Seminar offers hope of truce between Beijing and Vatican

A GLIMMER of hope emerged yesterday that a stand-off between China and the Vatican might be easing.

A seminar being held in Beijing appears to have offered an opportunity for discreet diplomacy between China and the Vatican. One participant, a Chinese professor, said: "I’ve heard something about Vatican officials or scholars holding unofficial contacts with Chinese authorities at the event and I think that’s quite possible," the professor said. "The easing of relations between China and the Vatican is definitely the long-term trend. I think both sides have the will to do this," he added.

However, the organisers of the seminar, the Chinese Academy of Social Scientists, a government think tank, played down the possibility. An official said: "Actually, it is a purely academic activity involving absolutely no politics."

Tension has been high for two years since China’s state-backed Catholic Church ordained five bishops. The Vatican, one of the few states that still recognises Taiwan, then infuriated Beijing last year by canonising 120 martyrs on 1 October, China’s National Day.

A Vatican diplomat in Rome said the Holy See had not been invited to the seminar, which involves Catholic scholars from around the world, and none of its officials would attend.

The conference co-ordinator, Wu Xiaoxin of the University of San Francisco, would offer no details about the gathering, officially billed as a look back at the history of China’s engagement with the West since the 17th century.

"What they are trying to do is make it very low profile and very discreet," said one Beijing-based foreign diplomat. "It is already good that the Chinese authorities are allowing this event to take place," she said.

China severed links with the Vatican in the 1950s. The state-sponsored Catholic Church has about five million members, but the Vatican estimates eight million Catholics are secretly loyal to the Pope.

Roman Catholics in Hong Kong, point to small signs of warming relations. They said Beijing made no public objection to Hong Kong celebrations last week on the anniversary of the Vatican’s canonisation of the 120 Catholic martyrs reviled by Beijing as "evil-doing sinners", rapists and looters.

"Vatican relations are important to China because it wants to improve its international image and it wants to unite with Taiwan," said a political scientist at the Hong Kong Baptist University. "But when they think about domestic issues and the impact on the poor and the jobless, they may have second thoughts." - Reuters