The National Religious Affairs Administration (NRAA), formerly the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA), is an external name of the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Formerly, it was an executive agency directly under the State Council of the People's Republic of China which oversaw religious affairs in the country. SARA was merged into the UFWD in 2018. The names of the former agency were retained by the UFWD as external names under the system called "one institution with two names".

The Catholic Church in China has a long and complicated history. John of Montecorvino was the first Catholic missionary to reach China proper and first bishop of Khanbaliq during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368).