Retired Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen (陳日君) has no illusions about the Chinese Communist Party (CCP); neither does Pope Francis.
However, the two men have taken diametrically opposite approaches in how they deal with the Chinese communists: The former, vocal and active, has been arrested and faces, at the age of 90, a potential jail sentence; the latter is silent.
For critics of the pope’s reticence on calling the CCP out on human rights abuses — its campaign of cultural genocide against Uighurs in Xinjiang, its crackdown on the Hong Kong democracy movement and the arrest of a nonagenarian bishop — his silence is akin to appeasement of the CCP, and betrayal of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong and China.
Supporters of the pope’s position say his hands are tied, having signed an accord in 2018 with Beijing that gives him final say over the appointment of Chinese bishops, but only from a short list of candidates carefully vetted by the party.
It is arguable how much the pope gains from the agreement. He has been reluctant to speak about it in public — the details remain “secret,” known only to CCP officials and senior Vatican figures. However, he said in an interview in September last year that an uneasy dialogue is better than no dialogue at all.
He has likened relations with Beijing to the “small steps” policy started in the 1960s that eventually secured more freedom for Catholics in Soviet bloc countries in eastern Europe, saying that those successes had been achieved “slowly, slowly, slowly.”
In the meantime, any public comments by Pope Francis on Hong Kong, Xinjiang or Taiwan, for example, that Beijing might consider interfering in its “domestic affairs” might result in an abrupt end to the fragile accord.
Zen is unconvinced that the Vatican’s approach to the CCP will improve the situation for the Catholic Church in China, which he has described as “terrible, terrible. Terrible. Terrible.”
He has also wondered how the pope and Vatican officials can be so naive, writing in a blog post in March 2019: “From which planet do our leaders in Rome descend?”
Both men are playing the long game. Zen sees a future in which the Chinese will get China “back from the hands of the Communists,” but wants to prevent a schism in the Catholic Church — the official one with the pope at the head and the CCP-sanctioned Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association that allows the party to keep control over Catholics in China; Pope Francis is willing to enter a reluctant compromise with the CCP to win incremental concessions.
There is an argument that this is the only way one can hope to deal with the CCP; the long game is its modus operandi. However, this strategy comes with risks, because the long game is the party’s forte.
Taiwan knows this all too well, having long-term experience of the CCP’s offering of enticing concessions, followed by their sudden removal and the threat of force, and the promise of negotiations progressively hobbled by restrictive prerequisites and incremental changes introduced not to arrive at a mutually advantageous position, but a destination that the CCP had wanted all along.
The pope’s path is one of hope; Zen’s is informed by bitter experience and skepticism.
Should Taiwan enter into a “cross-strait peace treaty” with the CCP, or broach a compromise on unification — such as former vice president Annette Lu’s (呂秀蓮) “cross-strait integration” (兩岸統合) proposal? Should Uighur activists approach the communists with the intention of opening up lines of communication, leading to talks? Is the pope right to hope that this slow, ponderous process will lead to real gains?
When it comes to the CCP, skepticism trumps hope.
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