TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) delivered a pre-recorded video message at the 2nd International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit Asia on Monday (July 22) in Tokyo, Japan.
The two-day event invited more than a dozen academics and speakers from Asia and the U.S. to address the issues of religious pluralism, political persecution and genocide, and freedom of belief under authoritarian governments. The summit was born out of a bipartisan U.S. IRF Congressional Caucus formed in 2006, working to ensure religious freedom both domestically in the U.S. and abroad.
Lai made the case that Taiwan’s unique history and prior experience with authoritarian regimes have made it a model for religious freedom that other countries can follow. He added that only by acknowledging the fundamental right of an individual to worship can a society succeed, warning that more people around the world are facing increased threats of political persecution.
“We are now at a time when democratic backsliding and authoritarian aggression are becoming more widespread, and countless people face persecution due to their religious beliefs. Now more than ever, we must reaffirm our commitment to freedom and dignity, in which religious freedom is fundamental,” said Lai.
Lai hoped that Taiwan’s battle with authoritarian tyranny under Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), potentially serving as a lesson for others.
“Religious freedom has endured tyranny within living memory in Taiwan. During martial law, preaching in the Taiwanese language was banned, and Taiwan’s Presbyterian leaders were also targeted by the authoritarian regime. However, through the relentless efforts of the Taiwanese people, the sacrifice of democracy activists, and support from democratic countries, Taiwan became a vibrant democracy that now stands as a beacon of religious freedom in Asia.”
According to Lai, Taiwan’s commitment to religious freedom has contributed to a society that is open-minded and accepting of differences. “Taiwan’s religious freedom sets a global standard, and we are part of the inclusiveness, diversity, and interfaith dialogue for which we are known. Our religious diversity has also strengthened the Taiwanese people’s conviction of the importance of religious freedom.”
Lai attributed some of this progress to foreign religious missionaries. “Returning to our history, foreign missionaries came to Taiwan in the mid-19th century and offered medical services as they carried out their evangelical work. That spirit continues today as religious communities throughout Taiwan are still dedicated to medical care, charity, special education services, and disaster relief at home and abroad. Their contributions have not only made our society and the world a better place but have also served as a bridge connecting Taiwan with the world.“
Unfortunately, Lai believed that, in recent years, religious freedom in many parts of the world has begun to erode. “Facing such threats, Taiwan is determined to continue advancing religious freedom around the world. In 2019 and 2022, we held civil society dialogue, inviting advocates and defenders of religious freedom to share experiences and ideas on confronting repression.”
To conclude his address, Lai said, “Taiwan will remain a steadfast ally in support of religious freedom, standing strong for our common values, and committing to maintaining our free and democratic way of life.”
The threat from China
At a panel discussion held later in the afternoon, “Freedom of Belief Under Authoritarian Governments,” Bob Fu (傅希秋), the founder and president of China Aid, a non-profit Christian-based organization out of Texas, discussed the growing threat of political persecution and repression at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.
“We do our mission by exposing abuses and those that were persecuted. To summarize the basic trend, I think the level of persecution against Christians, besides the genocides against the Uyghurs in East Turkestan, the Tibetans, and the Falun Gong practitioners, 100–130 million Chinese Christians are now experiencing the worst persecution since the Cultural Revolution.”
Fu said a few worrying trends have emerged since Xi Jinping (習近平) took power, such as a shift from “control or assimilation” to “eradication or elimination.”
According to Fu, “People have to hide the Bible under the pillow; this only happened during the Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao (毛澤東) in the 1960s. And people who report illegal religious activity would be rewarded monetarily. We are seeing the Communist Party totally banning Christian private education, and all the missionaries, for the first time since 1955, were kicked out. We are talking about hundreds of thousands. Even those engaging in charitable activities like those helping orphans and training orphan teachers.”
Fu said much of this religious persecution is taking place under the banner of “sinicization,” as the China Communist Party ordered the churches and mosques to sing the Communist Party National Anthem before they could sing their doxology or praise of their Lord with Xi’s picture and Mao’s picture mandated to be put on church pulpits. Furthermore, Fu said many pastors in China are being charged with business fraud for collecting offerings from practitioners, putting them further at risk of government control.
Catholic Church makes overtures to China
Matsumoto Saho, a professor at Nihon University, warned that not only are individual pastors and their congregants at risk of coercion, but so is one of the world’s major leading religious entities, the Catholic Church.
Matsumoto estimated China’s Catholic population at 10–12 million people. Due to this sizable population, the Vatican has expressed an interest in establishing a permanent office in China, which would be a major upgrade in diplomatic relations with Beijing. However, Matsumoto said this would involve lots of compromise, like accepting Chinese veto power over the Pope’s appointment of bishops, which would be a violation of 2018 agreements, and potentially opening the door for the sinicization of the Catholic Church in China.
Another condition that China would likely ask for in exchange for the more permanent status of the Vatican would be to cut diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which Matsumoto described as the last home of Chinese democracy.
Despite the many challenges to improved relations, Matsumoto believed the Vatican was willing to negotiate, as she points out the fact that the Vatican has now established relations with Vietnam with which it had no prior relations. This comes as a sizable Catholic population in southern Vietnam continues to be subject to monitoring and surveillance.
Taiwan’s future role in geopolitics
The IRF Asia Summit concluded the first day with the keynote interview “The Geopolitical Importance of Religious Freedom in Asia,” which featured a question and answer session with former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Pompeo concurred with the previous presenter, Matsumoto, that Pope Francis has made too many compromises with China. And the lure of improved diplomatic relations may lead the church to lose its moral authority.
“I think the current Pope has made peace with the Chinese Communist Party. My critique was that church leadership demands that they aim higher, as the Catholic Church can be such a force for moral good in the world. Think about what Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II did for the world. They worked together to increase the capacity for more behavior around the world.”
Later in the question and answer session, Pompeo was asked about how he viewed Taiwan, a country that, unlike China, fully supports religious freedom and allows religious organizations to operate independently, by ChinaAid founder Bob Fu.
“We try not to live in a fantasy world. And it is a fantasy world not to acknowledge that Taiwan is a free, independent, and sovereign nation,” said Pompeo. He acknowledged the Chinese policies set forth by predecessors such as Kissinger, noting that the U.S. position may have made sense in the early 1970s and maybe 1992, but by 2022, the Chinese Communist Party had so moved the agreement and violated the three core understandings that they had made a major break with what they had promised Kissinger.
In this regard, Pompeo said that it seems foolish for the U.S. to continue to live under the agreement. With regard to realpolitik and how one can tell if Taiwan is an independent country, Pompeo cited his own travel as an example, as he is barred from entering China, but when he travels to Taiwan, “my passport cleared customs, and customs took me in, and it was all good.”
“Taiwan has its own government; they have their own rule of law; they have their own vibrant economy.” For this reason, he encouraged the U.S. to “rip off the bandaid” and acknowledge the reality of Taiwan, regardless of China’s reaction.
“It will make Xi Jinping angry, and he will have a bad day and fly a bunch of planes, and he will scream, and they will go to the U.N. and rail. But okay, that’s what they did yesterday, and that’s what they are going to do tomorrow.”
In conclusion, Pompeo said the U.S. had to acknowledge “core truths,” and this subject also involved the important role of religious freedom and the dangers of suppressing groups that are simply going about their own lives and imposing little threat on China.