China’s Global Leadership Narrative Claims Vatican Support (Again)

China’s global influence is pushing anti-democratic norms in the UN, medicine, and now the Vatican. The Chinese Communist Party’s Long March through international institutions appears to be proceeding very rapidly indeed.

This week, the Vatican is hosting an international human rights meeting, and Chinese officials are thrilled to be attending. And Chinese state media now have a favorite new phrase as the medical profession in China fights to rehabilitate its pariah status: “papal recognition.”

Just a year ago, leading Chinese transplantation surgeons were overjoyed to be invited to participate in the Vatican’s 2017 Summit on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism.

Human-rights experts at the time questioned the decision to include surgeons known to have participated in extensive human rights abuses and violations of international medical ethics.

And once again this year, their participation is being protested. “The [Pontifical] Academy [of Sciences and Social Sciences] must summon the wisdom and courage to reconsider its collaboration with Chinese officials,” says David Kilgour, former Canadian Secretary of State for the Asia-Pacific.

“China, once an organ transplant pariah, is now accepted as global leader after reform, papal recognition.” – Global Times, Sept. 9, 2017.

The meeting on “Modern Slavery, Human Trafficking, and Access to Justice for the Poor and Vulnerable” opened on Monday at the Pontifical Academies of Sciences and Social Sciences.

The Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and Social Sciences is Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, perhaps most famous for saying in February, “Right now, those who are best implementing the social doctrine of the Church are the Chinese.” One of the world’s most vocal admirers of China’s organ-transplantation reforms, Harvard Medical School professor Francis Delmonico, is one of 70 elite Academicians of the Pontifical Academy.

The invitation to the meeting is important for China for reason of both diplomacy and medical prestige. China’s state-owned Global Times has helpfully explained this two-pronged significance in a March 10 article, “China to attend Vatican meeting against organ trafficking to boost exchange.”

The Global Times headlines the meeting as a step in the controversial diplomatic warming between Beijing and the Vatican. The paper says it will “boost people-to-people exchanges” in the context of Beijing-Vatican relations. It is an advance in “relations between the two peoples” and is “beneficial to people from the two sides.” Never mind that the Vatican is a state without a people. This is standard language out of a foreign-ministry handbook and sends a clear signal that the Chinese side, at least, sees the invitation as a step in warming of state-to-state ties. Because a human-rights meeting with about 50 participants is an unusual vehicle for advancing bilateral relations, the strong flavor of diplomatic rapprochement in state media coverage is all the more striking.

As the Vatican is the only European state maintaining diplomatic ties with Taiwan, Taiwanese legislators have been watching recent developments with alarm. Beijing and the Vatican have signaled unprecedented progress on an agreement on the appointment of bishops in China in recent months. If a deal is reached, the last obstacle in the way of normalized Vatican-Beijing ties is the Vatican’s longstanding recognition of Taiwan, which Beijing has long insisted must be scrapped. The latest Global Times rhetoric offers little comfort.

“China’s reform and progress on organ transplant has increasingly received papal and global recognition.” – Global Times, March 10, 2018.

The official quoted making these diplomatic announcements, however, has no formal government position. Huang Jiefu has a seat on the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an “advisory” body that is the peak organization in the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front architecture. But his more important role is as the architect of China’s multi-billion-dollar transplantation industry, and its international spokesman. He heads the Chinese Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee.

Unfortunately for Dr. Huang’s international status, for decades China used prisoners’ organs (by his own admission) for its soaring numbers of transplantation surgeries. This made it a pariah in international medical circles. In 2007, the Transplantation Society issued a special Policy on Interactions with China to deny membership to surgeons involved in obtaining organs from executed prisoners. It also banned scientific presentations on research involving patient data or samples from recipients of organs from executed prisoners.

Dr. Huang Jiefu, left, Chairman of the Chinese National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee, with Li Ka-shing, who pledged to donate RMB 8 million to the China Organ Transplantation Development Foundation to support China’s organ transplantation reforms. (Photo Li Ka Shing Foundation)

The second point of significance of the meeting is the one closest to Huang’s interests — its signal of approval of China’s organ-procurement system. As the Global Times put it, “China’s reform and progress on organ transplant has increasingly received papal and global recognition.”

What changed between 2007 and 2017?

International pressure and the accompanying blow to Chinese surgeons’ international prestige succeeded, up to a point. The Chinese government suddenly decided to shift its official narrative. The Chinese State Council finally promulgated the first regulation requiring consent for organ donation in 2007. (For comparison, the U.S. National Organ Transplant Act was passed in 1984, establishing a national registry to govern organ allocation under strict ethical guidelines.)

Also in 2007, the Chinese Medical Association acceded to the international ethics standard, codified in 2000 by the World Medical Association, that prisoners’ organs may not be used for transplantations. This practice is per se a human rights violation because donor consent, even if obtained, cannot be considered free of coercion.

Still, it took three more years for the Chinese government to launch a pilot voluntary organ donor registration system in 10 cities, in 2010. Its stated purpose was to end reliance on prisoners’ organs. After another four years, in late 2014, Huang Jiefu, the former vice-minister of health, announced that “starting from Jan. 1, 2015, all the organs needed in transplants will come solely from voluntary donations.” The China Daily headline was: “China to scrap organ harvesting from executed prisoners.” Amazingly, the article contradicted the headline. It quoted Huang saying, “Prisoners are still among the qualified candidates for donations, but their organs will be registered in the computerized system instead of being used for private trades.”

Extensive documentation shows that China’s booming transplantation volumes since 2015 cannot possibly be explained by the miniscule organ donation program (see here and here). And hard as it may be to believe, multiple human-rights reports document a persistent pattern of prisoners of conscience killed for their organs.

Extensive documentation shows that China’s booming transplantation volumes since 2015 cannot possibly be explained by the miniscule organ donation program. And hard as it may be to believe, multiple human-rights reports document a persistent pattern of prisoners of conscience killed for their organs.

Nonetheless, the government’s Swiss-cheese reform narrative was a success. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Transplantation Society welcomed the announced reforms. When China hosted a international conference in Kunming in August 2017, the heads of the WHO, the Transplantation Society, and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences attended. Their approval was heralded in state media headlines like, “Organizations Praise China’s Progress in Organ Donation.”

In an unprecedented move, four top international health organizations expressed their appreciation for China’s efforts in organ donation and transplantation reform, and also their expectations for more engagement from the country to global governance in the sector.

Meanwhile the Pontifical Academy had taken a strong stance on the worldwide scourge of organ-trafficking. Pope Francis joined a 2014 interfaith declaration by world religious leaders declaring that organ trafficking, along with human trafficking, is a form of “modern slavery” and a crime against humanity.

When the Pontifical Academy convened the February 2017 Summit, Huang Jiefu was a participant, presumably on the strength of the announced reforms, as head of the China Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee. As he put it a few months later in an article in an international medical journal, “the world has now recognized the “Chinese Mode” of organ donation. This system is called ‘Chinese Mode’ by WHO.” [sic]

China has demonstrated the eye-catching “Chinese Mode” to the world and it has entered the global arena of organ transplant and participated in codifying the world transplant development summit statement. China will be dedicated to providing a high-quality transplantation service for the people and making a due contribution to the development of world organ transplant as a political power.

Chinese state media were even more exuberant about the shift from international pressure to praise, with headlines like “Experts hail China’s progress on organ donation at Int’l conference” (ChinaPlus.cn) and “China, once an organ transplant pariah, is now accepted as global leader after reform, papal recognition” (Global Times).

Going beyond rhetoric, China is moving to make its global transplantation leadership a reality on the ground. The next stage is a plan to “share its successful experience and cooperate with nations involved with the Belt and Road Initiative, to help them establish organ donation systems.” This too is claimed to be under WHO auspices.

China’s global influence is pushing anti-democratic norms in the UN, medicine, and now the Vatican. The Chinese Communist Party’s Long March through international institutions appears to be proceeding very rapidly indeed.

Top photo: The Pontifical Academy of Sciences (Pontificia Academia Scientiarum), courtesy of christusliberat.org.

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