Beijing Tells Vatican Not To "Interfere" Beijing Tells Vatican Not to 'Interfere' April 05, 2005 BEIJING - China on Tuesday demanded the Vatican stay out of its internal affairs and break off diplomatic relations with Taiwan, reiterating its long-standing conditions for establishing diplomatic relations severed more than 50 years ago. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang rejected ties between China's Catholics and the Vatican, an indication that Beijing hasn't budged on a key issue in their split despite expressing hope for better relations following the death of Pope John Paul II. Beijing is concerned the pope's authority to appoint Chinese bishops undermines its sovereignty. "China's principle on religion is that religious groups must be independent and support themselves and administer themselves in China," Qin told reporters. "The Vatican shall not interfere with China's internal affairs." The Whole Story
The part of that article that surprises me the most is: The Vatican is Taiwan's only European diplomatic ally But yet, if N. Korea or China were to make a move on Taiwan, we'd jump into the fray by our lonesome? Yikes. . .
Wow, you're just a genius, ain't ye. . As far as international affairs go in terms of countries and global power, there's us, China and most of Europe. If the conflict is WITH China, and Europe isn't involved, that leaves just us, don't it. . .
Being that Taiwan is an island, the battle for Taiwan would be primarily naval in nature. No way the Chinese could defeat us there. My guess is that if the Chinese make noise about invading Taiwan, we'll start moving our fleet in the direction of the Taiwan Straits to cut them off. There will be much saber-rattling, and in the end, realizing that discretion is the better part, cooler heads will prevail, and the Chinese will back off and return to the status quo...for a while, at least.
Nationwide, the number of Chinese Catholics has increased to 5.2 million from 3 million in 1940, and about 70000 people are baptized every year. But then again, those are relatively small nos. considering there's what 7 quattuornonagintillion people in China these days. 7 quattuornonagintillion +1, 7 quattuornonagintillion +2. . .
I have a Chinese Catholic working in my office. Apparently there are enough of them that the Chinese government feels that if the Pope appoints chinese bishops it will "undermine their sovereignty". Perhaps the atheist Chinese government wants to appoint Catholic bishops. Amazing.
I must respond.............. In your statement, it seems to me, you imply that we are a European ally. The Vatican is in Europe, they are the only ones who, per the article, would support Taiwan. The purpose of the statement is to say that the rest of Europe would not support Taiwan. I could be misunderstanding your meaning here. You are correct, however, to assume that we would support Taiwan. That would be American ally not European. I understand that this is a stupid argument, but you seemed to take offense at my statement. It wasn't meant that way. I was just kidding around.
