Taiwan will be represented at the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday not by the country’s head of state but by a former vice president. That’s despite the government saying President Lai Ching-te wanted to attend. For more, Louise Watt spoke to Chang Ching, a senior research fellow at the Society for Strategic Studies ROC.
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00:00The foreign ministry said that it had been negotiating for Taiwan's president to attend the Pope's funeral, but that appears to have failed.
00:09What would the issues have been during these negotiations?
00:13I would argue that it is actually immoral to declare or to express the intention that President Light would like to join the ceremony before it can actually confirm.
00:30We should understand all the diplomatic maneuvers always contain some risk.
00:36So you can only say we are going to send a group to join the ceremony.
00:41But you should never specifically say that our president won't go there, simply because it failed to negotiate.
00:50There are many, many factors that are contained in this diplomatic negotiation, given the current status of the Republic of China now in the international community.
01:02We should also understand the Holy See.
01:04There are some factors that cannot be totally controlled by the Holy See.
01:08After all, the Pope is not actually buried in St. Peter's Chapel.
01:15They are actually buried in another site, which is located geographically located in Italy.
01:21Please remember that according to the list of what we have seen at the moment, they are majorly come from Europe.
01:29And with a lot of countries, even from South America, they have very strong Catholic background.
01:34So comparatively, Taiwan, we don't have such a strong Catholic background.
01:39Taiwan will be represented by a former vice president, so not even a serving government official.
01:45What kind of impression do you think this gives?
01:48I think this is actually an excellent choice, because given the previous background and very intensive engagement with the Holy See and former vice president Chen, he himself is a Catholic, a very faithful Catholic.