China's Communist rulers will not go as far as creating a completely separate Church, despite increasingly frosty relations with the Vatican, Chinese archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai told AFP.

"I don't think it is the government's intention for a schismatic church in China," Hon said, adding however that China considers episcopal ordinations without the pope's mandate to be "viable... at least for the moment."

The 60-year-old Chinese prelate is the deputy head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, which is responsible for the church's missionary work.

A spate of unauthorised ordinations and arrests of "clandestine" Catholics since November 2010 has further soured the already volatile relations between Beijing and the Holy See.

Catholics in China -- numbering 5.7 million according to official estimates and 12 million according to independent sources -- are divided between an "official" Catholic church and the "underground" Church, loyal to the pope but under increasing pressure from authorities.

In his informal chat with AFP, the prelate -- who was nominated to his role by Pope Benedict XVI in December -- said he thought China knew it had reached a boundary with the illegitimate ordinations "beyond which they should not go."

In the interview, conducted in English, Hon dismissed the idea that China was aiming for a "totally independent national church".

"If that was the case, then in China there would be another duplicate of the Anglican church. Who would be the head of the China church? The government declares itself atheist, it would be very paradoxical if it ran the church."

"The government knows very well that it is the Pope's prerogative to appoint bishops," he said. "But at times the government plays with the fact that the Vatican is a state."

China's hardening stance is "due to a struggle for power," he said.

Faced with social discontent in China, the Beijing government's line is that it wants "to awaken the importance of the identity of the nation", while there is "another nation called the Vatican which wants to interfere," he said.

A "power struggle at high levels" is pitting those who want "more tolerance for religious freedoms" against those who "believe that if they go a little bit more leftist, it would be safer for them to get the power, more votes" he said.

According to Hon, certain "scholars" in the ruling class are critical of the government's current policy, believing that "the state should remain neutral" and "not take up the management of any religion."

Despite the present troubles, Hon said he was "optimistic" because Chinese Catholics are still "faithful to their beliefs" and China's role on the international stage means it is forced to "face" human rights issues.

But the pope had been particularly "embittered" by the Catholic Patriotic Association's decision to "force eight bishops" recognised by the Vatican to be present at an illegitimate ordination in November in Chengde in northern China.

The Holy See protested against the unjust arrest of Catholic bishops and priests, calling for them to be brought before the courts if they have done wrong, but not be "arrested for unknown reasons" and held in secret.

"The government seems to have gone back to the 1950s," Hon said, by forcing religious people to act "against their will," hoping to "influence the church."

The archbishop said he "would not exclude the possibility" that the government "chooses some young seminarians, wants them to be heads of the church and promotes them because they will be more willing to follow the government's line."

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