Dear Holy Father,

In March a top Vatican official said the Holy See, the Vatican, would reconsider its ties with Taiwan in order to secure better relations with China. Negotiations between the Holy See and China have been intensified since then. Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs this week offered assurances that the Holy See would not switch official ties. Such assurances from the ministry are usually an indicator that a diplomatic switch is immanent.

We would respectfully urge the Holy See to not shift its diplomatic recognition to China. We would urge the Vatican negotiators to remember the tale of Faust.

To return to the world of realpolitik, we respectfully remind the Holy See that the PRC has an extremely poor record of honoring its human rights commitments or its commitments in general. It is important to look at what the PRC does, not what it says. What the PRC has done, in the name of Marxism, is brutally suppress all forms of religion, including Roman Catholicism. The authorized Catholic Church has for years been driven underground. A puppet church that operates under the direct control of the Chinese Communist Party has replaced it. Catholic missionaries, priest and followers are routinely arrested, tortured and killed if they dare to practice their faith. The PRC insists on its right to appoint bishops and other Catholic Church officials.

Contrast this with Taiwan's treatment of the Holy See and Catholic believes. Here, from the founding of the ROC, Roman Catholic missionaries have enjoyed full freedom to spread their faith. Catholic believers have enjoyed full freedom to practice their faith, take the sacraments and attend Mass. Catholic education has prospered with many schools as well as the prestigious Fu-jen University. The Taiwan government has never interfered with the appointment of bishops or other Catholic Church officials. These facts reflect the true and deep commitment that the Taiwan government has to freedom of religion.

We realize that the Holy See has a duty and responsibility to the many Catholics in China. We would, however, urge the Holy See to be extremely cautious in accepting assurances from the Chinese government and it is our hope and recommendation that the Holy See retain its diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

Chinese police stepped up patrols and surveillance of Tiananmen Square yesterday, trying to put an end to three days of low-key protests by members of the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong.

Group members staged no overt demonstration and were not easily distinguished from the tourists normally wandering the square.

But their appearance in Tiananmen, China's symbolic political heart, in defiance of a three-month crackdown against Falun Gong assured their arrest.

Police in uniforms and street clothes questioned people and quietly put those they suspected of being Falun Gong practitioners into vans. Falun Gon was made up largely of middle-aged and older men and women.

At least a dozen people, mostly middle-aged and younger men and women, were ordered into the blue-and white vans and driven off.

Plainclothes officers pushed foreign reporters trying to cover the arrests and told them to leave the square.

Falun Gong's Chines-language website based in the United States has reported that some detained members suffered beatings in custody.

On report yesterday, which could not be confirmed, said a member went to Beijing from his home in Jilin province to appeal to the government and was arrested. The report said police beat him, stripped him and threw cold water on him, and that Wang fell from an eighth floor window on October 17 and died.

In our views, acts that are contrary to our code of human rights.

"The crack down going on in Beijing on the Falun Gong sect while, President Jiang was in the west just showed how little they care about international opinion on rights," said the European diplomat.

Indeed, at the final banquet in Paris, Chirac had a last try when he said to Jiang that human rights were "a universal principle that had a vocation to be applied everywhere." Jiang only replied with a call for "non-interference in the internal affairs" of other countries. But the mainland Chinese supreme leaders still smiled as he went on to raise his glass to wish "good health to President Chirac and his wife."

We want to share the peace with communist China. But, on the other hand, it is not the just time for dancing with Beijing.

Holy Father we love you.