美国对菲律宾的初期殖民政策:修士问题与“塔夫脱使团”

American Early Colonial Policy towards the Philippines: The Friars Issue and the Taft Mission to the Vatican

美国占领菲律宾后,力图实现菲律宾政治的美国化,希望在政教分离的基础上构建其政治体制。然而,在原西班牙治下的菲律宾存在政教合一及修士占有大量土地的问题。为保证对菲律宾政策的顺利实施,1902年夏天,美国派遣“塔夫脱使团”出访梵蒂冈,与其协商购买修士土地及召回修士等问题。为避免成为正式出访,塔夫脱仅在返回马尼拉的途中,带领使团成员在罗马进行短暂停留。经过几次谈判,美国和梵蒂冈就解决修士土地问题达成基本共识,但谈判因双方在召回修士问题上的分歧而中断。然而,“塔夫脱使团”的积极成果并未受到谈判中断的影响。总的来说,这次出访不仅推动了美国对菲律宾殖民政策的顺利实施,促成菲律宾政教关系的实质性转变,也从客观上促进了美梵关系的发展。

After occupying the Philippines,the United States tried to Americanize Philippines politics and wanted its political system to be built based on the separation of politics and religion. But under the rule of Spain,the Philippines once was a theocracy and friars possessed lots of agricultural lands. To implement the Philippine policy smoothly,in the summer of 1902,the United States sent the "Taft Mission"to the Vatican,to purchase friars’ land and ask the Vatican to recall the friars. To avoid becoming an official visit,members of the "Taft Mission"only had a short stay in Rome when Taft was on the way back to Manila. After several rounds of negotiations,the United States and the Vatican reached a basic consensus on purchasing friars’ land,but the negotiations were interrupted by their different opinions on recalling the friars. However,the positive results of the "Taft Mission"hadn’t been affected by the broken negotiations.All in all,not only did the "Taft Mission"promote the smooth implementation of the American colonial policy towards the Philippines,but also contributed to the substantial transformation of the relationship between the church and state of Philippine,and also objectively brought about the development of the relationship between the United States and the Vatican.