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The Geopolitics of the Renewed Sino-Vatican Deal

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The Geopolitics of the Renewed Sino-Vatican Deal

China and the Vatican recently renewed their agreement on bishop appointments, this time for four years. What does that mean for the Catholic Church in China – and for Taiwan?

The Geopolitics of the Renewed Sino-Vatican Deal
Credit: ID 313068274 © Marco Iacobucci | Dreamstime.com

In East Asia, a region rife with geopolitical tension and shifting alliances, the Vatican finds itself at a delicate crossroads between moral authority and realpolitik. On October 22, the Vatican and  the People’s Republic of China renewed their landmark deal on the appointment of bishops for an additional four years, cementing a delicate, and fraught, relationship into the foreseeable future.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said the two sides would continue to dialogue and improve relations “following a constructive spirit.” A statement issued by the Holy See Press Office reiterated that the Vatican remains “dedicated to furthering the respectful and constructive dialogue with the Chinese Party, in view of the further development of bilateral relations for the benefit of the Catholic Church in China and the Chinese people as a whole.”

While the rapprochement points to positive developments on the diplomatic front between the two parties, it comes amid rising Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, increasing hostility toward Taiwan, and growing concerns over broader challenges with respect to religious freedom and human rights. 

In response, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan emphasized the strong bonds of friendship and shared values with the Vatican – the only state in Europe to maintain diplomatic relations with Taipei. The ministry also underscored the significant challenges facing Catholics in mainland China, including increased “measures to persecute local Catholic communities” and pressure placed on clergy to “join the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]-controlled Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.”

The Sino-Vatican deal went into effect in 2018 and was subsequently renewed in 2020 and 2022 on a provisional two-year basis. While the exact details are undisclosed, the Vatican has indicated that it calls for the recognition of papal authority in ecclesial matters, lifted the excommunication of bishops previously nominated without a papal mandate, and introduced a power-sharing arrangement between the two parties with respect to future episcopal nominations. 

The issue of the appointment of bishops in mainland China has persisted since the 1950s when the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio (ambassador equivalent) was expelled from the country amid a growing crackdown on religious activity. This was followed by the creation of a parallel ecclesial structure, an underground church loyal to Rome and an open, “patriotic,” church controlled by the state via the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA). 

While suspended during the Cultural Revolution, the CCPA was reestablished during Deng Xiaoping’s “reform and opening” policy, and placed under the guidance of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA). In 2018 SARA was eliminated, and religious matters were guided directly by the United Front Work Department (UFWD), an opaque body under the direct control of the CCP’s Central Committee.

For the Vatican, the issue of the nomination of bishops is both a doctrinal and juridical matter as the state’s interference undermines the pope’s jurisdiction as the head of the universal Church, in turn jeopardizing ecclesial unity between Rome and Catholics in China. By entering into a provisional agreement with Beijing, the Holy See signaled its belief that this deal, however imperfect, would help normalize the situation for an estimated 10 to 12 million Catholics in China. Both Pope Francis and the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, have articulated on numerous occasions that this is not a political deal, but a pastoral necessity. 

“After serving for many years in the Vatican, I started to understand that the Holy See’s mission is to evangelize in every part of the world, to take care of those people who otherwise have no direct connection with the Holy See,” said Chou-seng Tou, ambassador of Taiwan to the Holy See from 2004-2008, in a recent interview. 

This is an important point to highlight, given that the Holy See does not hold conventional economic, military, or political objectives. Instead, its diplomatic mission is evangelical and pastoral, seeking to promote peace, justice, and the protection of fundamental human rights. The Holy See, moreover, both historically as well as in contemporary conflicts (in Ukraine and in the ongoing Israel-Hamas War), sees itself as a mediator in international affairs, albeit with limited success. 

Despite the Vatican’s inroads with China, the CCP has contemporaneously expanded its oversight of religious matters under the guise of safeguarding social harmony and protecting national security. These ideas are at the cornerstone of the party’s program, assuming a new force with Xi Jinping, China’s leader since 2012. Xi has stressed the need for “national rejuvenation” and promoted “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese characteristics,” an ideological doctrine that was enshrined in the Constitution of China during the 13th National People’s Congress in 2018. 

Subsumed under this doctrine is the notion of religious sinicization, a process which mandates that religious practices must be modified to fit within the framework of the CCP’s political ideology. Top Catholic bishops in China, including the Archbishop of Beijing and the Bishop of Shanghai, have spoken positively on sinicization, stressing the need for it to guide the work of the Church. 

“In mainland China, for a priest or a missionary, the first thing is to be a good citizen, to be loyal to the doctrine of communism, loyal to Chinese law. You must be faithful to Xi Jinping’s thought, to Xi Jinping’s doctrine. So you are constantly encircled by this ideological thought,” Tou pointed out. 

The expansion of the state’s control over religious practice is manifest in edicts such as the 2021 Measures on the Management of Religious Clergy, which mandate that priests enroll with the CCPA. That dovetails with growing concerns of human rights violations and religious persecution, a point raised in a 2024 report on religious freedom from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and a report from the Hudson Institute, which profiled “10 persecuted Catholic bishops” in mainland China.

Moreover the CCP has repeatedly violated the terms of the agreement by appointing bishops without the approval of the pope. The most recent instance was in April 2023 with the appointment of Bishop Joseph Shen Bin to the Diocese of Shanghai. The Vatican retroactively approved the appointment several months later for the “pastoral” health of the diocese.

Earlier this year Bishop Shen Bin spoke at a conference held at the Pontifical Urban University in Rome marking the centenary of the First Synod of Bishops in Shanghai, where he defended sinicization and the government’s religious freedom record. 

To dialogue with states that do not share a normative framework of human rights showcases a degree of political realism. This was the line that the Holy See followed under Cardinal Agostino Casaroli’s Ostpolitik, where small compromises enabled the Catholic Church to operate within some Soviet bloc countries thereby guaranteeing its survival. But the risk now, as in the past, is that the church becomes a subsidiary of the state, undermining the Vatican’s moral credibility, its raison d’être as a sovereign subject (and diplomatic actor) in the modern era. 

Pope Francis’ broader interest in Asia is seen in the number of cardinals he has appointed in the region (Singapore, Mongolia, Timor-Leste, South Korea, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Japan, the Philippines, and India), which has fundamentally changed the composition of the college of cardinals. This interest was also manifest in his 2023 trip to Mongolia, where he told Chinese Catholics to be “good citizens and good Christians,” and his historic 12 day tour of the Asia-Pacific in September. 

The pope is then attempting to recast the image of a “eurocentric” Catholic Church, by giving it greater visibility and prominence in former mission territories. This is a long-term process of ecclesial inculturation, or localization, which takes into account various political and cultural contexts. After all, the Vatican does not measure success in years, but in decades.

The Vatican’s dealings with China could, however, set a precedent where the promotion of fundamental values is fungible for pragmatic gains, imperiling its status as a mediator. 

Sino-Vatican relations are further complicated as they cannot be understood as a clean bilateral relationship, but as a triangular reality given the status of Taiwan. The Holy See is one of only 12 states, and the only one in Europe, to formally recognize Taiwan (the Republic of China). In Taiwan there are seven dioceses and an estimated 300,000 Catholics, or 1 percent of the total population, which includes both ethnic Han Chinese and Aboriginal Taiwanese, especially in the south and east of the country. 

While small, “the Catholic Church in Taiwan engages in many activities in education, social welfare, and healthcare, providing an enormous social value and promoting social harmony,” said Dr. Chen Chien-jen, former vice president and premier of Taiwan and a practicing Catholic who has met with Pope Francis on several occasions. 

“So for social welfare activities, the church has been doing very good things with charity, and it should also be lauded for its work in promoting religious dialogue,” Chen continued. “In this way, we can say that the church is absolutely a big player in building social harmony.” 

While in many respects the relationship between Taiwan and the Holy See is anomalous, Taiwan represents a strategic place for the Catholic Church to grow in Asia, given the influx of migrants from Vietnam, the Philippines, and other countries. Moreover, it is a county that upholds all of the values that the Holy See champions, providing a clear juxtaposition of how this process of inculturation can develop and how a free church, unencumbered from state interference, can operate.  

Hong Kong, despite functioning as a “bridge church,” should stand as a warning of how precipitously the situation can deteriorate, with the arrests of prominent Catholics such as Cardinal Joseph Zen (a fierce critic of the Sino-Vatican deal) and media mogul and Catholic Jimmy Lai under the new National Security Law as two examples. 

The extension of the Sino-Vatican deal could eventually embolden Beijing’s efforts to isolate Taiwan diplomatically, leveraging the agreement as a stepping stone toward persuading the Vatican to switch recognition. The Vatican has already expressed its desire to open a permanent representative office in Beijing, and with the renewal of the China deal extended to a four year basis, shows signs of deepening engagement. 

Yet any move toward formal relations with China would have profound geopolitical reverberations, not only for the church in Asia, but also for the Holy See’s standing with other countries like the United States. In the U.S., the Sino-Vatican deal has received widespread criticism from voices within the church as well as from government officials in the Trump administration. U.S.-Vatican relations could be further strained should former President Donald Trump win his historic bid for a second, non-consecutive term in November. 

Manifold factors, including the successor of the nearly 88 year-old Pope Francis, will influence the trajectory of the Holy See’s China policy in the future. And while the attempts to negotiate and reconcile an irregular situation are laudable, the Holy See has not come out as a winner by any metric. Only Beijing can be happy with the new status quo.