo Pahong, a Shanghai business magnate and prominent Roman Catholic, personally persuaded Pius XI to send them to China. During the first period, the Californians assisted the French Jesuit controlled Shanghai Mission Territory in high school, parish, mission station, and mass media works. During the 1937 Sino-Japanese War they assisted relief and refugee programs. They also made plans for a research institute in Nanjing which was never begun. During World War II the Japanese interned the Californians.
In 1948 the Californians received jurisdiction for their own mission territory called the Yangzhou Mission. That mission included schools and mission stations within the Yangzhou territory, a high school, a parish, and the proposed research institute, all in Nanjing, and a parish in Shanghai. The Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949 halted all mission progress. From 1951 to 1952 three California Jesuits were imprisoned in Yangzhou and in Shanghai. Two other Californians remained in Shanghai prisons from 1953 to 1956, while two others were Shanghai prisoners from 1953 to 1957. These last two released Californians marked the end of the six hundred and thirty-five foreign Jesuits who were in China at the time of the Communist Revolution.
As a case study in mission and culture, the history of the California Jesuits in China reveals that, with few exceptions, the Californians did not adapt to Chinese culture. Like many other foreign missionaries, they assumed that the West was already a Christian culture. They also were not sensitive to Chinese national consciousness except when it favored the interests of the Roman Catholic Church. They left a legacy to China of being excellent educators. Though few in number and in China for a short time, that the Californians were Americans and Jesuits endowed them with a notoriety which enhanced both their failures and achievements.