The Vatican and its political influence on the world

According to http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_christian.html, the following are top 10 Largest National Christian Populations: USA-224,457,000; Brazil, 139,000,000; Mexico, 86,120,000; Russia, 80,000,000; China, 70,000,000; Germany, 67,000,000; Philippines, 63,470,000; UK, 51,060,000; Italy, 47,690,000; France, 44,150,000 and Nigeria, 38,180,000. Those 70,000,000 Christians in China represent only 5.7% of their population, in comparison to 67,000,000 of Germans which is 60% of their population. The list of dignitaries who attended the funeral is very long http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/04/08/pope.dignitaries.list.ap/index.html. The most populated country in the world - China - has decided to boycott the Pope’s funeral ceremony http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1686448,00.html, because of the Vatican’s diplomatic relations with rival Taiwan. What is more amazing; Vatican is the only European government that has official relations with Taiwan instead of Beijing. To conclude, China is kind of ‘upset’ with the Vatican because it is openly supporting Taiwan’s fight for independence, but at the same time, statistics show that the number of 70,000,000 Christians living in China is representing only 5.7% of the population-which is not enough to influence main political office in Beijing.