For more than 50 years, China has brutally suppressed the small Chinese Catholic community and has sought to isolate it from the Roman Catholic Church. Chinese Catholics who remain loyal to Rome are subject to arrest, imprisonment, and worse. In the meantime, the Communist Chinese government has purported to appoint Bishops of what it calls the “loyal” Chinese Catholic community.
Rome has long been interested in protecting the rights of Catholics in China, but, this week, the Church made clear that it will not accede to everything Beijng demands:
TAIPEI – The Vatican will move to resume relations with China after more than half a century if religious freedom is allowed but it will not abandon China’s diplomatic rival Taiwan, an official said on Tuesday.The Vatican, which Taiwan sees as an important ally as it fights for international legitimacy against China, would seek to restore an apostolic nunciature in Beijing for the first time since the Communist Party began ruling China in 1949, said Monsignor Ambrose Madtha, charge d’affaires at the Vatican’s diplomatic mission in Taipei.
But the Vatican would seek to keep a delegate in Taiwan, he said. Taiwan split from China in 1949 after the civil war that brought the Communists to power, and the Vatican went with it.
“Holy See’s position is quite clear and is known to the Taiwanese government,” Madtha said. “The Holy See would maintain its delegate in Taipei. The Holy see will not abandon Taiwan.”
Well, at least Taiwan has one ally in this world.
Update 12/7/06: Writing at The Liberty Papers, Brad Warbiany expresses concern that a move like this could fan the flames of what is clearly a tense relationship between Taiwan and the mainland. While I agree that the ideal situation is to keep the PRC-Taiwan relationship as cool as possible, I don’t think that the Vatican’s move will have the impact Brad fears for two reasons.
First, in establishing relations with Taiwan the Vatican is motivated not so much by concerns of international relations, but by a desire to protect Chinese Catholics on the mainland and on the island. As I noted above, the Catholic Church in China is brutally suppressed and controlled. Chinese bishops are appointed by the state and the Church is required to hold the officially state that it is not in communion with Rome. Masses by dissident priests are celebrated in secret and, according to several reports, there is at least one Chinese bishop who has been elevated to Cardinal but that elevation has been kept a secret to protect him.
Second, I honestly don’t think that what the Vatican does is going to have that large an impact on the China-Taiwan issue.
Brad is right in his broader point, though. Conservative rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding, an outright declaration of Taiwanese independence given the current situation would be in nobody’s interests.
Yeah, a lot of help this will give to Taiwan… It’s slight, but this does increase the chance that China will be spurred to action against Taiwan in some manner.
Right now there’s a stasis. China is willing to let Taiwan be independent as long as Taiwan isn’t too loud about being independent. Taiwan has an internal battle between forces who want to declare independence outright, and loyalists who hope that China will modernize and liberalize enough that the two countries can reunite.
It’s smoldering, but it hasn’t flared up. The Vatican is adding a little fuel, though, and a conflagration isn’t good for either China or Taiwan. I doubt this will be the straw that broke the camel’s back, but I don’t think it will help either the Chinese or Taiwanese.
[...] Doug is happy to see this, but I think it may add to the trouble Taiwan is facing. As the type of folks who think back reverently on the founders of this nation, who braved a war against the world’s premier “superpower” of the time, classical liberals tend to take a kind view of Taiwanese independence. After all, we threw off the shackles of the British for reasons not nearly as severe as what our own government is doing to us, so the Taiwanese must want the same thing, right? [...]