Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was at work in China from 1924 to 1945, the years in which Chinese communism emerged. The Jesuit scientist saw jhis struggle for mastery in a way almost unique for a Westerner. After only a few years in China Teilhard could write: “Politically the situation is more troubled than ever with the Bolshevists gaining the upper hand on the Yangtse. I am beginning to believe that their success will be the signal for the reorganization of China—but at the expense of the Europeans.”

Teilhard was pulled by both East and West; from Europe and America came the flow of discovery, and yet Western churches and nations disparaged the new movements under way.