Suchergebnisse

"Sino-Vatican diplomatic relation was established in 1924 but was formally cut in 1951 with the expulsion of the Papal Nuncio Archbishop Riberi from China (Chen/Jiang 2003, 162-276). With Mao Zedong's emphasis an dass struggle and his intolerance toward ideological issues, religious idealism in China, including Catholicism, had to give way to the dialectical materialism of Marxist-Leninism and Maoist thought. Also Vatican represented a dass which Mao aimed to get rid of. Only after Deng Xiaoping initiated the modernization policy in 1978 and China began to merge from its isolation was there a possibility for a dialogue, with the view of establishing a Sino-Vatican Concordat. In the context of Vatican's Ostpolitik with Communist states, in 1981, Cardinal Casaroli, then Secretary of the State of the Vatican, made the first overture to China, aiming at normalizing the relationl. China frowned upon the Vatican's unilateral appointment of Bishop Dominic Deng Yiming in 1982, a released prisoner of conscience after 22-years imprisonment as the Archbishop of Guangzhou. By Beijing's order, contact had been temporaries suspended for a short while as retaliation. However, informal contact between the Vatican and China was resumed shortly thereafter, and progress was made. In November 1987, Zhao Ziyang, then Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), met Cardinal Jaime Sin of Manila in Beijing and they agreed to have their aides-de-camp threshing out more details to initiate formal Sino-Vatican negotiation. The meeting gave hope for heralding a new dawn in the Sino-Vatican rapprochement. Twenty years have passed (1987-2007). Since then, it seems the sun has set on the prospects for further dialogue, and that no rapprochement can be imagined for the near future. The change in the political landscape in the international arena and within China added new factors to the SinoVatican negotiation, including the Hong Kong issue. When old problems of appointing bishops have not been resolved, two new requests from Beijing add difficulties to the complexity of the negotiation. These are 1) the transference of the ecclesiastical power of administration to the civil authority in local dioceses and 2) demanding the Vatican to validate appointed bishops. Above all, the tensed Catholic-government relations in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) is among other factors which caused international attention and it should prompt Beijing and the Vatican to reconsider serious about the dormant negotiation. This article aims at discussing 1) the role played by Hong Kong in the Sino-Vatican relations vis-ä-vis in the revival of the Chinese Catholic Church, and 2) the conflicting Catholic and government relations in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The research Eindings reflect on Hong Kong's political participation as viewed from the perspectives from China and the Vatican might throw some light on the Hong Kong Factor in the Sino-Vatican negotiation." (author's abstract)