Tokyo, 14 September, /AJMEDIA/
A Vatican envoy expelled from China a few years after the 1949 Communist takeover of the country expected Mao Zedong’s government to quickly collapse and be replaced by the rival Nationalists who had fled to Taiwan after defeat in the civil war.
Antonio Riberi’s confidential missive to the Holy See in 1952, recently seen by Kyodo News, cited a “heap of hatreds” against the Chinese Communist Party after crackdowns on the public and Catholic missionaries.
It was written when governments were faced with the choice of officially recognizing Mao or Chiang Kai-shek as China’s legitimate head of state.
The Vatican is currently the only state in Europe that has official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which China views as a renegade province to be reunited with mainland.
The 12-page report, dated July 22, 1952, was sent from Hong Kong, a British colony at the time, where Riberi sought refuge after being expelled by the Communist-led government from Nanjing in 1951.
“One fact is certain: the Communist regime is taking on such a heap of hatreds that as soon as any flaw or weakness occurs in the monolithic structure of the regime, everything will collapse much sooner than you think,” he wrote, expecting a return to the continent of Chiang’s government “at a more or less distant expiration.”
Riberi was then trying to normalize the “suspended but not interrupted” relations with the Nationalist government by sending priests to meet with Chiang, according to the letter.
He later moved to Taiwan from Hong Kong, becoming the Vatican’s first envoy to Taipei.
