Taiwan Church News 3800 Edition Dec 23 ~ 29, 2024 Weekly Topical Relegating Taiwan as China’s Subordinate, WCC is Requested by PCT to Rectify an Irritating News Headline for 2025 Ecumenical Prayer Cycle Reported by Lin Yi-ying from Taipei Requesting to rectify a blatant news headline released by the World Council of Churches (WCC), which listed Taiwan with Hong Kong, Macau under the mainland China via social media Facebook on December 16, and reiterating the PCT’s membership in WCC should not be treated under such an oppressive one-China framework, Rev Fuyan Suda, moderator of the 69th PCT General Assembly, and Rev Chen Hsin-liang, general secretary of the PCT, immediately send an official letter to Rev Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, moderator of WCC, and Rev Jerry Pillay, general secretary of WCC. The PCT officially requested WCC to correct this unfortunate and unnecessary error immediately. 
Rev Fuyan Suda said that when WCC released the controvertible news headline for “Ecumenical Prayer Cycle 2025″, Rev Chiang Chi-gang, secretary the PCT Ecumenical Affairs reported to him and Rev Chen Hsin-liang immediately. Later, Rev Zheng Yang-en, Mrs Nancy Lin, Rev Chiu Shu-pin, and some PCT officials were recruited by the PCT General Assembly to hold an emergent meeting. Ms Carys Humphreys, English secretary of the PCT General Assembly, convened the special task force to contact WCC. She said that Taiwan used to be listed in the “Northeast Asia Region of WCC” with Japan and South Korea for decades, and stressed “the membership of PCT within WCC absolutely does not belong to China.” On December 19, the special task force met and decided to draft an official letter, delivering the PCT’s resolute request to the WCC and asked WCC to correct the bullying news headline right away. Amid the meeting of special task force, Rev Zheng Yang-en, current director of WCC’s Faith and Order Committee, said that this is not the first time such an unbelievable error happened, and similar situations had been occurred between 2017 and 2020. Rev Zheng judged that the incident might not be done intentionally. It is likely that the WCC did not explain to the related church officials during its staff shuttles. “In the past, it was not uncommon that ecumenical institutions often caused a lot of troubles for Taiwan membership due to staff shuttles or personnel replacements,” Rev Zeng said. Therefore, instead of submitting a letter for rectification, Rev Zheng suggested that it is better to take this opportunity to reiterate PCT’s firm stance and explain Taiwan’s difficult yet resilient diplomacy to WCC again. “If WCC can respond to this problem properly, the PCT could offer ecumenical churches and international friends a precious opportunity to understand and support the proper relationship between Taiwan and China, which is built upon mutual equality and respect,” Rev Zeng said. Rev Chiu Shu-pin, a current director of the WCC Central Committee, said “in the past Taiwan, Japan and South Korea were listed together within the Northeast Asia region within WCC.” She also reminded that “when the China Christian Council (CCC) was allowed to join the WCC in 1991, an evident premise required by the WCC is that Taiwan and China should be equal and mutually respectful to each other’s membership.” Now, if WCC erroneously relegated Taiwan as China’s subordinate, she hoped the PCT’s official letter to WCC should stress the historical facts again. Ms Carys Humphreys remarked that it is not the first time that ecumenical institutions had mistakenly subjugated Taiwan into China. “This problem had been happened over and over again in the past,” Ms Humphreys said, “so I am not particularly emotional on WCC’s inclusion of Taiwan as China’s subordinate this time.”But it would absolutely provoke the PCT to ask, ”Why did it happen again?”, she just sighed without words. During the special task force meeting, the participants reported that CCC delegates also actively participated in the Assembly of WCC, and even got two elected members in the Central Committee. In total, with some delegates were elected to join the Executive Committee, nearly ten CCC elected members participated in the Assembly of WCC to expand China’s utmost influence on WCC. Regarding Taiwan’s participation in WCC, there are only three PCT delegates elected. They are Rev Chiu Shu-pin, member of Central Committee, and Rev Zheng Yang-en, member of the Faith and Order Commission, and Prof Lin Yi-ren, member of the Commission of Climate Justice and Sustainable Development (CCJSD). The PCT special task force believed that the very controversy might be caused by the inexperiences of the personnel responsible for the event of Ecumenical Prayer Cycle, and both the moderator and general secretary of the WCC might not even know this irritating news headline. Therefore, seeing the incident as an appropriate opportunity, PCT officially sent a plea of rectification to WCC’s leaders, reiterating PCT’s stance for Taiwan as an independent country and Taiwan’s sovereignty has nothing to do with China. In the official letter of the PCT to the WCC, first of all, PCT expressed its astonishment to learn that the news headline of WCC Ecumenical Prayer Cycle, which listed Taiwan with Hong Kong, Macao under the mainland China, and emphasized the PCT’s sovereign member church in WCC. Secondly, an inferential approval of WCC due to the news headline of Ecumenical Prayer Cycle 2025 is totally unacceptable to the PCT, as it will be very easy to mislead WCC member churches to take Taiwan as a part of China. In the letter to WCC, the PCT called WCC to resume listing Taiwan in the Northeast Asian region. In addition, to avoid similar media mistakes when the related staffs were in transition to handover their jobs, PCT hoped WCC can implement the incontrovertible consensus reached for decades between the member churches and the WCC. In the meantime, PCT hoped WCC can well deal the delicate and complicated geo-political relationships between the member churches with an attentive care and stance compliant to fairness and justice. In response to this WCC media incident, many PCT local church pastors and believers had launched the campaign of “one person, one letter” and left messages under the relevant posts of WCC social media, facebook. By the deadline of this report, there have been more than 200 comments asking rectification. These messages showcased the convictions that “the sovereignty of Taiwan is never a part of China”, “Taiwan is Taiwan, China is China”, and etc. Many people criticized WCC’s breach of the biblical teachings on caring for the oppressed and the vulnerable. It seems the controversy due to WCC media carries on to attract more attentions from the ecumenical communities. “Ecumenical Prayer Cycle 2025 is to consolidate countries or regions geographically close,”WCC apologized in its official reply to PCT on December 20th, 2024, “but it is unfortunate to be understood as a specific WCC policy defining Taiwan’s political status.” WCC expressed its deep regret and reiterated that it will respect the PCT’s statement and stance and promised to make every effort to correct it as soon as possible. However, incorrect media infos still existed on WCC’s official websites. On December 20th, the field of “more on church infos” in the WCC’s EPC headline news, Taiwan still did not show up. In addition, WCC promised to list Taiwan within Northeast Asia Region, but now it is added yet being placed alongside with Hong Kong and China. “Why did it happen again?”, this is a may-day outcry far from Formosa! Translated by Peter Wolfe |