China, Taiwan, and the Church: folks are starting to notice.

This morning, I noticed a story on Drudge regarding possible Chinese plans to invade Taiwan within two years, and a story on Get Religion about the possibility of the Vatican compromising with China regarding the naming of bishops and Church recognition of Taiwan.

Yesterday, on my other site, I noted the recent hysteria over Chinese capital investments in the United States the similarity between these stories and others of Japanese investments fifteen years ago, and generally pooh-poohed them. Now I'm starting to wonder if the coordination between business, culture, government, and the military in China doesn't make their threat somewhat more serious than the simple economic threat once posed by Japan.

In any event, the Chinese want the Church to remove its recognition of Taiwanese sovereignty and compromise on the Church's authority in naming bishops. The Vatican, meanwhile, has indicated a possible willingness to make these compromises (Who? Cardinal Soldano?). It would be a grave mistake, both in the moral and in the strategic sense if such compromises were made. An act which the Vatican might see as a means of seeking harmony would, to the Chinese, be nothing more than victory in an intermediate step toward their long range goals of removing all barriers to an invasion of Taiwan and to a complete nationalization of the Catholic Church in China, making it nothing more than an supplement to Communist thought control-- a true "opiate of the masses" sedating Chinese Christians against the pain of Communist totalitarianism.

Don't do it, Your Holiness!