THE international leader of the Salvation Army has pledged to continue the fight to retrieve 40 lots of property owned in China before the communist takeover in 1949.
General Eva Burrows, who has just completed her first visit to China, said yesterday she only managed to look at the Army's former headquarters in Beijing.
''It was heartbreaking to see the place, which is in very bad condition. Squatters live there now,'' she said.
General Burrows suggested to Mr Yan Mingfu, deputy director of the Civil Affairs Bureau, that the hall be used as a community centre, but he replied it would not be possible because the hall was in a very commercial area.
General Burrows said: ''Mr Yan simply suggested we continue to negotiate and we will do that. We won't give up easily.'' Bishop Ding Guangxun, president of the China Christian Council and the Three-Self Protestant Movement, had promised her that the council had no intention of interfering with denominations in Hongkong.
General Burrows said she did not see the Salvation Army starting up as a separate church in the immediate future.
