1. Other problems include differences in ideology (Marxism v. Catholicism), population-control methods adopted in China, the issue of married priests, etc.

2. Unless otherwise specified, the Chinese Catholic Church or the Catholic Church or the Church refers to the church structure consisting of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the Chinese College of Bishops, the Chinese Catholic Administrative Commission, together with the clergy and the laity, but excludes those Catholics who supposedly “remain loyal” to the Vatican (see the Figure and fn. 15 below). They are excluded because they have little or no negotiating or bargaining power with the government or government-sanctioned church bodies over church affairs.

3. He replaced Piero Biggio in early 1989. See Asia Focus (Hong Kong: Union of Catholic Asian News), Vol. 5, No. 10 (11 March 1989), p. 4Google Scholar; Hong Kong Standard, 16 December 1988, p. 1; and Taiwan, Republic of China Catholic Directory 1986 (Taibei: Kuangchi Press, 1986), pp. 39–42.Google Scholar

4. For the various ranks of papal representatives see New Catholic Encylopedia (New York, Toronto, London, Sydney: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1967), Vol. 8, p. 608.Google Scholar

5. Pro Mundi Vita: Dossiers (Brussels: Pro Mundi Vita), Nos. 2–3 (1984), p. 14.Google Scholar

6. For an introduction to the early history see Beatrice Leung Kit-fun, “Sino-Vatican conflict (1976–1982): political and diplomatic influences on China’s policies towards the Catholic Church,” unpub. M.A. dissertation, University of Hong Kong, 1983.

7. China Bulletin (Rome: Pontifical Urban University), Vol. 6, No. 2 (June 1984), p. 11.Google Scholar

8. Tsing-sing, Louis Wei, “China and the Vatican,” China Notes (New York: Division of Overseas Ministries, National Council of Churches), Vol. 8, No. 4 (Autumn 1970), p. 51.Google Scholar

9. Ibid. p. 52.

10. Tsing-sing, Louis Wei, “The Vatican and China: 1949–1974,” Christianity and the New China (South Pasadena, California: William Carey Library, 1976), pp. 148–49; Wei, “China and the Vatican,” pp. 52–53.Google Scholar

11. Wei, “The Vatican and China: 1949–1974,” p. 154.

12. See successive issues of the Vatican’s Annuario Pontificio (Pontifical Yearbook) during the period under discussion.

13. L. Ladany, “Kan Zhongguo dalu tianzhujiaohui” (“A Look at the Catholic Church on the Chinese Mainland”), Baixing (Common People), No. 71(1 May 1984), p. 35.

14. Wurth, Elmer (ed.), Papal Documents to the New China (New York: Orbis Books, 1985), p. 133.Google Scholar

15. Some observers say that the Chinese Church is split into the open church which defies the authority of the Pope and the “underground church” whose followers supposedly “remain loyal” to him. However, others reject this dichotomy, saying that such an alleged “schism” does not exist, nor is it helpful for the rapprochement between the Chinese Church and the universal Church.

16. D'Elia, Pascal M., Catholic Native Episcopacy in China: Being an Outline of the Formation and Growth of the Chinese Catholic Clergy 1300–1926 (Shanghai: T’usewei Printing Press, 1927), p. 2.Google Scholar

17. Zhongguo tianzhujiao (The Catholic Church in China), No. 3 (October 1981), p. 39; No. 8 (December 1983), p. 23. Similar statistics, including the number of baptized Catholics before 1949, can be found in D’Elia, Catholic Native Episcopacy in China.

18. Zhongguo tianzhujiao, No. 4 (March 1982), p. 28.

19. For some recent ordinations presided over by Bishop Fu Tieshan, see Tripod (Hong Kong: Holy Spirit Study Centre), No. 41 (October 1987), p. 79.Google Scholar

20. Asia Focus, Vol. 1, No. 9 (8 March 1985), p. 1.

21. Document A.A.S. 53, 1951, pp. 217–18. See Stehle, Hansjakob (trans, by Smith, Sandra), Eastern Politics of the Vatican, 1917–1979 (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1981), p. 424, fn. 37; see also Wurth, Papal Documents to the New China, p. 48.Google Scholar

22. Wurth, Papal Documents to the New China, p. 95.

23. From my personal contacts with Chinese Church leaders in China and Hong Kong and my reading of various Chinese religious policy statements published in Remin ribao (People’s Daily ) and Hongqi (Red Flag).

24. Foreign Broadcasting Information Service, Daily Report (hereafter FBIS), 20 April 1983, p. K4.

25. Its constitution is published in full in Zhongguo tianzhujiao, No. 1 (November 1980), p. 19. The independent movement which led to the establishment of this association was first started in November 1950 by a priest named Wang Liangzuo of Guangyuan county in Sichuan province together with a group of believers. See Miao Suqun, “Catholicism in China: self-administration, self-evangelism and self-support, ” PRC Quarterly, No. 44 (January 1985), p. 143. See also Kim-kwong, Chan, Towards a Contextual Ecclesiology. The Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China (1979–1983): Its Life and Theological Implications (Hong Kong: Phototech System Ltd., 1987), pp. 169–71.Google Scholar

26. Interview in Guangzhou with Zhang Minggao, vice-chairman and secretary of the Guangzhou Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association on 7 December 1986.

27. China News and Church Report, Hong Kong: Chinese Church Research Centre (4 December 1987), item 1074.

28. For a full copy of the commission’s constitution, see Zhongguo tianzhujiao, No. 1 (November 1980), p. 51.

29. UCANEWS (Hong Kong: Union of Catholic Asian News), dispatch No. 399 (29 April 1987), p. 19.Google Scholar

30. China Update (Belgium), No. 7 (Spring 1984), p. 146.

31. Code of Canon Law, Latin-English edit. (Washington, D.C.: Canon Law Society of America, 1983), p. 141, canon 380.Google Scholar

32. FBIS, 26 April 1983, p. K14.

33. Dagong bao, Hong Kong, 31 August 1987, p. 2; Jerome Heyndrickx, “Emergence of a local Catholic Church in China,” Tripod, No. 37 (February 1987), p. 69. The figure of 3–3 million Catholics in China has been confirmed by Fr. Anthony Wang Zicheng, vicar general of Yueyang diocese in Hunan province and vice-rector of the National Seminary in Beijing, in an interview with him in Hong Kong on 26 October 1986. Anthony S.K. Lam, executive secretary of the Holy Spirit Study Centre, Hong Kong, says that the number of 1,000 priests does not include those who are in prison or in parole (totalling some 100) and those who have been ordained by the “underground church” since 1979 (about another 100), in an interview with him at his office on 30 December 1986. Jonathan Chao, Presbyterian pastor and founder-director of the Chinese Church Research Centre, Hong Kong, estimates that there are 75 million Christians, Protestants and Catholics in China and the figure will reach at least 100 million by the year 2010. He says that “the growth of the Chinese Church is the fastest in the world.” See Asia Focus, 10 October 1987, p. 8. Chao further points out that the figure of 50 million has recently been reported in News for Consideration, a paper circulated among senior Chinese Communist Party members. See Asia Focus, 24 October 1987, p. 6. When asked in an interview to comment on the claim that there are 30 to 100 million Protestant Christians in China, Protestant Bishop K.H. Ting of China said that “these big figures must have been derived by choosing a small area with a large concentration of Protestants and then projecting this high proportion to the whole of China.” See China Talk (Hong Kong), Vol. 13, No. 1, January 1988, p. 11.

34. “Chinese Catholics: more religious freedom,” Beijing Review, Vol. 30, No. 25 (22 June 1987), p. v; Mingbao (Hong Kong), 10 December 1987, p. 14.

35. Sunday Examiner (Hong Kong), 12 December 1986, p. 6; and another interview with Lam at his office on 7 December 1987.

36. FBIS, 24 July 1981, p. Kl.

37. China Study Project Documentation (Kent), No. 1 (November 1979), p. 22.

38. Sunday Examiner, 10 October 1986.

39. Hong Kong Standard, 2 December 1986, p. 8, quoting a report by Xinhua News Agency.

40. Dagong bao, 31 August 1987, p. 2.

41. Louis Wei Tsing-sing, an historian and a former Chinese diplomat noted for his pro-Beijing views, suggested some conditions for reconciliation in 1984. See China Update, No. 20 (Summer 1987), pp. 17–19. Chan Kim-kwong has made some analyses of the need, problems and possible models for reconciliation in his Towards a Contextual Ecclesiology, pp. 380–86.

42. Chang, Aloysius B., Fentigang yu wo guo de waijiao guanxi (The Diplomatic Relations between the Vatican and the Republic of China) (Tainan, Taiwan: Window Press, n.d.), pp. 14–31.Google Scholar

43. Interview with Philip Yuen, editor, Union of Catholic Asian News, Hong Kong, on 11 December 1987.

44. According to canon 364 of the Code of Canon Law, one of the responsibilities of a pontifical legate is “to send information to the Apostolic See on the conditions of the particular churches and all that touches the life of the Church and the good of souls.”

45. South China Morning Post, 17 December 1986, p. 7.

46. Ibid. See also Xingdao ribao, Hong Kong, 16 December 1986, p. 2.

47. As stated in article 1 of canon 377 of the Code of Canon Law.

48. Professor L. De Fleurquin, Faculty of Canon Law, Catholic University of Leuven, Brussels, speaking in an open forum on “Constitution and Religious Freedom” held at the Hong Kong Catholic Diocesan Centre on 21 December 1986.

49. Harouel, Jean-Louis, “The methods of selecting bishops stipulated by churchstate agreements in force today,” Huizing, Peter and Waif, Knut (eds.), Electing Our Own Bishops (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark; New York: Seabury Press, 1980), p. 63.Google Scholar

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid. pp. 63–64.

52. Ibid. p. 64.

53. Ibid.

54. Interview with Professor L. De Fleurquin at the Hong Kong Catholic Diocesan Centre on 22 December 1986.

55. According to Anthony S. K. Lam, about half of the 40 or so bishops self-consecrated between 1957 and 1963 got married. Some of them later renounced their office, but others resumed their pastoral work after the Cultural Revolution. Interview with Lam at his office on 22 December 1986.

56. South China Morning Post, 27 September 1985.

57. There are provisions for such confirmation. See article 1 of canon 377 of the Code of Canon Law.

58. Charbonnier, Jean, “The Catholic Church in China, old scars and new hopes,” Missiology: An International Review (Scottdate, Penn.: American Society of Missiology), Vol. 13, No. 3 (July 1985), p. 319.Google Scholar

59. Asia Focus, Vol. 4, No. 22 (11 June 1988), p. 3.

60. For an analysis of the transnational nature of the Vatican see Vallier, Ivan, “The Roman Catholic Church: a transnational actor,” Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S. Jr. (eds.), Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), pp. 129–52Google Scholar. See also Hanson, Eric O., The Catholic Church in World Politics (Guildford, Surrey: Princeton University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

61. See Gerald Chan, “The ‘two-China’ problem in international non-governmental organizations,” (Hong Kong: Centre for Contemporary Asian Studies, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, December 1987. Occasional Papers General Series, No. 7).

62. Ibid. See also Gerald Chan, “China, Taiwan and the Asian Development Bank: membership dispute and diplomatic implications” (forthcoming).