Veto (pronounced vee-toh)
(1) In constitutional law, the power or
right vested in one branch of a government to cancel or postpone the decisions,
enactments etc of another branch, especially the right of a president,
governor, or other chief executive to reject bills passed by a legislature.
(2) The exercise of this right.
(3) In the UN Security Council, a
non-concurring vote by which one of the five permanent members (China, France, Russia,
UK & US) can overrule the actions or decisions of the meeting on most substantive matters. By practice and convention, in the context of geopolitics, this is "the veto power".
(4) Emphatically to prohibit something.
1620–1630: From the Latin vetō (I forbid), the first person
singular present indicative of vetāre
(forbid, prohibit, oppose, hinder (perfect active vetuī, supine vetitum))
from the earlier votō & votāre, from the Proto-Italic wetā(je)-,
from the primitive Indo-European weth-
(to say). In ancient Rome, the vetō was the technical term for a
protest interposed by a tribune of the people against any measure of the Senate
or of the magistrates. As a verb, use
dates from 1706. Veto is a noun, verb
and adjective; vetoer is a noun and in the language of the diplomatic toolbox
are the (rare) related forms preveto, reveto, unveto, nonveto & vetoless.
The best known power of veto is probably that
exercised by the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council
(UNSC). The UNSC is an organ of the UN
which uniquely possesses the authority to issue resolutions binding upon member
states and its powers include creating peacekeeping missions, imposing
international sanctions and authorizing military action. The UNSC has a standing membership of
fifteen, five of which (China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA) hold
permanent seats, the remaining ten elected by the general assembly on a regional
basis for two year terms. The permanent
five can veto any substantive resolution including the admission of new UN
member states or nominations for UN Secretary-General (the UN’s CEO).
The term “united nations” was used as early
as 1943, essentially as a synonym for the anti-Axis allies and was later
adopted as the name for the international organization which replaced the
League of Nations which had in the 1930s proved ineffectual in its attempts to
maintain peace. When the UN was created,
its structural arrangements were designed to try to avoid the problems which
beset the League of Nations which, under its covenant, could reach decisions
only by unanimous vote and this rule applied both to the League's council
(which the specific responsibility of maintaining peace) and to the all-member
assembly. In effect, each member state
of the League had the power of the veto, and, except for procedural matters and
a few specified topics, a single "nay" killed any resolution. Learning from this mistake, the founders of
the UN decided all its organs and subsidiary bodies should make decisions by
some type of majority vote (although when dealing with particularly contentious
matters things have sometimes awaited a resolution until a consensus emerges).
The creators of the United Nations Charter
always conceived that three victorious “great powers” of the Second World War
((1) the UK, (2) US & (3) USSR), because of their roles in the
establishment of the UN, would continue to play important roles in the maintenance
of international peace and security and thus would have permanent seats on the
Security Council with the power to veto resolutions. To this arrangement was added (4) France (at
the insistence of Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime minister 1940-1945
& 1951-1955) who wished to re-build the power of France as a counterweight
to Germany and (5) China, included because Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1940 US
president 1933-1945) was perceptive in predicting the country’s importance in
the years to come.
This veto is a power however only in the
negative. Not one of the permanent
members nor even all five voting in (an admittedly improbable) block can impose
their will in the absence of an overall majority vote of the Security
Council. Nor is an affirmative vote from
one or all of the permanent five necessary: If a permanent member does not
agree with a resolution but does not wish to cast a veto, it may choose to
abstain, thus allowing the resolution to be adopted if it obtains the required majority
among the fifteen.
The Vatican, the CCP and the bishops
A well-known and economically significant
niche in modern Chinese manufacturing is fakes.
Most obvious are fake Rolexes, fake Range Rovers et al but Peking for
decades produced fake bishops. After the
Holy See and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sundered diplomatic relations in
1951, papal appointments to Chinese bishoprics were not recognized by Peking
which appointed their own. In
retaliation, popes excommunicated the fakes who in turn ignored him, the
amusing clerical stand-off lasting until January 2018 when negotiations appeared
to produce a face-saving (sort-of) concordat.
As a prelude, Rome retired or re-deployed a number of their bishops in
order to make way for new (once-fake) bishops, nominated by the CCP and, in a
telling gesture, Pope Francis (b 1936; pope since 2013) re-admitted to
"full ecclesial communion" seven living Chinese bishops who were
ordained before the deal without Vatican approval, and had thus incurred latae sententiae (the act of automatic
excommunication).
On 22 September 2018, a provisional
agreement was signed. It (1) cleared the
Chinese decks of any bishops (fake or real) not acceptable to either side, (2)
granted the CCP the right to nominate bishops (the list created with the help
of a CCP-run group called the "Patriotic Catholic Association”) and (3)
granted the pope a right of veto.
Although not mentioned by either side, the most important understanding
between the parties seemed to be the hints the CCP sent through diplomatic
channels that the pope would find their lists of nominees “helpful”. If so, it deserved to be a secret protocol to
the pact but however the sausages were made, it was a diplomatic triumph for
Beijing. Although Rome at the time noted
it was a “provisional agreement”, many observed that unless things proved most
unsatisfactory, it was doubtful the Holy See would be anxious again to draw
attention to the matter; whatever the political or theological implications, to
acquiesce to the pope as cipher would diminish the church’s mystique.
Things may be worse even than the cynics
had predicted. In late 2020 the two-year
deal handling the appointment of Chinese bishops was extended after an exchange
of notes verbales (in diplomatic language, something more formal than an
aide-mémoire and less formal than a note, drafted in the third person and never
signed), both sides apparently wishing to continue the pact, albeit still
(technically) on a temporary basis. The
uneasy entente seems however not to have lasted, Beijing in 2021, through
bureaucratic process, acting as if it had never existed by issuing Order No. 15
(new administrative rules for religious affairs) which included an article on
establishing a process for the selection of Catholic bishops in China after 1
May 2021. The new edict makes no mention
of any papal role in the process and certainly not a right to approve or veto
episcopal appointments in China, the very thing which was celebrated in Rome as
the substantive concession gained from the CCP.
Still, Beijing’s new rules have the benefit
of clarity and if Pope Francis was under any illusions about the nature or the
CCP, he can now enjoy certainty for the remainder of his pontificate. Order No. 15 requires clergy of the so-called
Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church (CPCC) to “adhere to the principle of independent and self-administered religion
in China” and actively support “the leadership of the Chinese Communist
Party” and “the socialist system,” as
well as to “practice the core values of socialism.” They must also promote “social harmony” which is usually interpreted as
conformity of thought with those of the CCP (although in recent years that has
come increasingly to be identified with the thoughts of Xi Jinping (b 1953;
paramount leader of China since 2012) which is historically interesting). Essentially, the CPCC is to be an arm of the
authoritarian CCP regime and formalizing this is the requirement for bishops
and priests to be licensed for ministry, much the same process as being allowed
to practice as a driving instructor or electrician.
All this is presumably a disappointment to
the pope though it’s unlikely to be a surprise to his critics, some of whom,
when the agreement was announced in 2018 and upon renewal in 2020, predicted it
would be honored by Beijing only while it proved useful for them to weaken the
“underground” church and allow the CCP to assert institutional control over the
CPCC. At the time of the renewal, the
Vatican issued a statement saying the agreement was “essential to guarantee the ordinary life of the Church in China.” The CCP doubtlessly agreed with that which is
why they have broken the agreement, and, if asked, they would presumably point
out that, legally, it really didn’t exist.
Beware of imitations. Joseph Guo Jincai (b 1968) was in 2010
ordained Bishop of Chengde (Hebei) today without the approval of the pope. He is a member of the China Committee on
Religion and Peace and was appointed a deputy to the thirteenth National
People's Congress. Because of the
circumstances of his ordination as a bishop, he was excommunicated latae
sententiae but later had the consolation of being elected vice-president of
Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.
In September 2018, Pope Francis lifted the excommunication of Joseph Guo
Jincai and other six bishops previously appointed by the Chinese government
without pontifical mandate.
Politically, one has to admire the CCP’s
tactics. The CCP pursued the 2018 deal
only to exterminate the underground Catholic Church which, although for decades
doughty in their resistance to persecution by the CCP (including pogroms during
the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)), were compelled to transfer their
allegiance to the CPCC once it received the pope’s imprimatur. After the agreement, Chinese authorities
rounded up underground Catholic clergy, warning that they would defy the pope
if they continued baptizing, ordaining new clergy and praying in unregistered
churches; most of those persuaded became part of the CPCC and those unconvinced
resigned their ministries and returned to private life. According to insiders, a rump underground
movement still exists but it seems the CCP now regard the remnant as a
terrorist organization and are pursuing them accordingly.