Why isn't the pope visiting Taiwan on his trip to Asia? And how much importance does the Vatican place on its relations with Taipei? TaiwanPlus speaks to Thomas Chingwei Tu, who studies international relations, and particularly the Vatican, at Taipei's National Chengchi University.
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00:00This is the Pope's longest and furthest trip abroad.
00:04Why is he going to these countries, namely Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and
00:09Singapore?
00:10He wants to have more direct connection with this country, especially for the country like
00:18Singapore or Indonesia.
00:20They play a vital role in this international society, but they are not Catholic majority.
00:26He tries to further the relationship with this country and try to cooperate with the
00:33country in the most important international crisis like climate change.
00:39The Vatican is of course one of Taiwan's few remaining diplomatic allies.
00:44Why isn't the Pope stopping off in Taiwan on his trip to Asia?
00:49This is his longest trip, already will take 12 days to visit these four important countries.
00:57It does not mean that he haven't have any plan to visit other Eastern Asia countries,
01:04but because of the time and these limitations, this time he chose these four countries to
01:11visit.
01:12So probably Taiwan is one in his pocket, but not this time.
01:16There's been a lot of talk and speculation about how the Vatican, specifically Pope Francis,
01:22want to draw closer to China.
01:26How worried should Taiwan be at that?
01:28I think Taiwan and Vatican, we have very steady and even a very strong tie between both sides
01:39because of Taiwan Catholic population, we play a very significant role in our society.
01:48Vatican set their diplomats in the Philippines as a special delegate to Taipei for Prince
01:55and Lise inauguration.
01:58So I think Vatican, they really think of Taiwan's relation is the most important things that
02:05they have in East Asia.
02:08So I think although they try to manage a relationship with the People's Republic of China, but the
02:15main issue is that they try to assist the Chinese Catholic group in China and try to
02:23manage Catholic church to be directly linked to Pope Francis.
02:28That is the most important legal part of a Catholic church.
02:33So I think from Taiwan side, we only have to do...
02:37The one thing is that how to promote Catholic church and not that worry about the discussion
02:44or negotiation with China.