ROME — Pope Francis’s persistent interest in controversial negotiations with China could foreshadow a move to downgrade relations with Taiwan in favor of the mainland communist regime.
“Everybody is watching for that,” Ambassador Sam Brownback, the State Department’s point man for international religious liberty issues, said on the sidelines of a symposium hosted by the U.S. mission to the Holy See. “It is a key issue.”
The question of official papal relations with China adds to the geopolitical significance of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s high-profile opposition to the renewal of a controversial pact between the Vatican and Beijing pertaining to the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops in the mainland. Most of the public debate over that deal has focused on Beijing’s disregard for religious liberty, but many observers regard the pact as a step toward official diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the Chinese Communist regime.
“There’s a couple of steps that they need to take before they can finish this, diplomatic relations, and that agreement on the appointment of bishops was an important step on that to have done, to be able to formalize relations,” an official following Vatican-China relations said.
Taiwan is the last refuge of the government overthrown during the Chinese Communist revolution in 1949, but Beijing claims sovereignty over the island. The Vatican has never recognized the mainland regime as legitimate, maintaining instead an embassy in Taipei, while Taiwan’s envoy to the Holy See is the only accredited Taiwanese ambassador in Europe — making any prospective shift a particularly severe blow to Taiwan’s international standing.
Vatican officials have downplayed that prospect in talks with the U.S. government.
“Everything I’ve heard from Vatican officials is that this agreement is a stand-alone, on its own, and it’s about getting their leadership to be legally recognized in China,” Brownback told the Washington Examiner. “They view it as a very narrow agreement and not a precursor to other issues, is what they’ve voiced to me.”
A senior Vatican official has said, however, that “those who are best implementing the social doctrine of the church are the Chinese,” adding that Beijing and the Holy See have “many points of agreement” despite their lack of diplomatic ties. On top of that, “from the Vatican’s perspective, the agreement is functional because it has opened a way … in due course, to diplomatic relations with China,” as America, a Jesuit publication, reported recently.
China’s persecution of Roman Catholics, as well as the mass detention of Uighur Muslims, has complicated that effort.
“Things are a tiny bit more optimistic now than they were two, three years ago, when it seemed like the track was pretty much set and that the pope was ready to move ahead on China,” the source following Vatican-China relations said. “The Chinese are always their own worst enemy, so they’ve made it tough, I think, for the pope.”
Taiwanese officials in Rome, for their part, attended the symposium on religious freedom last week. The latest issue of the embassy’s regular newsletter gave front-page attention to the installation of a new archbishop in Taiwan. The newsletter characterized the incoming archbishop as affirming “the Holy Father’s continuous care to Taiwan,” in a ceremony attended by the Vatican’s top diplomat in Taipei as well as Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen.
Brownback, who echoed Pompeo in urging the pope to condemn China’s religious persecution, declined to “speculate” on the Vatican’s intentions but praised Taiwan’s cooperation with the United States on that issue.
“Taiwan has been great on religious freedom,” he said. “They’ve hosted a summit on religious freedom. They are an open society where religious adherents, of various faiths, freely practice their faith and is in sharp contrast to the People’s Republic of China.”
