What’s behind the rapprochement between China and the Vatican?

Originally posted in East Asia Forum

23 February 2017

The authority to appoint bishops has been a key point of contention in the restoration of relations between China and the Vatican. Since formally severing relations in 1951, China has refused torecognise any papal authority over the Chinese Church, particularly in appointing episcopal leadership.

For its part, the Roman Church does not recognise the legitimacy of the seven bishops that have been named by the official Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) in defiance of papalauthority. As a result, Chinese Catholics are led by two separate sets of bishops, one recognised by Beijing, and the other by Rome.

Earlier this month, Cardinal John Tong Hon of the Diocese of Hong Kong announced that the Vaticanand the Chinese government had come to an initial consensus on the appointment of bishops for the Catholic Church in China. Culminating one year of intense negotiations by a working group, thisannouncement marked a milestone of progress in the long, and at times highly acrimonious, relationship between Beijing and the Holy See.

The draft agreement [1] charts a path to the resolution of these problems. While the Chinese sideremains loathe to allow any foreign intrusion into the authority of the state-led CCPA, it seemsprepared to recognise the ultimate authority of the pontiff to confirm or reject bishops that havebeen chosen by the Church in China, as well as a willingness to politically recognise the more than thirty underground bishops that have previously been appointed by Rome.

For its part, the Vatican would accept the apologies of the CCPA-appointed bishops and allow theChinese government to conduct and act upon its own investigation of the three Chinese bishopswhom the Church has accused of “moral misconduct.”

The question is: why is this long-delayed rapprochement coming now?

On the part of the Vatican, the change is clearly generational, and reflects the personal priorities of Pope Francis. Although policy since the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s has subjected Catholicsto the laws and customs of secular authorities, decades of mistrust, dating back to the open persecution of the Chinese Church during the 1950s, have left China a rare outlier.

Papal diplomacy under Pope Francis has affirmed the need for accommodation with political authorities. In addition to China, Francis has initiated dialogue with old enemies, such as the Castro regime in Cuba, and sparked controversy by publicised meetings with Catholic social justice activistsin such places as South Korea.

Dissenting voices within the Church have rejected any suggestion of ceding papal authority to the CCPA. Cardinal Joseph Zen, former bishop of Hong Kong and the highest ranking cleric in China, has been particularly outspoken [2] in his criticism of the planned reconciliation, suggesting [3] Guardian that the pope is “a little naive” and “doesn’t have the background to know the Communists in China.” Zen has elsewhere charged that the rapprochement would create a “false freedom” for Chinese Catholics, and proposing that under such circumstances, the faithful might simply pray at home. 

China has much to gain from improved relations with the Vatican. In addition to improving its image with the United States and neighbours such as the largely Catholic Philippines, rapprochement withRome has the potential to woo the Vatican away from its close relationship with Taiwan [4] (including influential Catholics such as vice president Chen Chien-jen). 

But the real benefit for China is domestic. China has struggled to find a solution to the religious resurgence that has been growing since the 1990s. The quiet downgrading of the campaign against Falun Gong [5] suggests that authorities understand the limits and cost of criminalising religion.Recently promulgated revisions [6] of the 2005 Religious Affairs Regulations confirm continuation of the policy that accommodates the socially progressive elements of religion.

Most importantly, the policy of rapprochement with the Vatican removes the risk of China’s 12 million Catholics being siphoned off into an underground Church. Given the continued attempts to suppress underground Protestant churches [7], the benefits of having the Vatican as an ally in a legal Catholic Church are obvious. 

Rome clearly recognises what is at stake for China, and for the Chinese Church. Its own pronouncements on the issue highlight the principled subservience of the Church to secular authority and emphasise that China’s Catholics, including the unrecognised bishops, are law-abiding citizens. In what is perhaps a premonition of the new spirit of cooperation, the Vatican publicly denounced 

[8] a priest in Hebei who had named himself bishop in the underground Church, and claimed theauthority to elevate others within what would essentially be a splinter church.

While there is no way of predicting how the agreement will play out, official channels within bothChina and the Vatican have been publicly sanguine about the future, and agree that the task movingforward is to build trust, and that this will be a long-term process.

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2017/02/23/whats-behind-the-rapprochement-between-china-and-the-vatican/

URLs in this post:

[1] draft agreement:

http://sundayex.catholic.org.hk/node/4047

[2] has been particularly outspoken:

http://www.onepeterfive.com/cardinal-zens-fears-come-pass-china/

[3] suggesting:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/28/pope-china-vatican-deal-would-betray-christ-says-former-hong-kong-bishop

[4] close relationship with Taiwan:

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2010542/taiwans-tussle-mainland-china-over-ties-vatican-and-why

[5] campaign against Falun Gong:

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/2215759-analysis-behind-the-chinese-regimes-latest-scrutiny-of-falun-gong/

[6] Recently promulgated revisions:

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/09/21/how-will-china-regulate-religion/

[7] attempts to suppress underground Protestant churches:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-08/chinese-communist-partys-crackdown-on-religion/7912140

[8] Vatican publicly denounced:

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2043732/vatican-denounces-chinese-priests-self-ordination

abai 阿拜

Hello from Taitung!

This is the one part of Taiwan that I had never visited, so we headed straight here the day after arriving in Taibei.

It’s definitely a small town atmosphere, but not just that – the indigenous culture is so evident that it really feels like a different country.

Part of that is the food, which predictably enough has lots of seafood, but also some things like abai that are really unique. From the outside, abai look like the zongzi rice dumplings that you would see anywhere in China, but unwrap the bamboo leaves, and you see another layer of perilla leaves. These are meant to stay on (as I learned when I tried to artfully remove them), and they have a slightly spicy taste. Inside that is the real surprise – it’s not rice but millet.

I love millet. It’s mankind’s original field grain, and I spent two years in Shandong starting every day with a big bowl of millet zhou. Sometimes with little pieces of torn up mantou – or even better, pieces of fried mantou. Oh crimeny, that’s good.

The abai takes this one step further, the steamed millet is stuffed with spices and stewed pork. This is genuine genius. Millet is delicious, but it can be a little pasty, that’s why it’s better for zhou, than for a steamed cake. The fatty pork and the spiciness of the leaves really take care of this.

Yellow Earth

From 15-18 September, the CUHK History and Anthropology AOE and Shaanxi Normal University arranged a field seminar in and around Xi’an.

The itinerary was arranged by Micah Muscolino at Oxford, and took us to about 8 villages in Baishui 白水县 and Chengcheng 澄城县 Counties, along with a large scale water reclamation project, and two gorgeous temples.

 

Most of what we were doing was to see the long history of terracing, which is a way of keeping the water in the soil, and keeping the soil in one spot. This is especially important in the “Yellow Earth” region of central China, where the soil is notoriously soft and wispy. Besides the terraces, the most notable feature of the landscape is deep gullies, which are created from water erosion. Even with plant cover, the ground just doesn’t want to stay still.

On the other hand, because the soil is so soft, it is really easy to work. People compress it into walls between fields to stop the wind, and famously dig houses (窑洞) into the hillsides. Mao and the Yan’an communists lived in these during the 1930s and 40s, and people think of it as a hardship. Surely it was, but the houses themselves are very comfortable – since the walls are two meters thick, the cave houses stay cool in summer and warm in winter.

Cinnamon rolls!

Mom used to tell us that as kids, she and her brothers and sisters (all seven of them!) ate fresh bread every day. Not because they were fancy, but decidedly the opposite–they were too poor to buy supermarket bread.

How did they do this? Every night, they would make “bucket bread,” meaning that they put the flour, yeast and other breadly whatnot into a bucket, letting it rise overnight. When it had risen to reach the top of the bucket, it was ready to bake. Mom and her sisters would pull off and flatten little balls of dough, bake for 15 minutes and just like that, you have khubz arabi.

Now what grandma called “bucket bread,” the more hipsterish among us would call autolysing – referring to the long period of letting the dough sit, in order to work the gluten. And yes, when it comes out, there is no kneading required, just pop it out and bake.

I will mix up a batch of dough every so often, and just keep a big bucket of it around to make flatbreads and pizzas. This morning I baked the remnants of one batch into incredibly tasty cinnamon rolls. Making the rolls is exactly the same technique as the onion pancakes 葱油饼 they make in China: roll the dough out long and flat (9×18 inches or so), paint one side with butter, sugar, cinnamon and walnuts (and a little salt, if the butter doesn’t have any), roll lengthwise into a long cylinder and cut into rounds. Arrange these in a baking dish and let them rise to about twice their size, then pop in the oven at 325F/160C for about 45 minutes – until they have browned on top and sound hollow when you tap them.

Seriously – this was about 20 minutes of actual work, but the result was incredibly good (and photogenic!). The best part was the bread itself, light but also moist and chewy. The secret is the easiest part–letting the dough rise overnight (or in this case, two nights, cos I made too much), and for that I thank grandma and her bucket bread.

Lyme disease

Here is a picture of our awesome outing to the springs and oboo in Weinahe. Looks nice  doesn’t it?

 

Other than the fact that we finally have some good photos for our album of 90s college rock, do you by chance notice anything about these pictures? Anything that perhaps separates one of us from the others?  That’s right, one of us is wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Compare me to Marlboro Man Jan Kiely, who did take seriously the repeated and explicit advice to cover up.

And of course, as soon as we got back to the hotel, people started talking about ticks. I found three, including one that had already made its way to real estate that I can’t mention in a family blog. And yes, his head was already detached and lodged in my skin. Think about that for a moment. I sure have.

By the time I got to Harbin a few days later, I was already feeling achy, but figured that was just the stress of travel. By the time I got to Kyoto a few days after that, I was feeling achy, sweaty and dopey, plus the big one – rashy. So I went and got a blood test. Yep, it was blood alright, and moreover blood that swimming with critters that they said was maybe Lyme disease, or maybe something similar, but in any case something that they felt comfortable carpet bombing with antibiotics.

Unfortunately, the antibiotics (no doubt combined with with the stress of months of travel, and the Lyme disease itself) completely knocked me out — literally — I ended up passing out and waking up in a hospital– not once, but twice. That’s a record.

Lesson to be learned? Don’t get Lyme disease. That is also the lesson I learned with dengue, scarlet fever, salmonella and probably some others. I think the real lesson may be just stay the hell home, but “home” being Canberra (for the moment), I probably won’t be taking it much to heart.

 

Hulunbuir

I’m back, baby!

Harbin!

Back in Harbin – it’s been just about a year since I was here last. Just like last time, I can’t decide if I like Harbin or not. The city certainly has charm, especially in summer, when the streets are lined with green, leafy poplars, and everyone gets to go outside for some badly needed sunshine.

On the other hand, there’s no mistaking that Harbin is rough. I recently read a great book, which used Japanese police records to paint a picture of daily life in the city during the 1920s. The book was beautifully written and brings up vivid images like how poor male workers who found themselves dying in one of the city’s flophouses would be robbed of their clothes and dumped in the snow to die outside. Harbin feels like the kind of place where that could have happened not that long ago.

It’s also more “old school” than most cities in China. Even the architecture mixes beautiful art deco with a Stalinist aesthetic that in most places has been built over. Let’s just say that I wasn’t surprised to be refused entry into the archives (though I was surprised at how nice they were about it).

But like it or not, the fact is that Harbin is exciting, and probably always has been. While finding pictures for my new book, I came across a great collection of Japanese postcards of Harbin, probably from around 1930. (There are more of these in the wonderful East Asian Image collection at Lafayette College)  I think I actually recognize some of the buildings.

The pictures below are from the pedestrian street near my hotel, and also from the two cathedrals. The brown one is the Orthodox Sophia Cathedral just across the street, the brick one was originally Orthodox, but was converted to a Catholic church after the Cultural Revolution.