Taipei, Taiwan - Father Louis Shen, a Chinese Catholic who has spent half his life in labor camps, dismisses talk that Beijing will grant religious freedom to his countrymen in order to forge ties with the Vatican.
The Shanghai native was 22 years old in 1958, when he and other Roman Catholics were rounded up and accused of being a counter-revolutionary. He was sentenced to three years' jail and 25 years of hard labor in China's bleak western hinterland. "The idea was reform through labor, so we had to endure two main hardships: not having enough to eat and physical exhaustion," Shen, 68, now a priest in Taipei, told Reuters.
"We had to go outdoors in sub-zero temperatures and they would shout: 'Work hard! If you work hard, you won't freeze to death'," said the cherub-cheeked Shen, whose family converted to Catholicism almost two centuries ago.
"People who protested were beaten or chained."
Shen says Chinese Catholics today have a much easier time than during the ultra-leftist early years of the Communist revolution. But only just.
While some priests are harassed from time to time, China allows an estimated five million faithful to worship openly -- if they join the state-run Patriotic Catholic Association, which pledges loyalty to Beijing rather than the Pope.
The Vatican says there are another eight million clandestine Catholics who secretly recognize the Holy Father in the world's most populous nation and pray in underground churches.
Despite recent hints that China and the Holy See may be willing to reconnect ties severed in the 1950s, when Beijing expelled foreign clergy, Shen doubts the Chinese government is prepared to cede much religious authority to Pope Benedict.
POLITICS VS RELIGION
He and many other faithful here say China's overtures to the Vatican are a cloak for its political goal: to force Taiwan's only European ally to break off diplomatic ties with the island, which China views as a renegade province unworthy of statehood.
"Communist China is willing to treat religion like politics. It is willing to create a church that is completely separate from universal values, with no particular ties to the Pope," said Cardinal Paul Shan, the top-ranking Catholic priest in Taiwan and the only ethnic-Chinese cardinal in the world.
China said in April it wants to normalize relations with the Vatican but on condition that it cuts ties with Taiwan and pledges not to interfere in Chinese internal affairs, which would include the appointment of bishops.
The dispute over bishops has been the main barrier to rapprochement for decades, as the authority of the Pope as head of the one-billion-member Roman Catholic Church is largely based on his sole right to select bishops and cardinals worldwide.
"Communist China must first drop its conditions and change its attitude if it is to establish ties with the Vatican," said Shan, adding there has been no official contact between Beijing and the city-state in Rome since 2000.
The head of Hong Kong's Catholic diocese, Bishop Joseph Zen, has suggested the Vatican is willing to compromise on the bishop issue and is also prepared to break off with Taiwan to secure religious freedom for its faithful in China.
Zen said it was "very likely" informal dialogue between the two may have begun in late 2004 through third parties.
TAIWAN VS CHINA
While believers in the mainland far outnumber Taiwan's 300,000, the island's Catholic leaders do not think Beijing can reach an agreement with the Vatican soon.
China fears ceding too much authority to the Pontiff will have a domino effect on other groups, like Muslims and Tibetans, who also clamor for more freedom, Taiwan prelates said.
They are adamant the Holy See will not abandon Taiwan even if it moves its nunciature from Taipei to Beijing, saying religious channels are not solely built on diplomatic ties.
"There's no doubt the Vatican wants to establish ties with China," said Joseph Cheng, Archbishop of Taipei. "But the Vatican has never broken off ties with any country."
Despite his reassurance, some parishioners are worried the Vatican may be ready to give them up. A break in ties would also hurt Taiwan's aspirations to be viewed as an independent country as the Holy See is one of only 26 states that recognize Taipei.
"I think it's strange if the Vatican breaks off ties with Taiwan because God does not care about politics," said housewife Amy Lo after attending an afternoon mass in Taipei.
For Shen, he welcomes any move that will help the faithful in China, but does not have much confidence in the Communists.
When his own sentence was rescinded in 1985, he was offered just 300 yuan (then worth about US$100) in compensation for two decades of forced labor as a painter and farmer.
"It's very clear in their Marxist-Lenin ideology that there is no God. That's their principle," he said.