Vatican is taking ‘new approach to China’
The Vatican is reaching out to Beijing and attempting to prevent tensions between China and Western nations from escalating, an expert said yesterday.
Francesco Sisci, an Italian columnist and senior researcher at Renmin University, told a seminar in Hong Kong the Vatican had adopted “a new approach to China”.
In an interview with Sisci in Asia Times on February 2, Pope Francis urged the world not to fear China’s rise. He also expressed admiration for Chinese history and culture, which Sisci believed showed the pope’s open attitude towards the country.
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While the pope did not comment on relations between the Vatican and China, Sisci told the seminar “a new geopolitics of the Vatican” was emerging.
“[The pope] was worried and concerned not only about the faith of the 1.4 billion Chinese, but also about the faith of the 5.5 billion non-Chinese worried about the rise of China,” Sisci said.
“China is the biggest challenge [the West] has faced since the fall of Rome. It’s something completely strange, completely new, which has been separated for over 2,000 years, and we are confronting it now less than 200 years since the Opium War. So this is a big problem. And when we have big problems, historically the easiest way out for either party is to escalate tension, and the pope tries to avoid it, convert it and prevent it.”
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China-Vatican relations have been strained by conflicts over the appointment of Catholic bishops and the Vatican’s diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
Signs of a thaw emerged in 2014 when Pope Francis sent a telegram to President Xi Jinping (習近平) while crossing into Chinese airspace.
“China has been confused about the Catholic church. Chinese don’t really understand why Western people make such a big fuss about the pope and why he is so important,” he said.
Sisci added that China had not comprehended the extent of the pope’s influence until Xi’s visit to the United States last year was overshadowed by the pope’s.
