Convenor: Michel Chambon - National University of Singapore

Chair: Thomas Tu - National Chengchi University

 

Sovereignty is a question of both international law and the history of ideas. As a core concept in the Westphalian system, it gains its practical and theoretical weight through the historical overlap of European disengagement from the Catholic universal mission and the expansion of the secular European civilising mission. Against this backdrop, can the Catholic experience in East Asia—where the expansion of European ideas, including sovereignty, encountered unique resistance—renew the way we understand the negotiation of borders and its implications for migrants in East Asia?

 

The proposed panel assembles five papers to engage with this question. Dr. Chia-Yu Liang reinterprets the question of sovereignty through the lens of the political theology of world orders. Drawing on Carl Schmitt, Liang reconstructs the history of border-drawing in Taiwan as a series of theopolitical contestations: from the Catholic universal mission to the Chinese Tianxia empire and then the Westphalian system. Dr. Dominic Fan Wai Kit offers a theological reflection on sovereignty vis-à-vis the rise of totalitarianism in East Asia. Drawing on Dietrich von Hildebrand’s vera souveranitas—true sovereignty—Fan examines the experiences of Hong Kong Catholic migrants to Singapore, illuminating their struggle to uphold a Catholic vision of sovereignty amidst colonial rule, mainland control, and economic integration. Dr. Joshua Hong Yi Tan examines the Studium Sociologicum institute in Singapore and shows how Catholic missionaries, exiled from the newly founded People’s Republic of China, were caught in Asian Cold War politics while working to rebuild their mission through education, organisation, and research. Tan fills a gap in scholarship on Catholic history since the “missionary debacle” by shifting attention to these exiled clergymen. Dr. Jieun Han investigates the situation of the Catholic Church in Gando (間島/Jiandao) during the turbulent first half of the 20th century. By identifying the suppression of clergy rights and liberties by Japanese imperialists and Chinese communists, Han contributes to future political and intellectual efforts to restore these rights and recover these memories. Dr. Michel Chambon explores the Asian expansion of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM). Focusing on elite Asian Catholics who joined the SMOM to bolster their socio-political influence, Chambon underscores the significance of a theopolitical and religious lens for re-evaluating the notion of sovereignty in the East Asian context.

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PAPER 1: Bordering on Universal Empires: The Theopolitical Confrontations between the Catholic, Tianxia, and Westphalian Orders underlying the Taiwan Question

by Chia-Yu Liang - National Chengchi University

 

The question of Taiwan’s sovereignty is widely considered to be a potential trigger for the military conflicts between the West and China. The question is framed by China as an issue unresolved by the Chinese Civil War, and by the West as a contestation between democracy and authoritarianism. However, these framings evade the perspective of the island, by accommodating the post-World War II narratives of either the US or China, which then serve as the context for the ideological impasse between the two. The paper therefore shifts the perspective from such framings and sees Taiwan as a geopolitical entity that suffered multiple border-drawings. It asks: What are the ideologies behind these border-drawings over Taiwan? What are the dynamics between them? And finally, what can the potential war over Taiwan be reviewed accordingly? To these questions, the paper argues that (1) the ideologies behind the border-drawings in Taiwan’s history are the universalism of the Catholic, *Tianxia*, and Westphalian orders, (2) the dynamics between them has transformed from mutual exclusion to partial accommodation with the Westphalian system, and (3) the potential conflict over Taiwan is caused by the return of the mutual exclusion between the *Tianxia* and the Westphalian orders. To make these arguments, the paper draws on Carl Schmitt’s *Nomos of the Earth*, and examines the historical border-drawings over Taiwan through the lens of the political theology of global order. The three orders in question can thus be seen as based on three political theologies: the global mission of Catholic Church, the universal hierarchical harmony of imperial China, and the global applicability of state sovereignty since the end of WWII. The current Taiwan crisis represents the conflict between the latter two, facilitated by the return of the *Tianxia* ideal during the rise of China in the 21st century.

 

PAPER 2: Two Totalitarianisms, One Moral Reckoning: Defending Catholic Understanding of Vera Souveranitas in the Shadow of Totalitarianisms in Asia

by Dominic Fan - Catholic Theological Institute of Singapore

 

This paper investigates the socio-philosophical and theological significance of vera souveranitas - true sovereignty rooted in the authority of God (vera auctoritas Dei) - through the lens of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s resistance to totalitarianism. In contrast to the moral defeat of Nazism in the west, the totalitarian regimes in the east have not only endured but grown into powerful ideological and economic forces, sipping into every daily lives, reshaping the conscience and mindsets of modern Asia, redefining the meaning of vera souveranitas in Asian societies. Von Hildebrand, whose writings during World War II prophetically denounced Nazism as a counterfeit sovereignty, insisted on the inviolability of objective moral truth (veritas moralis objectiva) and the primacy of conscience (libertas conscientiae). His theology becomes ever more relevant as Asia confronts a new form of soft totalitarianism that seduces rather than crushes – offering economic material prosperity and social stability in exchange for submission to atheistic materialism and political conformity. Focusing on the lived experience of *Hong Kong Catholic migrants to Singapore*, this study explores how communities suspended between colonial freedom, mainland control, and economic integration struggle to uphold the Catholic vision of sovereignty. Theological insights from Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Hannah Arendt complement von Hildebrand’s call for moral resistance grounded in truth and faith. This paper calls the Church in Asia to reclaim vera souveranitas - not in party allegiance or economic gain, but in Christ the King (Christus Rex). In an age where sovereignty is bartered for comfort and conscience is dulled by compliance, the Church must stand as a prophetic witness, upholding the reign of God whose reign is neither bought nor bargained.

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PAPER 3: Lost in the Cold War? Exiled Catholic missionaries, Chinese students overseas, and the case of Singapore’s Studium Sociologicum (1956-1970)

by Joshua Tan - National University of Singapore

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The mass migration of Christian missionaries out of the People’s Republic of China in the wake of the 1949 communist revolution, was one act within a global reshuffling of borders in the mid-twentieth century. Despite an extensive literature on the “missionary debacle” within histories of the Church in China, relatively little is known about the myriad efforts of exiled clergy to re-constitute their efforts in the Chinese diaspora, and their generative encounters with the politics of Cold War Asia. This paper takes the case of the short-lived Studium Sociologicum (Sociological Institute) in Singapore (1958-1970), as a lens into how Cold War displacements from China produced new institutional presences in Southeast Asia. First proposed by the Franciscan Friar Gabrielle Allegra as a knowledge institution to counter communism in the Chinese diaspora, the Studium Sociologicum soon became mired in multiple missions—from educational work among students in the Chinese diaspora, to resettlement of displaced Catholic clergy, and even publishing and knowledge work. Drawing on published and unpublished memoirs, and archives based in Singapore and the United States, I propose that revisiting the history of Singapore’s Studium Sociologium provides a useful window into how Catholic clergy were drawn into Cold War politics, while struggling to adapt their missions to fast changing realities. Thus, the broader history of Singapore’s Studium Sociologium demonstrates how Cold War-inflected border displacements and boundary crossings were generative in shaping the nature of a global Chinese Catholicism in Southeast Asia.

 

PAPER 4: Lost Memories and Forgotten Sovereignty: The Story of Benedictine Missionary Corbinian of Yŏn’gil (Yangji) in Gando (Jiandao)

by Jieun Han - Sogang University

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For Koreans, Gando (間島/Jiandao), now known as the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province, China, served long as a political refuge and a base for anti-Japanese independence activities. This place located along the border with Korea near the Yalu and Tumen Rivers has become a contentious issue between Korea and China concerning its territorial sovereignty. In 1907, the “Gando Convention” between Qing and Japan resulted in Gando being incorporated into China. However, Shinoda Jisaku (篠田治策, 1867– 1938), a prominent Japanese scholar of international law who directly addressed the issue, stated that “Gando was naturally formed as an uninhabited neutral zone.” Koreans started to move to this uninhabited zone mainly since the early 1900s. The Yŏn’gil (Yanji) Parish was established by Korean believers in 1918 in Gando, administered by the Wŏnsan Apostolic Vicariate in Korea and led by the Benedictine Congregation of Saint Ottilien, which came to Korea in 1909. However, Japanese suppression was intensified since the Manchuria Incident of 1931. After Korea’s liberation in 1945, the Chinese Communist Party took the region and confined missionaries and nuns in a concentration camp in 1946. The Yŏn’gil Apostolic Vicariate was merged with the Fengtian (now Shenyang) Archdiocese in 1946, thus ending its administrative ties to the Korean Catholic Church. In 1950, the missionaries and nuns were all expelled from their mission field. Based on the testimonies of a German Benedictine missionary Corbinian, known in Korean name as Chu Sŏngdo, this paper examines how missionaries and nuns spent in a concentration camp and how their rights to evangelize was suppressed first by the Japanese imperialists and later by the Chinese Communists. It also explores the political implications of their lost sovereignty and asks whether it is possible to reclaim these forgotten rights and memories in the present.

 

PAPER 5: The Asian Expansion of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (1990s-2025)

by Michel Chambon - National University of Singapore

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This paper examines the Asian expansion of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) and explores its theoretical implications for understanding sovereignty in contemporary Asia. SMOM—formally known as the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta—is a sovereign entity with formal diplomatic relations with 113 states, including Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Timor-Leste. Holding observer status at the United Nations, this religious order and international humanitarian organization is dedicated to defending the Catholic faith and serving the poor. Founded in 1099, SMOM is currently expanding its presence in Asia, attracting new members and volunteers from the region. This paper analyzes how upper-class Asian Catholics are joining SMOM to deepen their commitment to Catholicism and to renew their socio-political influence. In doing so, it sheds light on how such engagements reshape notions and practices of national sovereignty.