Cross posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/1853467
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners.
The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties.
In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties.
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Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners.
It’s complicated. But Taiwan doesn’t recognize itself as an independent country as they still maintain official position that they are Republic of China (ROC) with claim to all China’s territory.
They do that for also political reasons, so calling the rest of the world for doing the same is disingenuous if not manipulative.
with claim to all China’s territory.
What does that mean? Taiwan doesn’t claim ‘all of China’s territory’ …
Both the ROC and the PRC still officially (constitutionally) claim mainland China and the Taiwan Area as part of their respective territories.
There should be a solution to this once they both agree on mutual independence.
This would never happen, it would delegitimize either party to back pedal on their territorial claims.
In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China…
The absolute funniest thing about that is the Vatican is literally letting atheists call the shots on who can be a bishop over in China.
Oh, and good on President Lai. Taiwan standing up for itself is definitely important and more countries should recognize it because it is a country by every metric.
Yes, the Vatican is also silent on China’s supression of religious groups, including catholics.
‘There is no longer a safe place to be a Christian in China’ - report
The Chinese government is increasingly cracking down on state-sanctioned churches as well as underground churches, leaving no “safe place” for Christians, according to International Christian Concern.
A new report by ICC tracks persecution of Christians in China since July 2021 and records 32 cases of arrests and detainments, five raids on Christian schools, and 20 cases of the Sinicization of churches - where churches are forced to align their faith with the social and political messaging of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The ICC said that exact numbers were likely to be far higher because of the challenges of receiving information from China.
